11 Jan
2015
11 Jan
'15
2:51 a.m.
I talked to the owner maybe 6 months ago. It was a bizarre and difficult
interaction. He refused to let me see the units, and insisted I give him an
offer first. He would not even give me the list of the items he had. We went
into a circular discussion: that I couldn't give him an offer if I didn't
know nor see what the items were, to which he replied that if I were a
serious buyer I would make him an offer beforehand, therefore I was not
serious and he would not show me the items nor give me the list. So that was
not very helpful. Then later on he sent me 3 or 4 close up pictures of only
the name badges of some of the machines (one badge from HP, maybe two of
IBM). I got the distinct impression that either something was fishy or that
the guy had unreasonable expectations. Or maybe both. I just gave up. Looks
like you are faring much better than me, so that's positive. I am interested
in the IBM system, the tapes and tape controller units mainly, if you don't
want them.
Marc
On 1/9/15 6:38 PM, Lyle Bickley wrote:
When Bob and I initially talked to the owner, he told
us that what he
had was a major find for a collector. He spoke in glowing terms as to
the condition of the 4341 and the HP mini (de-installed from a running
environment and then stored for many years). So as you would expect,
Bob and I were very anxious to see both systems. What we found was a
serious disappointment. As Bob said, the 4341 and the HP mini were
crammed into a storage unit with lots of other junk. It was impossible
to see/determine what system components were actually there. There was
no way to know how complete or what features either system had.
Repeating what Bob said, everything was water damaged, rusty and in
poor condition - and I do mean everything. We told him that his asking
price was too high - and that the condition of the systems was so bad
we wouldn't even make him an offer. Lyle
Well that's a disappointment.
I'm still going to take a look at it
tomorrow...but I'm going to be prepared to walk away from it.
TTFN - Guy