Are there any
former DEC employees (or anyone else) here who have ever
seen or heard of anything like this?
A friend of mine who is a former DEC employee once told me a war story
about being given a "prototype" terminal to take home. He said the PCBs
were thin, and kind of flexible, like the cardboard sheets in the back of a
tablet of paper, and the thing was very tempermental -- even after you got
it working again the MTBF was in hours. He said he eventually threw the
accursed thing away.
I wonder if this is one of those?
Vince
It looks like some kind of prototype. I'll open it up tonight or
tomorrow to see what it looks like on the inside. I'll try to get some more pictures.
Here's what the previous owner told me when I asked him about it. It sounds like it
worked for him for 6 years.
"I worked for DEC in the late 70's early 80's as a software
engineer on the PDP10/PDP20 mainframe computers. I was given
this terminal so I could work from home. When I left DEC they did not want the terminal
back. So I've had it all these years. We plan to sell our house so I am doing some
major house cleaning, selling on Ebay, garage sale, etc. I would say the last time it was
used was around 1984. I used it frequently for about 6 years, so 1978->1984. Has not
been plugged in since 1984!"
Ashley
http://www.woffordwitch.com