Re: Just wondering...

I get it that the youngsters don't have the old machines, as they seem
to expend a lot of effort recreating workalikes.

We are still in the window when building something new with dip parts and VERY inexpensive PCBs that are available out of
China makes sense, or just running a simulation on modern hardware with todays tools instead of stone knives and bearskins
makes complete sense.

100% agree!  I've met many clueless youngsters.  Or, even worse, those whose education consisted of web searches and YT videos.
I call it the 'Swiss cheese effect'.  Gaping holes in their knowledge because they didn't know what questions to ask. And they come off as they know what they are talking about because they simply don't know yet what they are missing. 'Poseur' is sometimes an appropriate appellation.

I've spent decades building bitsavers.org so that people didn't have to go through what I had to in the 70s to learn about electronics.
Now, Chatbots and their ilk are destroying the ability to obtain reliable answers with references to the source material. I am not happy.

I'm in the same boat.  I've collected/restored machines since the 90's and properly seeing to their disposition would be a time consuming chore.

And having to vet every random trying to determine if they are just cherry-picking through everything you own to flip on eBay.
I took a truckload to VCF-W last year to find proper homes for some of my collection, and I'm not going to go through that again this year.