11/60 Rescued!

Hi Gang: It is with pleasure that I report that the pdp-11/60 in Vancouver has been rescued! Eric Smith flew up from San Jose today, and we rescued the beast, moving it to a temporary storage locker until Eric can re-attend and drive it back down south. It was a _very_ long day, especially for Eric, what with flying etc. We were fortunate that the person with the machine, Dallas Hinton, lives next to a lumberyard. He has good relations with the staff, and was able to borrow a forklift (and operator) from them. This made loading the behemoth (CPU unit about 600 lbs) quite easy. Also picked up were two RK06 drives, a Dilog front-loading high density tape drive, VT52, DECwriter II and III, boxes and boxes of docs, software, and disk packs. The only rental truck available on 1 day notice was a 5 ton monster from Ryder. The gear fit easily in the back. We roped it in as best as possible, but alas during the 7 mile drive between Dallas' and the storage locker place, the CPU unit broke its ropes, and despite being restrained by boxes of docs and the terminals, rolled around and dented the back of the tape drive unit. No real damage was done, and the load arrived intact. The next challenge was getting the CPU cabinet and other units down the ramp at the back of the truck - no liftgate available, and no forklift at the mom-n-pop self storage. So Eric and I gritted our teeth and with much physical effort managed to roll the units down the ramp _without_ having them either collapse the ramp or fall off to either side. The other stuff was moved much more easily, and all of it (save some docs which Eric wanted to get home for review) is now safely stored. The machine is in great shape, has all panels, doors. We didn't have a camera available, due to the short notice. I'll try to take some photos once Eric comes back to drive the machine down to San Jose. A liftgate equipped truck will be mandatory - we'd never be able to get the machine back up the ramp by pushing/pulling. Hmmm a block and tackle or winch might work too... Thanks to Dallas Hinton, and the folks on the list who wrote in support of saving this old machine. Great thanks to Eric for making the supreme short notice effort to come up and get the 11/60! The scrap dealer is still coming to Dallas' place on Monday, but now it'll only be for some broken old Wang terminals (not worth saving, you had to see them, trust me!). That's it from Vancouver, Kevin -- Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca