When you or I have a tag sale, we put out tons of crap stuff — the accumulated furniture, games and sports equipment of our lives — and hope it sells.
When David Pogue has a tag sale — well, the stuff is a lot more interesting.
The New York Times/Scientific American/PBS “Nova”/CBS-TV/ multimillion-copy book author held a tag sale today in his Westport home. It looked like anyone else’s — overflowing garage, cut-rate prices, free lemonade — but walking between the tables was taking a trip down technology’s Memory Lane.
David Pogue, and a small part of his stuff.
There were old-school answering machines. Installation disks for operating systems long obsolete. Half a dozen Palm Pilots David literally could not give away — they were free — until a group of teenagers snagged them, probably to take them apart for fun.
There were power strips, cables, and a karaoke machine.
And books. Stacks of books. Books on hardware and software that are the technological equivalent of a Ford Pinto.
Everything in the garage was owned by David. He does not keep any gadgets he reviews; it all gets shipped back to the manufacturer.
I got to the tag sale late. Most of the good stuff was long gone.
Someone probably snapped up a Kaypro that was my 1st computer.
But in mid-afternoon, there was still a garbage bag full of floppy disks. They were yours for the taking. No questions asked.
