road trip to the MARCH museum, was Re: Museum for sale

On Jan 22, 2010, at 4:46 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: Sure it is. Look at it from the users' standpoint. It's nowhere near as big of an experience as an afternoon spent in a real physical museum (like the MARCH museum in NJ), but it's definitely worthwhile and can serve at least part of the same purpose. Perhaps we need a different term for online museums. ;) About real museums...I've not really had a spare few minutes to mention this, but a couple of months ago I had the pleasure of visiting the MARCH museum in NJ. I was on a road trip to retrieve a (non-vintage) mainframe from Boston for my employer, and had the opportunity to help the MARCH crew relocate part of a Burroughs L7000 system from Delaware to their facility in NJ, since I was heading through that area with a mostly-empty truck. Unfortunately Bill was sick that day and was unable to help me load the Burroughs system, but I got it done myself, and the museum folk threw me a few bucks to help with the fuel expenses. The L7000's console was in the basement and I couldn't get it up the stairs myself, so that stayed behind until enough manpower is available to move it. It's pretty heavy. The main unit, a wheeled cabinet-like structure with a formica (I think) top that forms a sort of table, contains a big stack of boards and two of the most unusual hard disk drives I've ever seen. That part was already upstairs and only needed a little bit of hefting to load into my liftgate-equipped truck. Sridhar took a train down and met me at the museum, where we hung out with Evan for most of the night. The three of us offloaded the L7000's main unit and got it situated in a holding area...a room so full of goodies that I could barely concentrate on what I was doing. Evan then gave me a truly fantastic multi-hour tour of the facility. I got to touch the "holy grail" of my world, a Straight-8, as well as another machine that I've always been fascinated with, an IBM System 38. I also got to type BASIC statements on a chicklet-keyboard Commodore PET, which was, well, interesting! ;) I'm absolutely thrilled to have touched a Straight-8. I've drooled over that machine for, oh, almost 30 years. There's also a pristine PDP-11/20 there, which is also a "biggie" for me. I really enjoyed seeing that. The guys are running a really nice operation up there, and it's definitely worth a trip to see it. I was kinda rushed on my trip, and was a bit sleep-deprived while I was there so I didn't get to spend as much time as I would've liked. When finances permit I hope to spend a few days up there and help them get some of their DEC stuff beaten into shape. (that is, if I can actually convince Evan that I know my way around DEC stuff! ;) *poke!*) As a brief aside, a few other interesting things happened on that trip. First, I picked up an IBM System/36 model 5360 (the big one) have a 5360 as well, so when we have time we'll bring them up and compare notes. Next, I acquired a DEC PDP-14, which I hope to take some pictures of soon. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL