IBM 3725

Well, I have a bit of a dilemma and I am seeking advice. (No flames, please.) As so many on this list I abhor seeing things scraped if they are useful. As with much of the older mainframe stuff, however, it is very big, and an isolated unit is not generally useful by itself. So here is my problem. Our museum is a part of a big state university. I go by the surplus department once in a while and see some interesting stuff that I take back to our space and add to our inventory. If it has a residual value on the books then it is transferred to our department. If it is not on the books then I just take it and there is no record of it. In the latter cases I have been known to swap newer stuff for other older stuff we are interested in. Yesterday I went by and there was a nice IBM 3725 front end processor. It is not anything attractive for a museum visitor to look at. It takes up a lot of valuable display space (roughly 2 racks & about 5' tall) for something kind of obscure (for most people) and not at all visually interesting. Now I have no idea what our surplus department generally does with such things. Assuming that there is no actual market for it, I could probably go over there and get it for our museum. Right now I could probably even store it, at least until something more attractive came along. On the other hand, when we get to the point that we are a bona-fide museum, with lots of visitors, I can see raising some much needed cash by parting this thing out. I am sure there are lots of boards and control panels that could be sold individually. I would envision tagging these parts as being a souvenir of the museum, much as I will with punched cards, 8" floppy disks, 5-1/4" disks, etc. I guess a third alternative would be to sell or trade it to somebody on the list for something that is more visually interesting and perhaps smaller. Gil We don't sing because we're happy - We're happy because we sing! mailto:gilcarrick at comcast.net? web page: http://goodtimeschorus.org/ Gil Carrick VP Chapter Development/ Webmaster 1012 Portofino Dr., Arlington, TX, 76012 817-274-2210