eBay’s Vintage Computing Category, Unending Fun and History

Lately, I have been spending my (little) free time exploring and browsing eBay’s Vintage Computing category here. Besides finding things that I would like to buy but can’t, I have been learning a lot about the early days of personal computing that I could not have done by simply reading a book. So much of this stuff is hands-on, experiential, and word-of-mouth. This is why I enjoyed browsing Computer Shopper in the early 1990s. That megalithic tome was chock full of advertising and configuration matrices. It was by decoding the possibilities of computing at that time that I learned much of my early knowledge about computers. Incidentally: does anyone know where old issues (early-mid 1990s) of Computer Shopper can be found in scanned form or for sale?

Published by Jason W. Ellis

I am an Associate Professor of English at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY whose teaching includes composition and technical communication, and research focuses on science fiction, neuroscience, and digital technology. Also, I direct the B.S. in Professional and Technical Writing Program and coordinate the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, which holds more than 600 linear feet of magazines, anthologies, novels, and research publications.