7 Aug
1999
7 Aug
'99
5:10 p.m.
A former co-worker now works for a institution of higher learning.
We trade hardware from time to time, and he knows of my affinity for
DEC hardware. He told me of two stashes of old DEC stuff at work, and
that he had made arrangements for me to haul it off. For various
reasons, we had decided to wait until this summer.
The DAMNIT
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I get a call from him recently. It seems that unbeknownst to him,
his boss (another former co-worker), and his boss's boss; some other
idiot had decided to clean out the one stash. Since these three are
key players in the institution's computer center, it seemed unlikely
that this could have happened. But as I said this is an institution
of higher learning, and having work for another such institution in
this town, I can say with some certainty that it does not indicate
'higher smarts' or one damned bit of common sense.
This stash included at least 10 VAXstation 2000's & more than one
DECstation 3100. What intrigued me more was the boxes and boxes of
unopened DEC spares. We will never know what went into that dumpster.
My friend said one dumpster had been hauled off before he knew it.
He 'dove' the second dumspter and found that most of the CRT's had
been rendered useless, and was unable to recover anything useful.
I relate this to you so that all the DEC fans can observe a moment
of silence for what has happened with regards to this equipment.
PAUSE
The Latest Haul
---------------
My friend, not wanting this to happen to the second stash, loaded it
into the back of his truck at once. He then called me and we made
arrangements to meet in a couple of hours. As luck would have it,
there came up a storm before we could meet and the VR260 monitors
in the back of his truck got a little wet. That does not bother me
too much. I had given him an IBM RT with 19" color monitor months
ago. It had been in my garage when the tree fell on it during a
storm and the monitor got soaked. Six months later, he fired it up
and it worked fine.
This latest haul is 5 VAXstation 2000's, 5 VR260 monitors and all
the cables, mice, etc. Of the 5 VAXstation 2000's, three were
apparently running diskless, and the other two have been relieved
of their disk drives.
Previous Haul
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Some time back I hauled home a couple of other VAXstation 2000's &
two TK50Z-FA's. One VS2000 is gone and the other has been disassembled
to pull the RD54 for a fellow list member. I still have the TK50Z-FA's.
To summarize, I have:
3 - VAXstation 2000's - are diskless
2 - VAXstation 2000's - relieved of disks
1 - VAXstation 2000's - basket case, (disassembled and in a basket)
5 - VR260 monochrome monitors
1 - MS400CA (unused) - 2 mb memory option for VS2000
With all the other DEC hardware, I doubt I will ever get to messin'
with these. If you have any interest in any of this, let me know.
Mike Thompson