Original PDP-8 spares

Pieter Botha wrote: Core memory sets for PDP8's seem to crop up on Epay very often. I dont know if any could be traced to anyone (as in seller) who had any clue how to keep them safe from harm and have any chance of working again. If a PDP stack got in the hands of an ebay assassin, chances are good they'd destroy it as the pdp8 stack does not lend itself to opening up to have a look at the cores and then working ever again. Id you pulled them, and are on this list I'd say you'd have an item that should be sold to someone here as chances are you didn't do that to it. Luckily anything that says "made in the USA" on it comes in w/o any argument if it is not on a commerce dept list. and pdp8's probably aren't make sure that the country of origin is identified as being the entire module made by DEC in massachusetts, and lave no doubt that the "manilla" or "singapore" on the IC's are not. I had that argument once till I pointed out the Made in USA on our boards silkscreen to one inspector. A favorite trick at one time was to solder an extra socket over a large ASIC spot that had a "made in taiwan" in the silkscreen, and have a "made in usa" one that one could solder another IC over top of once it was landed in the US. that way one board build in taiwan was good to go regardless of country of origin. I was mystified by this and had it explained to me years ago by someone, I didn't do anything like that.