Word of mouth seems to be my best source of "valuable" computer
hardware/software.
Everyone at the hospital knows that I collect old computers, the lab has
given me old DEC terminals and printers if I haul away all of the stuff. I
also ended up with a MicroVAX 2000 with 2 RD54's if I promised to erase all
of the clinical data.
I happen to live in a small community, 1800 people, on the edge of a major
metropolitan area. Everyone in town knows I go to the computer place at
least once a week, I always volunteer to take anything anyone wants to send.
Our community has a cleanup day every other year, it's amazing what shows
up in the dumpster. I have arranged to take all of the computer/electronic
stuff to the local computer recycling/surplus center instead of it going
into the trash. I also volunteer computer support for the homeowners group.
The fire department was glad to receive industrial strength printer, printer
stand, and paper.
OT: My best recovery was a 25" Toshiba TV that turned out to have a broken
power cord. It has one ding where it hit the dumpster edge on the way in.
Someone else had a remote for this same model, their TV fell off the
counter. Now I have a complete unit for $0.
Several times I have gone to garage sales when they are ending and offered
to haul off the electronic/computer stuff left on the curb for the trash
truck. My wife has been startled when I have stopped while driving down the
street and picked up a few choice items. My wife tolerates this hobby
because it doesn't cost much, I can fix our computer, and I'm not out
gambling at the Riverboats. Drawbacks are that she and the kids don't
understand why I want to use a MicroVAX 2000, can't open the car doors on
one side because of the AT&T 3B2's and wonder about by Nicolet Zeta 36"
plotter that used to live in the rec room. I also don't have many computers
that are intact all the time, most seem to be fluctuating between
troubleshooting and testing.
My next goal is a neighbor who owns some storage lockers, maybe there will
be "gold in them thar dumpsters".
I once tried to "kick the habit". The 12 step process was two difficult, I
threw out lots of stuff and then by the time I got to the wall of the garage
I was hooked again. I hauled it all back in and hid it from my wife.
Covert collecting is tough.
Mike
vintage computer addict.
.
> Comments please!
.
.
Good stuff Sellam.
Some comments:
I think you under emphasise the garbage system. I have a PDP8L that came
>from a dumpster at a university.
Here in Australia we also have "Council Cleanups" where periodically the
local municipal councils pick up assorted larger rubbish if it is left by
the side of the road on a predetermined Monday a few times a year. The
result is lots of pickings during the preceding weekend. Unfortunately one
needs to cruise around all day as the good looking stuff goes very quickly.
In some places there are also "tip shops" where authorised scroungers (often
charities) sell goods collected from a garbage tip (or "dump" in American).
Around here we have establishments with names like Junktastic Park and
Reverse Garbage.
Do we want to mention the term Dumpster Diving in a primer?
Hans
>Let Them Come to You
>
>One way to find vintage computers is to let them find you.
>Try placing an ad in the classifieds section of your local
>paper. Be sure to specify exactly what you are looking for
>to avoid getting a flood of false leads. In the very least,
>include a cut-off year indicating you are not interested in
>any computers manufactured after that year.
Anybody try this? What kind of response did you get?
Tom Owad
------------------------------Applefritter------------------------------
Apple Prototypes, Clones, & Hacks - The obscure, unusual, & exceptional.
---------------------<http://www.applefritter.com/>---------------------
I've got my VAXstation and PC/Linux box connected via ethernet and
TCP/IP at last ! And offcourse the problems I had - were on the PC
side... VMS config was OK since first time :)
But there was one mystery: The network not worked with Compex
NE2000 clone adapter. When I replaced it with Compex ENET16/U
adapter configured as NE2000 everything is OK... does anybody
has any idea ? (I'm sure that first adapter was good, I've tested it)
Was there any changes in ethernet specification that could make
that new (1996 - second adapter was 1992) adapter incompatible
with VAXstation ?
And by the way - I got offer of "microVAX 3600 in 3500 case" I have
no idea what it may mean - could it be 3600 put in small 3500 cabinet ?
Is it possible ?
(the offer is interesting anyway - its 3600 running VMS 5.5 +
DECserver 200 + DELNI +4 VT320 + VT340 for free - I'm thinking
where to put the stuff...)
Maciek Szymanski
Ok, a year or so ago I rescued a Compaq Portable II. Not exactly in line
with my normal interests, but the owner had the right personality and
convinced me to do it anyway.
One thing she told me she had always wanted to do but never managed to get
done was install a hard card in the box, which as she bought it, had only
two 5.25" floppy drives.
Friday I picked up an 80 MB Plus HardCard at a local PC recycler's. It was
sold as-is, but for $1 I figured I'd take a chance.
I'm having problems with it, and the problems I'm having don't seem to
indicate a real hardware problem, but I'm not too familiar with hardcards:
* The Compaq setup utility recognizes it as a "type 11" disk, but
conveniently neglects to tell me anything about what this actually
means. Thinking of it now, I should RTFM and see if this information
is listed in any of the dead-trees docs I got with the machine.
* PC-DOS 3.30 fdisk sees a 77 MB disk with a single non-dos partition,
which seems correct, as at 80 MB it wouldn't be FAT12.
* PC-DOS 3.30 fdisk hangs when trying to write any partition information
to the disk.
* MS-DOS 4.01 recognizes the disk and I can get a directory listing of c:\
* MS-DOS 4.01 fdisk hangs when trying to write any partition information
to the disk.
Where should I be looking and what should I be trying to make this work?
ok
r.
I finally found my VMS 5.5 TK50's today and thought I would try to install
VMS on my MicroVAX II. The tape loads in the TK50 just fine, but after typing
B MUA0:
It reads and reads and reads ...
Now I know TK50's are _really_ slow to boot (NetBSD takes about 5 minutes)
but is this the only thing going on? There isn't some boot flag I need to
give the tape to insure that it does the right thing is there? I keep
expecting to see the standalone backup prompt and I keep right on waiting....
--Chuck
In a message dated 5/15/00 9:39:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time, red(a)bears.org
writes:
> All right.
>
> I undefined the disk in CMOS (which now believes there is no hard disk
> installed) but I'm having the same problem. FDISK hangs creating a new
> partition, just after it says "Drive capacity is 77 Mbytes" or the message
> to that effect.
>
> I checked out the jumpers on the unit, and they are set for IRQ 11, BIOS
> address C8000, I/O port 170, drive select 0.
using dos 5 or higher? (no 32meg partition limit with ver 5) try booting dos,
run FDISK /MBR
DB Young ICQ: 29427634
hurry, hurry, step right up! see the computers you used as a kid!
http://members.aol.com/suprdave/classiccmp/museum.htm
In a message dated 5/15/00 7:54:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time, donm(a)cts.com
writes:
> On Mon, 15 May 2000, r. 'bear' stricklin wrote:
>
> >
> > Ok, a year or so ago I rescued a Compaq Portable II. Not exactly in line
> > with my normal interests, but the owner had the right personality and
> > convinced me to do it anyway.
> >
> > One thing she told me she had always wanted to do but never managed to
get
> > done was install a hard card in the box, which as she bought it, had only
> > two 5.25" floppy drives.
> >
> > Friday I picked up an 80 MB Plus HardCard at a local PC recycler's. It
was
> > sold as-is, but for $1 I figured I'd take a chance.
> >
> > I'm having problems with it, and the problems I'm having don't seem to
> > indicate a real hardware problem, but I'm not too familiar with
hardcards:
> >
> > * The Compaq setup utility recognizes it as a "type 11" disk, but
> > conveniently neglects to tell me anything about what this actually
> > means. Thinking of it now, I should RTFM and see if this information
> > is listed in any of the dead-trees docs I got with the machine.
>
according to my hardcard20 manual, do not set up and entry for the hardcard
in CMOS. there may be a jumper on the hardcard for either 1 or 2 depending on
whether its the primary or second hard drive. there is a setup disk, but
normally shouldnt be needed. I have a copy if needed. the book also says that
it is not possible to LLF the hardcard.
DB Young ICQ: 29427634
hurry, hurry, step right up! see the computers you used as a kid!
http://members.aol.com/suprdave/classiccmp/museum.htm
Dragged [for real--these puppies are heavy] home a bunch of CDC
500 MB hard drives this morning. I rarely see any mention of Control
Data here [or anywhere else for that matter]....any use or application
for these things?
They came out of an NCR mini system. Only managed to find one CPU unit
[but did get ALL the print sets for both the CPU and the drives].
Interesting and maybe unusual, but what am I going to be able to do with
them. Any and all info and/or pointers appreciated.
Thanks, Craig
Interesting...
Well, there isn't anything quite so nice as the documentation. :-) [even if
it is for V5.2 which is not quite right for these tapes (5.5-2)] Turns out
that if you have a VMS cartridge tape release (such as I do) you boot
standalone backup from tape *2* not tape 1. (presumably its on tape one on
4.x tapes but on this tape its on tape 2) Of course I have to guess what
the save set's name is, but using the DEC propensity for naming things
VMS<VER> I guessed VMS0552.B (VMS 5.5-2 save set B). Perhaps when I come
back tomorrow I'll know if I guessed right :-)
--Chuck
