Stanford's PDP-6 ( was Re: Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Jockeys)

Brent Hilpert wrote: That would be me, a CHM employee, that has access to all of the Boston museum collection records. I have spoken to several of the staff members who were there at the time. I have been trying to find ANY evidence this occurred, and have not been able to. CHM has the fast memory box from Stanford's PDP-6. It came from the Compaq donation to CHM of what they had in >> DEC's << internal collection, and was NOT donated to the Boston Museum. As best as I've been able to determine, the 6 was sent to a DEC warehouse after the anniversary at DECUS, and sat there until what was there was sent to CHM. Since there is no record of this machine going to the Boston museum, nor does anyone there that I have talked to remember it coming there, it would have been difficult for them to have dismantled it. Every major donation to the Computer Museum was cataloged. I cannot find anything for Stanford's PDP-6 in their records or in the Museum Report, which at the time listed every donation they received. I would like to find someone INSIDE of DEC that saw it in while it was in the warehouse, but I haven't been able to locate anyone yet. The rumor of the Museum destroying the system started because their gift shop was selling modules, including the ALU modules from the PDP-6. I have been told these were from a collection of DEC module spares that DEC donated. I haven't been able to determine the earliest that they were being sold. If it was before the anniversary, they obviously could not have been from Stanford's machine. Because of this controversy, CHM has a policy that no artifacts will ever be offered for sale to the public. Items that are deacessioned are offered only to other non-profit institutions.