6 Apr
2003
6 Apr
'03
4:27 p.m.
On Sun, 6 Apr 2003, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Well great! I loved Chch. I stayed there between
stints on the Ice
and coming home.
The great thing about dealing w/computers in NZ is the fact you can call
Sun, or SGI, or Compaq/Digital/HP/who-the-hell-ever and get someone who's
not only willing to waste their time talking to you, but is really
interested in what you're fiddling with.
Now I'll tell you right now - I've never even tried that in the US (Where
I live now), but I've heard it just doesn't happen.
I picked up a set of Sun 4/470s and 4/260s (Which live in an aircraft
hangar in Christchurch, actually) and walked right into Sun that same day
and talked to a fellow in there about them.
He said once I had them reliably booting (I ended getting a replacement
processing card) he'd lend me a CDROM and SunOS boot media, and he'd help
me install the thing fresh -- at the time I had no experience with older
machines, they were my personal "first" collectors item.
Maybe its that small-time thing that does it, maybe I've just been lucky
with the folks I've talked to - or maybe its like that all over the place,
I can't say for sure.
PS. If you're bored and want to oggle my junk, since I can't anymore,
wander over to Wigram Air Force Base (or, what was Wigram AFB) and see if
you can find PJ Hindin Engineering and talk to my old man. You could tell
me if he's treating my Suns/DECs right ;)