25 Oct
2009
25 Oct
'09
4:52 p.m.
From: "Philipp Hachtmann":
I recently got a box of original lamps from a retired
DEC service
engineer. The blue ones (blue seemed to be VERY important as someone
also wrote the word "blue" onto the box!).
Yep, the blue ones work in 8/L, 8E/F/M, and a few others, but not in
the older 8/i, etc.
(I have another box with lamps for RK05 etc. They have
the part number
on the box and "OL-1" directly on the lamps.)
Now *those* are much rarer, and are the correct ones for the 8/i.
Now I used google - and Oshino is still around! I
found their German
website with some part lists. All article numbers start with "OL-".
Yep, I've written to them before, a few years ago.
The company's logo is the same as on my box and
the CEO's name is
Takeshi Oshino. So there is a good chance to get the original lamps.
If I am remembering correctly, they seemed to have the usual corporate
amnesia about obsolete products and referred me to their US distributor,
Wamco. Wouldn't hurt to ask someone else within the company, though.
I have not yet checked if the lamps I got were the
same I find in my
machines, but the brightness perfectly matches and they come from DEC.
Stored together with little boxes containing new DEC labelled ICs and
transistors. That should vouch for them.
They should be. I have some spare OL-2, but would happily trade a
few for OL-1 :-).
Vince