7 Oct
2013
7 Oct
'13
12:12 a.m.
On Oct 6, 2013, at 5:36 PM, "Mark J. Blair" <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
On Oct 6, 2013, at 13:52 , David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
You and several dozen other people. The main constraints to such an acquisition
are:
1) Finding someone with an old one who is willing to part with it (usually
old factories or the like, most of whom are just going to look to a
scrapper or recycler first, because who would want a decades-old hunk of
steel?) before someone else gets to it
2) Paying to ship the damn thing; that's a truckload in and of itself,
especially once you include the peripherals usually required for a full
system
3) Figuring out where to put it (it's big)
4) Figuring out how to power it (you'll generally need 3-phase, and usually
pretty hefty if you have a sizeable load of RA-8x disks)
Usually #1 and #2 make it impossible for most people; if you can figure out
those, #3 and #4 probably aren't insurmountable.
- Dave
I'm told that's one of the reasons
it's hard to get hold of a VAX-11/780 these
days... there's enough gold in those (about 2 oz) that at today's prices, they
could yield about $2500 or so. Very sad.
Speaking of the 11/780, I would sure love to have one of those. I could probably manage
to make room for it in my workshop, but I don't think I could power it, cool it, or
keep mice from living in it (the workshop is an uninsulated steel barn, and it's not
yet rodent-proof).