In the UK, the somewhat perjorative term 'stamp collector' is used to describe somebody who just wants to amass a certain type of object (such as HP calculators) without ever using them, or understanding them, or... A story might illustrate the point. A few years ago I meat an enthuiast who owned an HP9100, but never turned it on, and would not let anyone touch it in case it lowered the value. The chap who visitied England mentiond this to me. My reaction was simple. I got one one of my 9100s, powered it up and let him play. I then took it apart and showed him how it worked. Maybe I lowered the value, but I don't buy these machines as an investment. So yes, I certainly have different goals to 'stamp collectors'. Whether I should be called a 'collector' is simply a matter of how you want to define the word and such arguments get boring fast! Notice I said 'sur them' -- the machines. You have nothing to fear :-) Alternatively, just assume I made a typo... -tony

Remember, a nice SGI system, isn't simply a computer, it's a work of art. For the most part the only computers I'd consider to be a work of art are some Apple and SGI systems. Zane

Machine I would consider "arty": - early E&S stuff before they went to boring beige boxes for everything - Televideo TS-802 - HP 262x - Pixar Image Computer - ADM-3/5/31 -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

Well, this degraded to the "list your favorite computer" thread. I can think of very few machines that could be called Great Examples of Industrial Design, worthy of a spot at showing at the Cooper-Hewitt. The only one that leaps to mind are the various Connection Machines, probably because they were designed by an artist. Most companies (SGI) try too hard, cramming the design down your throat while screaming in your ear (eye) LOOK AT ME! -- Will

Sun and IBM during the 1990s should get some credit for going against the flow with their cases. Sun, with SPARCstations, and well into the Ultra era, refused to cave into the trendy curves-and-blobs look that nearly everyone else did. Look at the cases - lots of straight lines, and that sort of girder looking theme the early Ultras had (most pronounced on some of the rack systems). Going the curves-and blobs route that nearly everyone else took was mostly for economics - cheaper cases. The die makers finally could make weird shaped molds consistently and cheaply, and when the plastic parts have lots of curves, they come out of the molds much easier and faster. In the plastics industry, the cost of a part is driven more by the time spent in the mold than the amount of material used. Cheaper cases - but call it industrial design. IBM should get an award for bringing black back into the computer center. It is never out of fashion... Yes, my original point. -- Will

Sridhar Ayengar wrote: Put it in a slightly larger perspex box. Pump the coolant [1] around the edges at the top and collect it again at the bottom, so that you get a pleasing "waterfall" effect cascading down the sides between the perspex and the inner shell. [1] You are going to use liquid coolant, right? :-)

Zane H. Healy wrote: Ahem. When I got my G5 I pulled the side panel to make sure nothing shook loose in shipping. It took me the better part of an hour to stop ooohing and aaahhing. Under the hood of a 1963 Mercedes Benz was the only thing I've ever seen that came remotely close. Totally gratuitous engineering. The Altos 5xx are sexy little beasties too. Doc

At 11:33 PM -0600 1/30/07, Doc Shipley wrote: The only computer I have whose insides are anywhere close to being as nice as that of a G5 tower just might be my PDP-11/73 in a BA123 Chassis. I love the BA123, but when it comes to cables, the current Mac towers beat it hands down. What computer other than a modern Mac tower fits together so perfectly (I've not been in the water cooled G5 or the Xeon towers, and they might not be quite so perfect). Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

William Donzelli wrote: I wonder if it's a question of setting; if I'm stuck in a small room with a modern-ish SGI (or even an office with lots of furniture and colour around) then I know exactly what you mean - but I find their styling a lot more pleasing on the eye when in a large "clinical-looking" datacentre.

This reminds me. Where did the name "Foonly" come from? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Reality is when it finally happens to you, too. ----------------------------

On 30/1/07 21:59, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: BeBox :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

??? Its a freaking big blue box. Or if it is not blue one - its a freaking big beige box. IBM was in the design doldrums for a good part of of 70s, most of the 80s, and some of the 90s. They improved greatly in the past ten years. -- Will

I think we were headed down the Industrial Design road with this thread, not the Computer Engineering road. In the former, the casing has everything to do with it. The innards are meaningless. If you come across another 9021, or even 9121, let me know. I still want one for my collection. I will just keep a big paper bag over it. -- Will

No...but it can sure look like it, because it's entirely possible for person A to want to do something that person B considers `damage'. Consider an "I just want it to work" person for A and a "must preserve the original machine" person for B.... /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Odd Cromemco system: http://cgi.ebay.com/CROMEMCO-SUPER-MICROCOMPUTER-VINTAGE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ… I've never seen this machine before. I had no idea Cromemco was into Unix. g.

Richard wrote: Thanks Richard! g.

On 1/31/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: Yes, but it's possible they moved to a real Unix at some point. With a 68010, this could have had a real virtual memory unix on it. The original Cromix started on their multiuser Z80 systems. I see the manuals at vt100.com. I wonder if anyone has disk images? If I had the $$ to ship it, I'd buy it just to archive the drive. Eric

On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 05:56 -0500, Dave Dunfield wrote: Is there any reason of which you are aware that would prevent the use of Cromix on a Z-2? Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net

doesn't it run CromIX? (which IIRC is a unix alike OS)

Tony Duell wrote: In situations such as this, and if the equipment is 'worth it', I attempt to make an 'adapter fitting', something that the replacement part will mount to and then itself mount in the old holes/position. Usually, but not necessarily always, this is feasible. In particular, I don't like drilling holes in steel chassis pieces, as one has then opened an edge in the plating where rust/corrosion can start (not such a big concern for aluminum). Of course, if an original replacement part turns up, perhaps from a too-far-gone piece of the the same equipment, the ill-fitting replacement and the adapter can be removed and you're back to 'original' state.

On 30/1/07 19:31, "Tony Duell" <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: You should move to the US mate :o) (yes I know it's a spollinf mistool but I couldn't resist) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

At the time, I had one home computer, a TRS-80 Model 1, which I'd owned interfaced to homebrew porjects. Oh, and a Casio AL1000 calculator, Teletype ASR33, and a few other bits. But not really a collection. What started me off was an advert in Wireless World magazine. A company in Cambridge (where I was studying at the time) was selling ASCII-encoded keyboard for \pounds 4.00 (IIRC). I was making a homebrew machine at the time and decided to get one (that was long before the days of cheap PC keyboards in every computer shop). Wanyway, when I got to said company, they also had a Philips P850 minicomputer for \pounds 25.00 (I was told it was essentially the scrap metal value). I knew nothing about it, I didn't have any minicomputers, etc, bnt it looked beautiful with its lights-and-switches panel. So I bought it (complete with the user and service manuals!), and got it back to my student room (This involved me going into the local taxi company and saking for 'a car with a boot big enough to put a mini in'. I got some very odd looks as they assemed I meant a Mini car...) Anyway, after looking at it a bit, I realised that while museums (at the time) were preserving some of the 'firsts' in computing, nobody was bothering with the once-common minis and micros, and that unless something was done, 20 years (then) of computer histroy would simply vanish. So I did something. A couple of hundred machines later, I am still doing something. -tony

In article <C1E60FAD.732A%witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk>, Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> writes: For me it was E&S equipment, but a very similar situation: work no longer supported the ESV and put them out by the loading dock free for the hauling. Actually quite a bit of stuff as well as ESVs were out there. They must have offloaded quite a bit of SGI gear when they closed that office, but that particular employer was a pretty bitter experience for the most part, so I didn't keep in touch. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

In article <C1E693F5.7355%witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk>, Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> writes: No, they closed the office a few years after I left and all the people who were worth staying in touch with had already left that office by the time they closed it. Moral of the story? Don't put salesman and marketing types in charge of a technology company -- they'll just run it into the ground while they get rich off their stock options. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>