Control Data CDC Plato system available in Minneapolis

In article <534C30FC.2020002 at jetnet.ab.ca>, ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> writes: This is not a computer. It's a terminal. It's a terminal that is only useful if you connect it to a CDC PLATO mainframe. This is not the early 1970s model, i.e. plasma display, but the late 1970s/early 1980s raster model. At that time monochrome raster graphics terminals were expensive: 1977 $5,500 HP 2648A 1979 $3,595 Tektronix 4027 1981 $3,750 HP 2623A 1982 $2,495 Visual 500 1983 $2,550 Modgraph GX-100 As you can see, prices were coming down rapidly because most of the cost of a raster graphics terminal is in the RAM necessary to hold the pixels. So if we are going by pure market price for a CDC IST II, it might be around $4000-5000. However, noone is going to pay that today -- the thing is used and long out of warranty and noone is around who is going to support fixing them beyond whatever basic knowledge that exists to repair CRT terminals and monitors. We don't even know if it is working because the buyer can't connect it to a working PLATO system or emulator, so it is being sold "as is". Given the age of the terminal, the capacitors are probably nearing the end of their useful life as well, so that is also dragging down the price. Then there's shipping -- this isn't a small terminal (keyboard is integral, not separate) and there's the weight of the thing. We have a new seller on ebay who has an unknown history of properly packing things like this for shipment. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline> The Computer Graphics Museum <http://ComputerGraphicsMuseum.org> The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org> Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://LegalizeAdulthood.wordpress.com>