A Tragedy Averted

Here in New Jersey, many towns have periodic "cleanout" garbage collections in which the residents are allowed to throw away just about anything their hearts no longer desire. Furniture, appliances, you name it -- they'll pick it up and cart it to a landfill. There are usually lots of pickup trucks and vans roaming the streets the night before, since much can be salvaged -- and there are some severely depressed areas not far away, such as Newark. Last night my fiancee spotted a serviceable couch two blocks from our house and dragged me over to help her lug it home -- we just finished a room in the attic and it needs furnishing. Two houses away from the couch someone had placed a TRS-80 Model II, its disk expansion bay, and a Line Printer VI by the curb. I could not allow this to be buried in Pennsylvania. There were also a couple of Wyse 50 terminals which will work fine on my various *nix boxen. While I was loading these treasures into the car, the perpetrator carried out sundry other (non-computer-related) items to the curb, and I asked him about the system. Seems that while it still works, he's out of space and hadn't used the system since he moved his body shop's bookkeeping systems to newer hardware. He said that he had a bunch of software in the attic, so call him in about a week. Then he brought out and presented me with a Kaypro 10. So it looks like at least part of the weekend is spoken for, while I clean these machines and check their functionality. Eight bits forever! -- Ward Griffiths "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Claire Wolfe