VCF weekend in the Midwest

While many of you were enjoying the sights and sounds at VCF this weekend, I was driving a cargo van to pick up equipment from various places in the Midwest. First was a rescue in Indiana that Jack Rubin mentioned on the list. The owner reported some DEC equipment in his warehouse that needed to be hauled away before the building was demolished. It turns out that the warehouse is a huge condemned building that has a leaky and collapsing roof, is without heat or electric power, and is located in an, um, "socio-economically challenged" neighborhood. From there I pulled out two racks: one with a DEC 11/34 and another with some distribution panels. The third rack, with a tape drive, was too heavy for just the warehouse owner and me to load into the van. From that setup I also left behind two RP06 disk drives. In another part of the warehouse was another set of three racks -- a PDP 8/e and three RK05 drives. We pulled the CPU and left the rest. I also pulled out two VT52s and two VT100s, along with some RSTS manuals and magtapes. I left behind half a dozen DECwriter printing terminals. Before anyone gets too excited about what's left, be aware that this stuff is not in very good condition. The warehouse roof is in poor condition and the building is very drafty. Everything was dirty, damp to the touch and rusting. None of the equipment is anywhere near working condition -- it's been sitting there for at least 10 years, suffering the ravages of weather, temperature extremes and rodents. Second rescue was from an electronics surplus place about two hours drive from the first warehouse. From there I pulled a MicroPDP-11, an RX02, a MINC-23 on a rolling cart, a DEC GIGI, an Osborne luggable and a TI Silent 700. I know the last two items got wet, but the others look in much better shape than the equipment from the first warehouse. Photos upon request. Third rescue, to me, was the best: I now have a working Hewlett-Packard 9831A desktop computer. This machine uses the BASIC language, has a single-line LED display and accepts most of the 9825 interfaces. I know Tony has one of these, but I'm not sure if anyone else does. They only appeared in the HP catalog for one year and are extremely uncommon. I wrote a bunch of software on these computers for an HP VAR in 1981 or so, but I haven't seen a 9831 since then. The machine I have now even has the floppy drive ROM cartridge, so I can hook up eight-inch disc drives (9885M plus up to three 9885S) to it as well. So, while hunting mainly for HP gear, in the last few months I've ended up with the following DEC CPUs: PDP 8/A PDP 8/e MicroPDP-11 (two) PDP 11/34 GIGI The earliest DEC machine I ever used was an 11/70, so I may be looking for help in the future to try and restore these machines to operation. Cheers, Dan