[Coco] Vintage Asset Preservation (was: Re: Steve "Bjorn's" status)

[RETRO Innovations]

The recent appearance of these items potentially from Steve Bjork's 
collection has created quite a stir, lots of discussions, calls for 
folks to band together to buy the items, members reaching out to GCCC to 
purchase the items using the club's resources, etc.

I've seen comments from the folks offering the items, stating that they 
grabbed the items as part of larger estate buys and had no real idea 
what they had, but are happy it will hopefully get into good hands (and 
potentially some profit, I saw one of the auctions was for $2500). 
Another comment someone related noted the items were soon for the 
dumpster had these folks not saved the items.

Given the amount of email and PMs I've fielded over the past few days, 
some folks are concerned these items will be lost and unpreserved if 
they are not purchased now. There's a competing view that such concerns 
are unfounded, as the community has been good about archiving software 
and documentation in the past. I can't be sure which is true, but it 
does leave a lot to chance. In this case, the sellers' assumption that 
these items would hold value for someone put them on everyone's radar, 
but what about the estate buyers who simply discard disks because they 
seem useless or not valuable enough to spend the effort to make a post 
or an auction?

I've no idea of Steve's Bjork's health or whereabouts (GCCC does not 
have a phone for him, I checked) and texts to potential relatives have 
gone unanswered.  I also don't know the background of how these items 
came to be on eBay.  But, all of this does present a question everyone 
should ask themselves:

Have you made some plans for your items of community interest to ensure 
this doesn't happen to your stuff?

  * None of us are getting younger
  * It's entirely possible Steve, who has had a few health issues, is
    still with us, but his family have had to focus on his care, and
    this is their attempt to tidy up given he won't need this stuff anymore.
  * Maybe he give specific instructions, but they are not being
    followed, either out of spite or because of grief.
  * Maybe he did not make plans for his stuff.

Conjecture on what's happened in not really productive, but if this will 
convince folks to make concrete plans (or archive their items now), that 
would be helpful.

I've read comments decrying Steve for not making a better plan to ensure 
his items were preserved. I'd hate to see the same comments made about 
others on the list.

If nothing else, it bothers me that all of this is happening with such 
urgency. Rash decisions concerning funds are rarely good decisions, no 
matter how noble the cause. For all of the controversial views people 
have about Steve, he's a member of the community and he added value 
through the software he wrote. But, so are many of you, and you have 
items of value as well. I hope you take steps to ensure it is preserved 
and not leave it to chance.

The same holds true beyond the CoCo, and even beyond computing.

Jim