9 Jul
2009
9 Jul
'09
12:04 p.m.
On Jul 9, 2009, at 11:50 AM, Rick Bensene wrote:
I am wondering if anyone here has had dealings with
Omni Systems
(www.omnicorp.net) located in New Jersey, and if so, if the experience
was good or bad.
They advertise on their website that they buy/sell DEC hardware. They
have an item listed on their website that I've been looking for, and
want to get any impressions from those here before I contact them.
Their website looks as if it hasn't been updated in quite some
time, and
the Email links provide addresses that are rejected by their server,
which raise some yellow flags with me.
Any help is appreciated.
I can tell you a lot about them. Omni Systems is a small company
with a handful of employees. It is owned by a man named Jim
Gonzalez. I have known him for about 26 years. He was my childhood
DEC mentor and is largely responsible for my "getting going" in PDP-8
and PDP-11 stuff. He is ex-DEC field service, and knows his stuff
very well. He left DEC and started Omni Systems some thirty years ago.
Before I was old enough to drive, I would beg my grandmother to
drive me up to his place (~2hrs away) with a stack of RL01 packs and
my RSX11M distribution tape, so he could make me a set of install
packs for my PDP-11/34a, as I lacked a magtape drive. I did that
about three times as I learned about sysgen and expanded my system.
He gave and sold me lots of hardware, and helped me get everything
running. Over a few years my grandmother drove me up there perhaps a
dozen times...she'd go upstairs and hang out with Jim's wife, while
Jim and I would descend to the first floor and hack on PDP stuff.
He and I lost touch for many years, but ran across each other
again about three years ago. This past March, on a big road trip, I
was able to stop by his place and hang out with his family a bit.
He is one of the most all-around great guys I have ever known.
I will call him and tell him about the email link issue.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL