Approaching Scrappers

You are quite right Mike. I personally know some of the owners/controllers of some of the largest scrap companies (thats how I get all my minis) and the guys I deal with get contracts to level factories and mills. They don't know what a PDP 8 is and don't care. They want to either relocate some of the major machinery or melt it before setting the explosives in the building. Most of these companies don't care if you'd be willing to pay $1000 or even $2000 for a PDP as most of the contracts they get are worth millions. Best approach I have found is accept ANY and ALL minis/mainframes that come their way. I don't dicker with them and don't him and ha... If they have an old Wang or some old IBM then I take it anyway and scrap it for parts... A company I am going into at the end of this month has minis that were installed before 1968. No one has any idea what they are and no one cares. The factory is being levelled in middle November and anything that is left will have the building dropped on it. (I did however find out from a prior purchasing officer that the systems I am pulling out are: Vax 11/780 - yuck, I'll trash that. IBM 360 and/or Classic PDP 8 (seems they possibly had both) and other minis that controlled various processes The controller refered to old system as a "huge computer that filled up a room , we didn't get rid of it because it wasn't worth moving". If you have deep pockets to buy every computer mini they find in an old factory then you can score quite often. john -----Original Message----- From: Mike Ford <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 3:36 PM Subject: Re: Approaching Scrappers