PDPs in the garage

do you you think it's in the I live in a rural area outside of Portland. It is a little colder up here in the winters, and cooler in the summer. Typically, the humidity is a little higher because there is a large stream that flows through our property. I would never consider storing my PDP 11/34a or PDP 8/e in the garage. They are in a temperature and humidity-controlled shop building with concrete floor, and have been there for seven years, with no adverse effect. For a time, while this place was being built, I did have them in a garage for storage. It is a thing that I regretted. They were only in there for about 9 months (a friend's garage in SE Portland from around April through November, so it got the summer heat, and winter coolness and humidity). I put them on platforms made of 2x6's to space them up off the floor. I wrapped the racks in plastic stretch wrap, and put three large bags of desiccant in the base of each rack, with the bags in plastic pans. I locked the RL02's and RK05's. I put mouse/rat poison in the platform, as well as some regular "baited" spring traps to try to avoid critter issues. I did everything I could think of to keep them as safe as possible. It was a waste of time.. When I retrieved the systems, mice had gotten in, left waste, along with chunks of the mouse poison all over the place, and a lot of 'fuzz' (looked like stuffing from sleeping bags or lawn chairs) that they used to make nests. There were dead mice (from the poison) in numerous places, and their corpses made a mess. They also chewed on some power cords and other wires, exposing conductors. Despite the dessicant, there was surface rust on un-painted surfaces. The lubricant in the paper tape punch turned into a sticky goo. Fortunately, the mice didn't get into the disk drives, nor did they hang out in the CPU chassis. Fortunately, they tended to stick around the bottom of the racks, by the power distribution units and the paper tape unit in the PDP 8/e rack. The result is that it took me almost a year in spare time to "un-do" the damage that had been done in nine months. No damage was permanent, but it was a pain in the butt that I'd not care to repeat. My recommendation -- build a platform in your daylight basement to put the machine on that will distribute the load over a larger area if you are concerned about the floor structure. Spreading the load over a larger area reduces the weight per square foot, which provides for better structural loading. Either that, or figure out how to rodent-proof the garage, and provide environmental controls to keep the heat and cold (and humidity) swings to a reasonable range. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com