Computer Collectables

Computer Collectables

As a Computer Collector and a dedicated lurker and occasional OT(off topic) Supporter of the Classic Computing Mailing List, there has been a lot of chatter about the future of Classic Computers and both the recent and impending loss of collections and archives thought by some to be important to the hobby and history. IBM-Collectables.com Gallery was an attempt to build such a site was based on based on Gallery 1.x. The nice thing about the subject of Collectables is that the material never ages, while it may not always be fresh and new, what has been saved will always be current no matter the age until updated much like a Wiki.

I have moved my discussion of this subject here to Blogger.com for two primary reasons, one to help Jay get the cctalk mailing list back under control and on topic, while at the same time continuing my personal experimentation with public Blogs and their ease of use for something more than a bedpan in a mental hygiene ward. Thats not to say this one is or will be any different, only time will tell for sure.

For those readers not technically minded feel free to skip ahead, I get technical and use a lot of computer jargon in this Muttering, without shame. So where to start ....

A response to Mike Steins last OT: question/comment to me on the list:
>Any thoughts yet about how to organize it?
>
>mike

As a matter of fact yes, I have thought a lot about it lately. I think it will be "Lead, Follow, Or Get Out Of My Way" for quite a while until there there is a workable model or a budget established. I have a vision of a system where each contributer or collector will build and maintain their gallery if items. These items can take many forms both physical and as virtual images of all sorts. One thing they have in common is they primary consist of a picture or image along with a descriptive text associated with each item. When a physical object is pictured, its primary location, status, and availability, will be associated with the item. Each item can be associated with one or more Blog entries.

From a development point of view, what is easy to implement will be most likely be hard to maintain while an approach that might be hard to implement should be easily maintained.

I have a good idea of what I want to see and how I want it to work, the question is can I afford to take the time it requires to build my vision, or wait for others to get closer with their attempts at their visions and see if I can live with them.

The current and most likely to succeeds plan is based on my hacking and merging several open source tools/projects. Most of the grander designs require a business plans, tax exempt status, or at the least a budget with a paycheck to work with, would be nice.

How to build it to be scalable, mirrorable, and distributed in nature with the limited resources at hand is the current question.

I am currently working on the underlying Data Base and portability concerns.

My current DB short list include Mysql, IBM DB2 (on an AS400), or Codebase a classic DB3/Clipper/Foxpro compliant library. MySql is free, The AS400 approach requires a donation and a lot of outside help, and I already own a developers copy of Codebase.

If I use PHP and Mysql, I expect to find a lot of qualified help in setting it up and hacking it into shape.

If I use LISP and Codebase then the chances of codeing help is greatly reduced. This project would become become my pet application for years to come. I would take a lot more eBay clicks throughs to support a NEP (never ending project) with out a client or paycheck. Not to say I am not considering it.

I am currently building mostly in my head this week a Wiki that incorporates much of the Gallery project's Gallery/Album editing structure along with an yet to be chosen Blog interface. I can do this cutting and pasting a lot of open source stuff into a MySQL heap but mirroring and distributed processing might be a real chore to make work.

Where if I take the "BDUM" (Brain Dead User Mode) approach and use near flat files with indexes in DB3 style, it is easy to build a transactional system that mirrors nicely, It is just a lot of work to code it from scratch.

I am convinced the key to its success and usefulness is in the cross-indexing and mirroring of distributed data in a structure accessible and maintainable by the collective each irresponsible for their own contributions. The Users will have to simply ignoring the short guy behind the curtains pulling the strings until there are bots to do all the grunt work.

Who, What, When, Why, and Wow
That is for further study and comment...