value is based on rarity, not on any given usefulness
emmm.. wrong.
Because everything built for PCs is
designed to be obsolete right after you buy it, anything more than five or ten years old can be considered "rare". Go into any PC or Mac shop and ask for a Nubus card, or a serial mouse, or the retail version of Windows NT4.0 Workstation, or an ISA soundcard, or a Pentium Pro 233 CPU. You'll get a lecture about the "scarcity" of these items, but does that automatically mean they have value? No. Most of that crap has no value because... its crap! There ain't a lot of nostalgia surrounding the x486 nor a lot of websites dedicated to promoting its upappreciated virtues. No one gives a sh1t about the x486 because it was a piece of garbage to begin with. Items of that vintage for PCs are "rare"
because they suck and no one wants them. Hence they have no value. Items of that vintage for the Amiga, on the other hand, were designed for a vastly superior computer -- one that does have a lot of nostalgia surrounding it and one that, because of its forward-thinking, modular design, can still be used professionally for many things despite being almost 20 years old. Can someone please tell me just how badass their x486 is?
