Tech heads looking for the perfect Valentine's Day gift might be tempted by the idea of giving an early computer programming manual to their loved one, but that doesn't make it a good idea.Stuck for the right gift to give this Sunday, Private Bin thought
Tech heads looking for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift might be tempted by the idea of giving an early computer programming manual to their loved one, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.
Stuck for the right gift to give this Sunday, Private Bin thought all its problems were solved when an email from Bonhams & Butterfields arrived in its inbox.
Promising “something a bit different for the smitten IT professional”, the email revealed that that the auction house would be offering four unusual lots of relatively early computer programming manuals during the Fine Books & Manuscripts auction on Sunday.
These books include an early edition of Planning and Coding of Problems for an Electronic Computing Instrument, Part II, Vol I, an assortment of early internal IBM publications and offprints - "704 Training Manual," with "704 Problems"; and a collection of mimeographed manuscripts and lecture notes from the 1950s,
The texts are worth between $US300 and $US1500 and spending that amount on a dusty old computer manual might show the love for hardcore tech support, but tying it in to Valentine’s Day could be stretching things.
A quick survey around the NBR office revealed that any loved one who declared their attraction through an old textbook would get a frosty reception and would be far, far better off with boring old flowers.
But if anybody is tempted, and God help you if you are - the online catalogue can be found here.
