Austin, Texas Computerworks Goodwill

[Jeff Walther]

>Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:57:40 -0500
>From: Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net>


>I've had it with the Computerworks in Austin.  Please let me rant;
>nobody else will appreciate it.
> 
>	http://www.austingoodwill.org/crs/store%20locater%20pages/ComputerWorks.html
>
>When I moved to Austin a couple years ago, I had high hopes.
>  In
>Austin (and San Antonio, and probably some other cities) Goodwill sends
>all of their computer donations to a specialized goodwill, marketed as
>"ComputerWorks"; the theory is that most goodwill's don't have skilled
>employees to know what is interesting or not and how to price it; I
>agree that is the case.
>
>The Austin Computerworks even has a vintage computer museum, so that led
>me to believe the appreciated vintage computers.

>Bzzt.  Not so.

>What makes this even more insidious is that when I go to the local run
>of the mill goodwills and inquire about what they do with old computer
>donations, they say they ship them to computer works to deal with them.
>
>So essentially it is a vintage computer magnet attached to a wood chipper.

My main interest is in old Macintosh and clone machines.  I mostly 
lost interest in the Computer Works store when it became obvious that 
they would no longer put anything older than a Beige G3 on the 
shelves.

But just to rub it in, they keep a Macintosh 128K up on a top shelf 
in the sales area which is not for sale.  Why display such a 
collectable, when they will never offer anything remotely similar for 
sale ever again?

Before they changed locations they had a nice little collection of 
SE/30s on one of the top shelves.

Before they changed policies, I picked up a PM9150, a bunch of old 
unobtainium NuBus cards, and similar bits and pieces.   Now, phsssst. 
I flap my tongue and direct spittle in their general direction.

Jeff Walther