Several years back I read Andy Ihnatko’s account of the MIT Flea, and stuck it in the back of my head as something that could be interesting to check out. It’s held every third Sunday April through October, in the Albany Street garage. It’s  “a place to buy, sell, and swap amateur radio, electronic, and computer equipment”. I first went a few years ago, but went relatively late in the day and was pretty underwhelmed. I got there around 11 this morning, and found three floors of stuff to look at:

• Old videogame cartridges
• LPs
• Oscilloscopes
• stepper motors
• Knives
• Old Macs, some dating back to the 80’s and 90’s
• Some old Apple IIs
• Old laptops
• Microscopes
• Electronics parts of all kinds
• Memorabilia
• A couple of old globes
• All sorts of other old stuff that I had no idea what it was.

Some of it was interesting to look at, but there was nothing there that I found particularly tempting, though if I’d seen a laser I might have grabbed it. The older Macs were interesting — I’ve always wished I’d had a compact Mac, but none of them came with mice or software so they weren’t usable. I did see an Apple IIc and a couple of Apple IIGSes there — my first and second computers, but neither had a monitor, so they weren’t really usable. I already do have a working PowerMac G4 and an Apple IIGS emulator on this machine.

Overall, though, I’m finding window shopping in general to be a less satisfying pastime than it used to. After having to clean out the old house, I’m finding I’m less interested in taking on new clutter, unless it’s usable, and I want it. And nearly anything I picked up there would have been A Project to get cleaned up and usable. Thank you no.