On 14/05/2014 22:29, Robert Jarratt wrote:
-----Original
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From: cctalk-bounces at
classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at
classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Dave
Sent: 14 May 2014 21:44
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Buying something from a museum (was Re: Whats in a straight 8
On 14/05/2014 21:27, Tony Duell wrote:
> And
just to make it clear, the Computer History Museum has a policy
> that NOTHING offered or in our collection is EVER sold.
That means? Everything that ever arrives at CHM will never leave again?
I personally do not like "black hole policies". They mean that the
CHM wouldn't even help out a collector like me with a spare part it
would never need again...
Certainly many UK museusm do have a 'black hole
policy' as you put it.
And this is one reason (the main reason) why I will not donate
anything to a museum.
I would rather my machines get used and enjoyed than sit i na museum
store soemwhere.
Incidentaly, my expeirence suggests that msueums have a similar policy
with information. I have never had a useful reply to a quesiton from
_any_ UK museum (not jsut comptuer ones). Perhaps I've been unlucky,
but I find private colelctors a lot more helpful.
-tony
Tony,
That i s odd because I have generally had helpful replies from all the
people
I
have contacted, at MOSI, The Science Museum and
The National Museum of
Computing in the UK and Al at CHM. Al has been especially help full and
re-
scanned documents with missing pages, and helped
me search the software
archives.
One great thing about MOSI is that any one can visit the MOSI collections
centre and view any of the objects in on-site storage. They were quite
happy to
show me the PDP-8 archives they have (sorry for
the long URL) which are
briefly descried here:-
http://emu.msim.org.uk/htmlmn/collections/online/archivedisplay.php?irn=331
48&QueryPage=%2Fhtmlmn%2Fcollections%2Fonline%2Fdetailedsearch.php&s
ection=
That link says there are tapes there. It would certainly be worth checking
if they contain anything unique.
I think they are paper tapes. There is no magnetic
tape drives with the
machine and no sign of any external peripherals. I looked in two boxes
on Thursday taken at random from the 15. One contained a paper tape
"Magazine" similar to the one in the link below, with a diagram on
connecting some kind of counter.
http://www.retrotechnology.com/pdp11/11_20_PTS.html
I don't think there was anything unique on them, they were Focal,
Diagnostics etc. The box other contained an OS8 manual.
Would the museum let you try to get the
tapes read to recover the contents?
I don't think there is anything unique. If there was what was done with
it would depend on many things, including making sure the artifact
wasn't damaged in the process, copyright and licence status, returns to
the museum....
Regards
Rob
Dave
G4UGM