27 Jan
2010
27 Jan
'10
4:30 a.m.
On Jan 12, 2010, at 4:20 PM, Ian King wrote:
When I got my VAX 6660, it was on a pallet that was
well on its way
to being nothing more than kindling. As the poor delivery guy was
trying to get it onto the lift gate and down, it listed seriously,
and I wondered if we were going to lose either the machine or one
of us! We got it down to the ground safely and wheeled it (on a
pallet jack) into my garage.
When it came time to move it into the house, I surveyed the two
steps up from my garage to the basement with dismay. A friend came
up with the idea of using a standard appliance dolly to move it.
We secured the machine, tilted it over on the dolly's rollers and
pushed it into the house on its side. Then came the job of picking
it back up! We just could not get enough leverage to bring it up
off the floor. Finally, I grabbed a floor jack, placed it under
the spine of the dolly and angled the VAX up just close enough to
the tipping point that the two of us could bring it the rest of the
way up, without dropping it on its feet. Thank God those wonderful
DEC casters took over from there.... -- Ian
That's some serious stuff right there.
I've had some similar experiences. Here are some pictures and a
description of my unload of two extremely heavy Sun machines, Sun
Fire 6800s, can be seen here:
http://www.neurotica.com/wiki/Sun_Fire_6800_Unload
These machines were picked up for my employer, but I had no
resources for the unload so I ended up doing it myself. It
was...interesting. I ended up using 2" ratchet straps for all sorts
of nefarious purposes.
Here's a StorageTek Timberwolf DLT jukebox, same situation. Note
that this is a BIG juke, 588 tapes:
http://www.neurotica.com/wiki/StorageTek_Timberwolf_Unload
And some pics and the story behind the retrieval of my IBM System/
36 model 5360, just to keep this on-topic:
http://www.neurotica.com/wiki/IBM_System/36_rescue
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL