Subject: Apple IIe for $700

From: "Keys" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Apr 12 09:52:01 2003

Another crazy price for an Apple IIe???
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2168296821

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From: "Gary Dean Hildebrand" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Apr 12 11:42:01 2003

> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2168296821

I think the $700 was for the Woz signature, and it so happened to be on a 
IIe.  Maybe I could copy that sig and put it on my IIe Platinum and increase 
the value twohundredfold. 

the winning bidder probably has several Corvettes too -- and all they are is 
a plastic Chevy. 

Gary Hildebrand
St. Joseph, MO

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From: "Erik S. Klein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Apr 12 18:56:01 2003

Gary Dean Hildebrand writes: 

> the winning bidder probably has several Corvettes too -- and all they
are > is a plastic Chevy.

Bite your tongue, heathen! :)

   Erik

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From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Apr 12 19:01:00 2003

I happen to own a very nice 1981 corvette, whats that have to do with
overpaying for a Apple IIe?

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From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Apr 12 19:50:01 2003

> Bite your tongue, heathen! :)

Hey, isn't a Corvette a Chevy that isn't strong enough to move around
with a steel body?  I heard they had to use fiberglass to make it
capable of reasonable performance for a Chevy.  Aye, P.T. Barnum would
have loved the concept... pay a lot of money and don't get a real
automobile (although, as we all know, real automobiles are no longer
manufactured, but plenty of suckers still pay a fortune to buy the
modern pseudo-automotive rubbish).  I realize the superiority of Fords
to Chevy's, so, go ahead, call me a Heathen as well... and I'll accept
it as a fine compliment. :-)

-- 
Copyright (C) 2002 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & 
[email-masked]  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

---

From: "Erik S. Klein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Apr 12 20:41:00 2003

Actually, the fiberglass body of the older Vettes is probably as heavy
or heavier then a comparable steel body.  Fiberglass was chosen for its
ability to be formed into more attractive shapes.  A concept Ford has
had a hard time grasping.

Meanwhile I'll pit my Chevy against your Fraud (probably a Rustang,
right?) any day of the week and twice on Sundays! :)

  Erik

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of R. D. Davis
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2003 6:17 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: OT: Toy Chevy's (was: Apple IIe for $700)

Quothe Erik S. Klein, from writings of Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 04:54:17PM

-- 
Copyright (C) 2002 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other
animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above
Nature & 
[email-masked]  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to
justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human
cruelty.

---

From: "Gary Dean Hildebrand" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 13 02:55:01 2003

Erik S. Klein writes: 

>> > the winning bidder probably has several Corvettes too -- and all they are is a plastic Chevy. 
>> 

Well as a matter of fact here . . . I drive a 91 Escort -- does me very well 
at 37 to 40 mpg or better if I drive it gingerly (less than 55 mph).  For 
performance I'm a 60's Mopar man at heart. 

Last comment on this thread, we'll get back to vintage DECS rather than 
rustbuckets. 

Gary Hildebrand
St. Joseph, MO

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From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 13 11:56:00 2003

> Last comment on this thread, we'll get back to vintage DECS rather than 

My 11/34A is both a rustbucket and vintage DEC equipment.  The BA(?)
chasis was rusting and filled with spiders when I got it several years
ago, and it hasn't improved much since them... of course, I did remove
the boards and front panel, and did disassemble the PSU, but never got
around to completely restoring the chasis and reassembling everything.
At this point, this should probably just be considered a pile of spare
parts that I might be willing to trade for whatever I need to get my
11/44 operational.  :-(

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From: "James E. LaBarre" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 14 09:58:00 2003

R. D. Davis wrote:
> capable of reasonable performance for a Chevy.

The explanation I've heard was that the production numbers on the 
Corvette were too small to make stamped body panels cost effective. 
Apparently for smaller runs, fiberglass molding is cheaper.  Wouldn't 
know what production numbers are now, and if the cost factors are the 
same, but I'm sure that there'd be a big outcry from purists if GM tried 
to go to metal bodies.

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From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 14 10:37:00 2003

At least the fiberglass keeps them from rusting, saving quite a few of the
cars from the rust heap unlike other cars of their era.

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From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 14 13:09:01 2003

> cars from the rust heap unlike other cars of their era.

The Corvette frames can still rust, can't they?  The lack of body rust
is nice, but fiberglass shatters easily.  Also, surely there are still
many metal bits that do rust away on those cars as well.  Wouldn't it
make much more sense if new car models only came out once a decade or
so, and new body panels, etc. were available for decades?  After 25
years, I'm still driving the same cars that I've always driven, and I
don't understand why people feel a need to purchase new cars.  With
the computerization of manufacturing that's available, it makes no
sense to me why auto manufacturers can't stamp out any body part, for
any car, from any year, on demand.  Of course, I guess the reason they
don't do this is called "planned obsolesence."

-- 
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & 
[email-masked]  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

---

From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 14 14:27:00 2003

Yes, frames can rust out if noit taken care of. I dont know too many people
who drive older corvettes in the winter snow (for good reason).

The reason new car models come out every few years, and each model has small
changes every year is to get people to trade in and keep buying new cars.
Some people like to buy a new car every few years or major model changes for
a few reasons.

New styles always look better then the old ones.
Got rid of the sports car and now want an SUV or whatever else is trendy at
the moment.
Get rid of the current car before it starts needing major repairs.
Car was a lemon to begin with.
Didnt really like the color.
Etc.

I drive my cars untill they die.
My current 1989 Cougar has 180,000+ miles on it and is starting to look a
little ratty, transmition could be better. I had this car since the early
90's with barely 30,000 miles on it. If it was in mint condition I would not
even think of getting rid of it. As it is now I will drive it till it dies,
and get another used car.
I alsways wanted a corvette (for the looks mostly) and got one 5 years ago
as a weekend summer toy (70,000 ,miles pretty mint inside and out).
If you dont hit anything solid with the car the fiberglass wont break (its
harder to dammage then you think) and can be patched up if needed (havnt had
to do it). New cars are VERY easy to dent, and expensive to repair
professionally. Unlike the 20+ year old cars you drive with a full frame,
newer cars are built to crumple on impact and cost alot to fix. The old cars
would bounce of each other with a slightly bent fender and a very rattled
driver. I had a 86 thunderbird that got rearended at a light waiting to turn
by an old lincoln town car (metal bumpers). My car was turned into a sub
compact (complete writeoff) but I wasnt hurt at all.

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From: William Donzelli <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 14 14:29:00 2003

> With

You may want to ask someone in the industry why they can not do this, 
even with the computization of manufacturing. You will be horrified.

The auto plants themselves are extremely finely tuned machines - straying 
from the optimal cost the manufacturers an extreme amount of money. Back 
in my USR days, I worked with a guy that mas a manufacturing engineer for 
GM. Whenever something went wrong and the assembly line stopped (it was a 
final line), it would cost GM around $30,000 per minute. That's 1.8 
million dollars an hour. Pretty serious. Even at USR, when our lines 
stopped, the cost was something around $150 per minute.

Having a line that stamps out older body parts on demand just would not 
make sense. Even if all of the tooling was still available (it is not, 
and you *really* don't want to know how much new tooling would cost), the 
manufacturing engineers could not make a line that even comes close to 
making money. 

They also can not stamp hundreds of panels at a time and store them - 
warehousing is extremely expensive, and body panels are about the most 
innefficient things ever made to store (next time or two you see a 
freight train, look for those monster sized boxcars. They are shipping 
body panels. They have to be huge, as they are moving a bunch of air, 
with some metal scattered in between.). 

William Donzelli
[email-masked]

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From: Chad Fernandez <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 14 23:58:01 2003

R. D. Davis wrote:
> The Corvette frames can still rust, can't they?

Old ones, yes.  Newer ones are mainly aluminum, I believe.  Also GM has 
come pretty far with rust prevention in vehicles.... dipping whole 
frames in wax, galvanized parts, stainless exhausts, and so on.

Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA

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From: "Hans Franke" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue Apr 22 11:11:00 2003

> the winning bidder probably has several Corvettes too -- and all they are is 

Jup, heaving an A2 with a Woz signature, and the shows video
would make a nice setup ... well, I gues even I would have
payed more than 50 Bucks - unlike for a pastic Corvette (*1)

Gruss
H.

(*1)
Over here (Germany) the Corvett still has an image of a low
level pimp car. During the late 70s, early 80s, when the
Dollar started to decline quite fast, Chevrolet forgot to
raise the price in Marks (to earn more), which led to a
dramatic price drop. At some point, a VW Beetle convertible
did cost substantial more than Corvette.

While the average buyer still wasn't so much jumping on, a
whole generation of low level wanabes (I just keep the more
apropriate names for myself) bought them. Since the sale of
US GM cars wasn't part of the main Opel business, nobody over
here realy cared - and the Detroit was extremly happy with
soaring sales numbers ... just no real profit, since they had
a lot of blonn engines etc. It was also the time when American
car engeneering was not at it's best, so it gave US cars a bad
name in technology the very same time.

It's a blow US carmakers still feel. And when their European
companies tried to build the new models based on US designed
platforms (and designs) 2-3 years ago, their market share
droped also.

--
VCF Europa 4.0 am 03./04. Mai 2003 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/