I may have done something silly...

I've had an eBay saved search for a particular item for what must be the last nine years. It has been for our very first PC we had back when I was 13-14. No, not the Packard Bell - they're relatively easy to come across, no this was a Digital Starion 917. Digital as in DEC - as in Digital Equipment Corporation. As far as I'm aware, DEC PCs weren't sold here in the UK - or if they were I certainly don't remember ever seeing them in magazines or in shops. Ours was bought from a US military PX (Public Exchange) that as a member of the Royal Air Force, my Dad was allowed to use when we lived in Germany. They sold food, clothing, footwear and many other American things we couldn't get in the German or British stores. 

When visiting the store once, they had a really decent deal on a PC, which my Dad took advantage of. The PC was the aforementioned Digital Starion 917 and he bought the matching 17" monitor to go with it. Until that point we had been using an LC475 which was showing it's age. Although it was only a couple of years old at this point, the staggering speed of improvements in technology of the mid to late 90s made it look like it was from the arc. That and Apple were moving over to PowerPC CPUs, 68K machines were being left in the dust. 

This PC was my first introduction to PCs and Windows - namely the newly released Windows 95. At school, the PCs were still on Windows 3.11 and I could never understand why you had to type in WIN to get the mouse to work (for those not in the know, this was to load the Windows 3.11 desktop environment from DOS if it hadn't been set to auto boot when the PC started up). 

Anyway - circling back...I got a ping the other day that a Digital Starion was for sale on eBay. The problem was it was eBay.com. Over the years that I've had this search saved, some machines have shown up or something to do with them, like a manual or mouse mat (which I had to buy...) but never this exact machine. UNTIL THE OTHER DAY. I immediately contacted the seller asking if they could do a quote to ship it to the UK and he basically told me to jog on. This is where a very good friend comes into the picture. 

I have known Blake(spot) since the late 90s via IRC on the #macintosh chat channel over on dal.net. We follow each other on Twitter and Instagram and are friends on Facebook has graciously helped me out getting things from the US back to the UK. Since eBay introduced the global shipping program, it's not cheap to get stuff from the US any more and some people don't bother responding to messages asking you to use alternatives such as USPS. I guess they just don't want the hassle. 

I've sent him over some Royal Mail stamps for David Bowie and Star Trek and he's sent over a Panasonic Toughbook and keyboard when my partner wanted one and the seller wouldn't ship outside the continental US. I always feel bad asking for him to ship stuff as he has, you know, a life and family. He's never said no (this will be the third occasion) but this time I might be pushing it. So although I've said it before, Blake - thank you SO very very much for doing this. I really REALLY do appreciate it. 

OK back to the story (notice how I go off at tangents all the time?!). I desperately want this PC. Like not having the want, but having the NEED! 

I asked to put an offer in for $250 as it was listed for $300. The offer was accepted and after shipping and taxes were calculated, Blake told me the amount. I sent him just over three hundred of my finest British pounds via Paypal and he's paid for it. As £300 is a lot of money to spend on a little computer with very lowly specs but I NEED this in my life. Blake has kindly agreed to store it for me until pay day so I can get some more money together to send over to get it shipped over here to the UK. All in all, it'll probably cost somewhere close to £500 when all is said and done but I don't care. We're decorating our home office at the moment and I plan on having a bigger desk, so I'll be able to have it on display and easily accessible. 

Having an interest in retro computing is like being addicted to drugs. I'm never going to have any money!