To change a lightbulb and move a VAX

Earlier this evening, I went down the basement to do some laundry and noticed that one of the lightbulbs had burned out, over where I keep some of my computer equipment. I only walked back there with the intention of changing the light bulb, but, after the discussions about VMS and VAXen, I noticed my VAX 4000-200 sitting, all forlorn, under the basement steps, and underneath a TRS-80, which was underneath an HP 9825B. The VAX deserved better than that, to be closer to my sound equipment, PERQs, Sun Sparcserver 1000, Sun Ultra, Sun 4/110 and it's stack of four shoeboxes, a Microvax and PowerMacs, etc. Moving it, however, wasn't easy, but I didn't think about that. Firstly, there was a rather narrow passagway in front of the VAX---just, barely, wide enough for the VAX, since opposite the VAX is shelving. Just past the shelves is a not-easily movable tall file cabinet, just inside the area where I wanted to move the VAX to. One little problem: to get the VAX to its destination, I couldn't move the filecabinet too easily (no place to move it to!). Caddycorner to file cabinet was a stack of equipment consisting of: as a base, a MicroVAX and Sun 3/150; sitting horizontally on top of those was a Sun 4/110, and on top of that were three Sun shoeboxes and one aftermarket shoebox. Atop the four shoeboxes was a Sun Ultra-1, and on top of that an 8mm tape drive. That entire stack was a few inches too close to the file cabinet to get the VAX through, even if removed from its base. I ended up disassembling that entire stack, and cabling, moving it back some distance, and reassembling it. But wait, that wasn't all of the fun! :-) Where I wanted to put the VAX was another pile of equipment, consisting of an HP-9000/300, an Apollo DN3500, a Sun 3/60, an IBM PC-AT and, on top of that, the little lightweight (sarcasm intended) Sun SparcServer 1000, with a PC monitor on top of that. The SparcStation 1000 now sits atop the VAX, with the other equipment being put where the VAX was. All of that was done in very cramped quarters... reminds me of that little game where one shuffles the little red and white numbered squares about to get them in the right order. All that work just because a light-bulb needed changing! Sound familiar? BTW, it only took one day for Encompass to issue my new membership ID. :-) -- Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.