History for Sale
*Sigh* I had been sitting on this link to the Christie's auction of the Origins of Cyberspace collection for a week, not getting around to posting it, but I guess it's old news now. The collection is amazing, and I actually hope that a group will be able to purchase the whole thing to keep it together (and presumably display it). If not, one starts asking how much they would pay for a copy of the original notes from Godel's lecture "On undecidable propositions of formal mathematical systems". Estimated at $2000! Or pick up a 1920's IBM manual for only $1200! A first edition of the Newell, Shaw & Simon paper on chess playing programs at $1500! First edition Turing on "Computing machinery and intelligence"? $3000. Or go whole hog on the $10,000 first edition of Shannon's master's thesis. Old books are one of my weaknesses, and the thought of actually owning some of these things makes me drool. Mmmmmmm ... von Neumann.....