7 May
2015
7 May
'15
6:48 p.m.
On 05/07/2015 12:33 PM, Mike Ross wrote:
1. IBM would very often lease rather than sell, and
take back machines when
customers upgraded; it was obviously in their interests to control or
eliminate where possible the market in used machines.
In the early days, that was
VERY true, very few machines
were owned. In fact, IBM didn't sell a SINGLE machine until
they were forced to by the US government. In later years,
there were a lot of owned machines, many owned by the
computer brokers, who made a BIG business out of 3rd party
leasing in the 1970's.
2. Gold. A lot of gold in old IBM kit. I knew a scrap
dealer in Chelmsford
UK that did nothing but break old IBM mainframes (only ever big boring grey
boxes when I was there in mid to late 1990s though!)
A lot less gold in the 360's than in earlier machines. They
started using selective plating much earlier than anybody
else to cut the gold content. But, there is truth in what
you say. But, SMS cards had WAY more gold than the SLT systems.
Jon