Data General 4/X haul from Bakersfield

Oh my most definitely worth it. Just a quick report, it's late, it's been a long day, 3 of 4 lanes closed on return trip adding 2 hr delay, I'll inventory later. Photos taken (in dark lab at night), will upload tomorrow. The system was a DOE project measuring the output of a test cooling tower, some coal burning experiment. The system is contained in 4 fancy blue DG racks with doors and pretty blue trim panels. Casters were left on and racks bolted to the floor of a custom mobile trailer -- double windows, monster A/C system (Bakersfield summer sun peels paint -- literally). Big analog input system wired to panel bolted to the wall, cables ran out to sensors whereeverthehelltheywere. No sun-bleached colors here! No mouse (eg. meeces, little mammals) presence detected, no birds, insects, or even humans for 20 years. Consists of: Nova 4/X, 6070 disk, two 6120/6123? vacuum column tape drives, plus a Computer Something Inc 48 channel analog input system (with full documentation), DG data acquisition system, DG isolated IO system (cage, cards, docs). Nova I think is 128K, with mapped RDOS (according to manual notes and patch tape labels). I dont know nova4 cards by eye, will deal with later. ALl spotlessly clean. It looks like it was turned off around 1984/1985 and just left alone. One brand-new-sealed-in-box cartridge for the 6070. One possibly- new-but-could-be-bad-in-box cart, plus one in the hole, for three total. Dasher RO terminal, dusty but perfect, two cases new sealed ribbons and a box of greenbar. Too bad no keyboard! Can I add one? Some big beige modem, with manual. Custom software full documentation (listings, oper man, schematics, all mans for the hdwe). Huge set (may be multiples) of DG manuals, 90% sealed never opened. 3-ring type (std DG) but no binders (also typical DG). Appears to include Everything. Two sets of DG fiche (likely software) one never opened til I opened it; I found 2nd already opened a few minutes later :-( WIll get out the reader in a week or two. About a dozen "system" tapes (backups, dumps, bootable), a couple of scratch tapes, about 8 DG patch tapes. One tape that must be a data collect from a program run. All doors were closed, so there's little dust inside cabinets; about what you'd see in a system in use for a year or so. THe trailer was well insulated and sealed, built for field use. No surface rust of any kind anywhere. I took even the listings scattered all over the floor and stepped on heavily. YOu never know. One minor mistake: the A/D system appeared to be standard telco wiring at first, so it got dyked out. The wall panel could have been unscrewed and taken home intact. Not really a big deal, as it seems likely that the AD thing will be redeployed as such, and it was just generic wiring, not DG. THe 6070 was restrained in the rack, and for shipment I had to remove the disk pack. I wiped off all the dust surrounding first to minimize contamination. I even found the orig. shipping drive dustcover! I taped the head opening shut, so the heads wouldn't zoom out (sorry, but I didn't know what else to do; circumstances didn't allow determining the right procedure and I've never shipped or unpacked one) but I put it in the truk so that the head path was perpendicular to the truck's travel eg. sideways. Inserted dustcover and clean towel over it, heads still properly retracted when I got home. The bad news: the A/C has been off for 20 years! Lots of orangy dust on the floor and rack externals. It seems more like disintegrated plastic than clay. Bubble wrap was fully disintegrated. Who knows what the heat did to the media. We'll see! Previous owner was fine; long story he got the trailer with a lot of other surplus goods, wanted to scrap the computer junk inside, told it would need to be recycled. A computer-savvy friend of his told Bruce, etc. So now my lab is at 120% (physical) capacity, which is actually a problem. I didn't really intend to packrat another computer (esp. one so large). But I do like the Nova4, even if it does have a stack pointer. The CPU, a tape, disk will certainly fit in two racks; it might fit in one. I assume systems like this one (random industrial duty) have no increased value or juice "complete", so paring it down to managable size might be in order. I'm not in a hurry -- yet. I will want my lab back at some point! On Wed I travel to Santa Fe (friend's 50th) (mine soon!) won't have time to work on it til I get back.