5 Mar
2001
5 Mar
'01
4:24 p.m.
Jim et al,
I've used a "Blanket" or "wrapping" service offered by Allied to
move 2
PDP-11s from Canada to the Bay Area. The Allied agent on the Vancouver end
did a great job of packing the system and it arrived in excellent condition,
unfortunately the agent on this end was endlessly confused by that pesky
"customs thing". Using a wrapping service cost me about 4 times what I paid
for the systems. I thought about flying to Vancouver, loading the systems
into a U-Haul, and driving them to the Bay Area. However, we were expecting
a new baby, were moving into a new house, and we were in the middle of a
major SW release at work. So I just off-loaded the problem, and in
retrospect was the right, but expensive, thing to do.
If you have the time, I'd pick them up myself. Portland is not that far from
the Bay Area.
Lee Courtney
President
Monterey Software Group Inc.
1350 Pear Avenue, Suite J
Mountain View, California 94043-1302 U.S.A.
650-964-7052 voice
650-964-6735 fax
Advanced Authentication, Audit, and Access Control Tools and Consulting for
HP3000 Business Servers
http://www.editcorp.com/Businesses/MontereySoftware
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Jim Battle
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 9:40 PM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Packaging service recommendations?
I know a couple weeks back there was a thread where everybody took a turn
describing what horrors a particular shipper had committed to something
they sent. I didn't pay much attention to it then, but perhaps I should
have. At any rate, my question is somewhat different.
I've been collecting computers for only two years, but at the top of my
wish list has been to get a Wang 2200, one of the older models.
It is the
machine I learned to program on, and it left a strong impression. My
coding style still suffers because of it. :-)
Well, I finally found somebody who will ship me one for the cost of
shipping. It is in Portland, OR, and I'm in San Jose, CA. The estimated
weight is 200-300 pounds including accessories and docs. [ The early
2200's had a power supply box, a suitcase-sized box that
contained the TTL
CPU, then a separate keyboard/monitor. The setup I'm hoping to get also
has three external tape drives and a modified selectric as a
printing device. ]
Because the guy who has it is essentially giving it away, I want
to make it
as easy for him as possible, and at the same time I want to get it packed
really well because I don't want anything to happen to it. I guess I'm
afraid that he'd just put it in a cardboard box stuffed with newspapers.
A scan through the yellow pages under "Packaging Materials" and
"Packaging
Services" showed quite a few people who package things for a price, but
I've never used one. Does anybody have any tips on how to choose
one? Should I insist on a wood crate, or foam-fill, or something else?
As another data point, I tried the rate estimator on FedEx and it
wouldn't
accept a box that weighed 300 lbs. I tried 100 lbs and it said
$50, which
seems quite reasonable to me. So as another data point, I'd have
to split
the lot into two or three crates in order to send it.
Thanks for any experience you can share.
-----
Jim Battle == frustum(a)pacbell.net