On Feb 2, 2010, at 12:49 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: 8-) -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Feb 2, 2010, at 12:52 PM, Keith wrote: Smartass. ;) But no, sorry, not true. These machines don't need to be replaced every six months, so they're far more economical than PC garbage. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Tue, 2 Feb 2010, Keith wrote: That tends to be increased productivity. Zane

On 2/2/10 10:15 AM, "Keith" <keithvz at verizon.net> wrote: I far prefer my mac-pro to any of the commodity pc hardware I have.

What is the auction number? On Feb 2, 2010, at 8:17 PM, dwight elvey wrote: Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com

What a surprise, a Poly collector... I have a 8813 with the 88/DS drives with all the sales literature I got from a local dealer. I've had this machine since 1981. Do't really here much discussons about it or hear much from Ralph Kenyon these days about the Poly Letter news letter he publish once upon a time.. Dan ----- Original Message ----- From: "dwight elvey" <dkelvey at hotmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 8:17 PM Subject: Poly8813 on ebay Hi I thought I'd mention that there is a Poly 8813 ( actually a 8812 ) on ebay. One of the pictures shows me with a working machine but the machine on ebay is not my machine ( although it might be thought as being mine ). It is one of the two machine that mine was one of that is mentioned on one of the web pages and serial numbers. The working state of the one on the web is unknown to me. I would be willing to help, anyone that buys the machine, to bring it to life. I can provide a boot disk, disk images and even help diagnose problems. I think his asking price is a little high but he seems to be open to offers as well. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft?s powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/201469226/direct/01/

I still use my thinkpad Pentium 233 (yes!) everyday, running windows 2000 and doing embbedded programming on it, running office, etc. (of course, I'm open to offers of newer thinkpads, maybe someone has a spare lying as a doorstopper, who knows? :D)

On Tuesday 02 February 2010, Keith wrote: Wow, off-topic on the 3rd reply. I think that's a new record. :( Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

the plotter is in poor condition: 1. The drum is damaged. You'll probably have to fix that before it will be able to plot properly. 2. It is dirty. 3. There are no cables. Cables are harder to find than the plotter itself. 4. No pen. It will be challinging to get a pen holder for the plotter. 5. No trace of paper. Getting paper for this kind of plotter seems to be difficult to impossible (correct me if I'm wrong, still hoping..!!!). So don't worry about being broke - that fact saves you from throwing out your money for useless stuff :-) -- http://www.hachti.de

That's good! Especially the paper! So please compare the second part of your statement (the words after "if") with the photograph on eBay: The solenoid assembly is missing completely. If it plots, it's nice. But this unit also has some bumps on the drum. And no solenoid assembly. If there are bumps on the drum you'll probably run in trouble with the (nonexistant) solenoid. My experience. Regards, Philipp :-) -- http://www.hachti.de

I should put one of those on eBay... The one who pays $200 for the plotter will probably pay some $100 more for the pen holder! Hm, if you don't insist on a perfect aluminium surface....like me.... I used the stuff you use for your car to fill some holes on a 563 drum. Looks ugly, feels smooth - and works again. Regards, Philipp -- http://www.hachti.de

Hi, Yes, but that has to be done. I had a 563 not lifting the pen correctly over such a little dent... It's easily done. Cheap. And takes less than one hour of work. Other thing is to replace the rubber belts inside (for the paper roll drive). But that's not too important. Not?!? I suspect that selling something nice and clean and - most important - without the remark "untested and sold as is" will bring way more. It's easy to test the plotter. On eBay "untested" usually is an euphemism for "I tried to get it working but it didn't work. But I won't tell you that. Just know that I guarantee for nothing". I find those plotters on a regularly basis. Not one time several units. But one here, one there etc. The first came from scrap, the second for EUR 1 from eBay (complete with cables), the third one came with the 11/40 (that cost me some money - about a quarter of the transport costs). The fourth (long one) was luckily found elsewhere. And between all finds lay several months. And they were not related by any means. So I can say that those units are still dropping in from time to time. What I don't have are the ink pens. I'm still looking for them. BTW it's the same with Teletype ASR33 and 35. In fact it's not always easy to get rid of those if they're not in pristine condition. Some work, yes. Or probably cash. But not both :-) As I posted below: I could provide one. Will probably put it on eBay and post the link. Regards, Philipp -- http://www.hachti.de

----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 1:13 PM Subject: Re: Selling Calcomp 565 plotter Hmm, every time I see a deal on Amiga equipment it seems to be in FL (all the good stuff you want is always somewhere else I guess).

----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 1:34 PM Subject: Re: Selling Calcomp 565 plotter A year or so ago there was all kinds of cheap/free stuff from people losing their homes and not having anywhere to take their collections (in FL but happens all over now). Sad to see actually. Yea, anything pre 1980's seems to be rare anywhere these days. Even newer stuff is rare in some areas. I tripped over a DEC MicroVAX last week at a recycler, which is rare in my area. If you want older stuff you need to be in larger cities where the stuff was purchased new and used. I bet anything ever made can be found in the NYC area, of course there are millions of other would be collectors looking there too.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 1:59 PM Subject: Re: Selling Calcomp 565 plotter Different forums I read before heading to bed. The problem with those deals is finding somebody local to pick items up since the owners are in a big hurry to get out and can't be shipping things all over (or they would have gone to ebay to begin with). A few years back I got a free loaded A3000 (just paid a local friend to ship it) when a guy had to relocate for work ASAP and since few people lived in that area of AZ ended up junking a garage full of vintage gear. My friend made out with a few old Apple items like the original portable. I would have been in heaven if I was close enough to drive a truck there. We had something like a weeks notice from the time he posted the stuff on a forum to grab what we could before it all hit the dumpster. I don't have the emails handy for the item list, but quite a few things worth some money ended up in a landfill. Another goldmine is the kid who gets tons of vintage gear from who knows where and their parents make them get rid of it all after the house gets overrun. I see that happen way too often in the mac croud. I don't know about that, they seem to have major laws about selling untested old electronics there, and seem to have a passion for crunching any circuit board with lead solder on sight. All their vintage gear is going to the trash heap with 10 foot (sorry 3 meter) fences with guards to keep people Yea I got it, 3100-85. Will play around with it a bit and probably pass it on to a DEC collector from this list. Anybody have a spare DEC serial cable with those MJJ plugs? The recycler here sometimes get a semi load from places like Cleveland (maybe Pittsburgh) to take apart. I think that is where the microvax came from, same with a bunch of PS/2 machines last year. They are currently crunching a bunch of rackmount computers and misc consumer grade computers. I go every friday and dig around. I suggest you find a small time recycler in the area and see what shows up.

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: My parents, too. In high school (1982), I had a PDP-8/L and a PDP-8/i in my room. Still have them. The fun part was wheeling the empty H960 rack down the street when I moved into my first college apartment.

My childhood seems so deprived by comparison. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland either. -- Boston mayor Kevin White

I am looking for some photos of the H960 rack doors. Also, does anyone have any H960 doors available? Thanks. Todd Paisley

Hi Paul. I am located in Maryland. I am looking for the rear door. Thanks! Todd. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Anderson" <useddec at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 12:38 AM Subject: Re: H960 Rack Doors

On Feb 9, 2010, at 2:15 PM, Philipp Hachtmann wrote: PDPs weren't so "vintage" when I got into them. I used a PDP-11/23 at work to maintain wire lists in 1985-1987. I got my first PDP-11 at home, an 11/34a, in (I think) 1986 when I was 17. I got a PDP-8/e about two years before that, but it was nonfunctional for a long time. Lucky man! Yes I do; I count myself as fortunate. I love my machines and I'm very glad to have them. I work at home, and one very large room in my house is my office. An entire wall of my office, and most of another wall, is a row of racks: http://www.neurotica.com/misc/wall-o-pdp.jpg There's more behind where I was standing when I took the picture, but you get the idea. And there's now a PDP-11/50 where the leftmost RK07 is in that picture. When I get it a bit better organized I'll take better pictures. I also have a large stash of other machines in my garage...a great many Qbus PDP-11s, a PDP-10, a few Cray vector supers.. As well you should. ;) Why would anyone throw a perfectly functional computer, any computer, in the trash? But I understand; I made some bad decisions years ago also. I didn't think far enough ahead. When I got into PDP hardware, there was no "classic computing hobby"; they were machines I used (and liked!) at work and I managed to get lucky and get one at home. Then another, then another...But I never dreamed they'd be considered a "collection". I sold and gave away many things that I later regretted. Since then I've been very lucky to get most of those things back. Thanks to some people on this list, I now have a GIGI (actually two!) and a VAX-11/750, for example...two things I owned back before they were antiques and stupidly sold, and missed ever since. True. I'll pay it (when I'm able), though, to get a 565. Please do! I appreciate it greatly. Wow, that's a nice set of pens! And what a beautiful wooden box they're in! That reminds me very much of some of my antique Leeds & Northrup instrument collection. Yes, you read that right. Many people here think ASR33s are everywhere, easy to find, and worth nothing. Well, maybe if you're in Silicon Valley or Boston, but nowhere else. I've known several people who have them, but nobody who has ever been willing to part with one. I even had two deals lined up in which I was going to drive to NJ and then to South Carolina to pick one up, but in both cases, someone else offered more money (about $200 and $250) and they were sold without my even being able to make a counter-offer. It wasn't until just this past year when my old friend Andrew up at M.I.T. gave me TWO ASR-33s, one working and one "almost" working. I gave one to Sridhar, and the other one adorns my living room. (right next to the Friden Flexowriter, wheee!) I live in southwest Florida, about 2/3 of the way down on the west coast of the state, right near the Gulf of Mexico. I've wondered that too. Here, when something is six months old, it's "garbage" and is sent to a recycler. In other cases, often there are kickbacks involved; recyclers bribe managers to decommission equipment very early in its life cycle, which the recyclers then sell and make a lot of money...some of which then comes back to the managers. It's disgusting. I'm glad to hear it! I would love to! Perhaps someday I will! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Feb 10, 2010, at 5:15 AM, e.stiebler wrote: Such decisions are usually regretted later. Nowadays I make sure I state that I might want the item back at some point in the future. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Feb 9, 2010, at 4:20 PM, William Donzelli wrote: Holy cow!! -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

Dave McGuire wrote: That reminds me -- saw a complete ASR-33 w/pedestal mount in an antique store in Seattle over the weekend. Looked to be in decent condition (obviously no idea if it's in working order). I believe they wanted just around $300, which seemed a bit spendy for my tastes, but I thought I'd mention it in case anyone in the area was interested. Address: Pacific Galleries 241 South Lander Street, Seattle, WA 98134 - Josh

He came, he shopped, he scored! This machine is now in its new home at the Living Computer Museum. It's in beautiful cosmetic shape and is surprisingly clean inside, showing evidence of low hours. The only issue with the machine is that its keyboard is stuck and needs to be lubricated - SOP, according to our resident expert. We plan to hook this up to the PDP-8/e we have on the exhibit floor. Hey Josh, thanks for sharing! -- Ian

I reparied my first ASR33 over 25 years ago. At the time I didn't have the 3 grey books, so I just took it completely apart, figured out how it should work, cleaned all the parts, put oil in the appropriate places, and put it back toguther. I still remeebr goign rounf all the local tool shops looking for a 9/64" allen key (used for the bolts hold the rear carriage rail in place) -- this is a common size in the States, but not included in most UK sets. No it didn;'t work first time. I had the print supression linkage way out of adjustment, so it tried to print something even when it received a control code. The second ASR33 I repaired was a lot easier. Firstly because I had the experience amd secondly becuase I had the manuals... -tony