Colin, I think its great that you are offering such a neat collection of stuff. If it weren't for the fact that I am in a similar situation (no basement, already have a tonne of books and not enough shelf space) and that you are in Australia (meaning the cost to send all the way to Florida, USA would be too high and my girlfriend would probably kill me for buying them anyways) I would gladly have taken them off your hands. Because I have grown up way beyond the beginnings of the personal computer industry, I feel (often) that I have lost a lot of what programming in these old systems was like. I have often looked back at old stuff because the concepts in the old stuff are still relevant today (for instance, OO can be traced back to the sixties if memory serves). I have been known to look at the old UNIX source code for fun :) I think its a superb thing you are doing and encourage you to continue (though I am sure you do not need my encouragement). You are going out of your way and doing something nice for someone else (you are, for instance, not making the prospective recipient from what I can tell to pay handling -- that is what it would cost for your time to pack the items and send them- I don't know about anyone else but there is some amount of annoyance in having to go to the post to send something to a complete stranger gratis). These books are indeed collectible as many of these things have been thrown out. We loose a vital part of computing history when we just dump these kinds of things in the rubbish. Although I am sure the following is already known, you could try selling them on eBay. I once had requirement for a J++ compiler (way out of date when I bought it) and was able to buy it cheaply on eBay. I cannot tell you how happy I was for it. There are lots of old books and old programs being sold on eBay. You might be surprised in how much these books might actually fetch. Otherwise, I know that some libraries will take donations of books and sell them to buy new books for the library. These would be prime for that. OKay, so it was a long winded response. I think that as a community when we give away our old stuff it is really good and productive, even when the stuff is a little dated. Remember that there are still people running Windows 95 and Windows 3.11 and that there are lots of enthusiasts that still program in these systems To those who are making comments against Colin, I am not sure what your point is. Colin isn't forcing anyone to give him money for his books. Colin isn't even selling them. For those who want an indicator on the true value of old stuff, I encourage you to look at LEM Swap (Low End Mac swap) and look at the stuff people are selling. Books for the Apple systems of this era that Colin is giving away would easily fetch 25 bucks. The Windows books from same era are no less important or valuable. Colin, I hope that their comments do not discourage you from doing this in the future. It would be a terrible thing if this gave you a sour taste in your mouth to try and save some of your old stuff in the future. In any event, peace, love and programming from Florida, Aleksei 2009/3/2 Olin Lathrop > solarwind wrote: > > Colin, I admire your charitably/philanthropic attitude. However, the > > fact that you have taken my post seriously enough as to write a > > lengthy response shows that you are indeed insecure about your > > intentions. > > I read it that he had to reply because you tried to make him look stupid. > He came up with some good reasons. Now you're just being a jerk to deflect > looking a little silly. > > > ******************************************************************** > Embed Inc, Littleton Massachusetts, http://www.embedinc.com/products > (978) 742-9014. Gold level PIC consultants since 2000. > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist