Steven Frank of Panic on “Collections” with a capital C:
A reasonable goal, it seemed to me, would be to stick to systems and consoles that have deep personal meaning to me; the ones that claimed years of my life: The Atari 2600, the Apple ][ series, and the Amiga. And for spice maybe I’d add a few things that, although I never owned them in their day, were particularly unique or iconic, like the Vectrex.
…I wanted something that I could plug in, tinker with, repair, and show to anyone who wanted to see. A living museum, not a stuffy tomb of priceless artifacts. Real live working interactive history, not skeletons under glass.
The whole piece is great, but it’s this idea, that if you’re a collector, you should actually use the things you’re collecting, that stuck out for me.
I’ve thought about my own collection over the past few months. Newton Poetry hasn’t been the booming place it once was because I either don’t have the time to play with my old Macs like I use to, or I don’t have the inclination. A lot of the old hardware I have sits unused, and that makes me feel guilty.
There are a few exceptions. I still turn on my iMac G3 for my budgeting needs (with Quicken 2000) and to play WarCraft II. Lately the Mac SE has become a little journaling/writing station. It’s great to just flip it on, fire up MacWrite, and type away on the ol’ Extended II keyboard. But the PowerMac G4? The LC 520? The iBook G3 clamshell? I haven’t turned them on in months, and so I wonder what the heck they’re good for.
Sometimes I can’t wait to update my VHS collection to DVDs or downloads. Or to buy all my Super Nintendo games on the Wii and never have to worry about cartridges again. But then I think, “When does it all end? When will I never have to upgrade?”
We all face this at a certain point. If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt a collector of something – probably MessagePads or Macs. Maybe upgrading isn’t so much an issue as time and attention and space to dedicate to whatever it is you collect. We have limited amounts of each.
So I’ll keep thinking about it, and maybe reserve my time and space for the Macs and hardware I actually use. I like having a PowerMac G4; they’re neat machines. But maybe it doesn’t have a place in what Steven Frank calls my “living museum.”