The Most Collectible PCs of All Time
Is that computer in your attic a treasure...or trash? Here's the scoop on 19 historic digital antiques, worth from $10 to $10,000 and beyond.
Harry McCracken
PDP-8 (Digital Equipment Corporation, 1965). Estimated units sold: 50,000; original price: $18,500; current market value: $1500 to $20,000
Was DEC's workhorse PDP-8 minicomputer a personal computer? Yes, compared to the mainframes that dominated the industry in the 1960s. A best-selling bargain in an era when most computers sold for $25,000 and up, the machine was the size of a small refrigerator--which, in those days, meant it was surprisingly trim. The arrival of microcomputers eventually killed the market for minicomputers, but various models in the PDP-8 family persisted on the market until 1990, giving the line one of the longest runs in computer history. Some computer collectors specialize in collecting examples of the PDP-8--they must have lots of storage space--and this tribute site even lets you remote-control a PDP-8 across the Internet via a Java applet. (Photo of the Smithsonian's PDP-8 from Wikipedia.)
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