9 Mar
2007
9 Mar
'07
3:18 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Andrew Back wrote:
I can only speak to my own reasons. It really comes down to 2 issues.
When I started collecting DEC hardware it was pretty cheap on the
surplus market. My 11/05 cost $50.00
US and was runnable. Another $150 and I had a pair of RX01's. The most
expensive part was RAM. 56K semiconductor RAM $200....Full address
space, priceless.
I know DEC never did semiconductor RAM for the 11/05
But I did ;-) I've still got the artwork around here
somewhere.
The cost still continues to be reasonable. Just look
at the E-pay listings for q-bus. toss out the bottom-feeders and you can
put a system together
for a few hundred.
Dec documents were (and still are) available, mostly for free. A lot of
people around here (central FL)
were running DEC most everything was just a photocopy away.
joe
Thanks for the replies... I should have guessed
at the value of a
Straight-8 given I too have never seen one for sale and their form is
of somewhat iconic status.
An 8/E would seem much more pragmatic, and the cost from a reseller
if still stocked and not risen too much pallatable. Will look into it
more and the benefits before decided to part with other kit.
Incidentally the first computer I owned (a 2U high PDP11/03 IIRC) had
an RX02 drive.
I feel the need to ask - what is it that makes DEC stuff so popular
and collectible, versus other machines of the same time period?
Generally they're equally as interesting, and often more so (IMHO) due
to all the quirks and design differences versus the more mainstream
DEC stuff.
So... why? More of a community? Better documentation? Better hardware
or software availability? What do collectors *do* with their running
DEC systems anyway?
I'm not knocking the DEC crowd in any way - just trying to work out
what it is that makes the systems so much more popular than anything
else of the time. I feel like I'm missing some vital piece of info :-)
cheers
Jules