16 Feb
1998
16 Feb
'98
6:28 p.m.
How often do these come up for sale? A Cray, about 6 or 7 years old,
apparntly, is being sold in Australia. They're asking $100,000, which
puts it a tad out of my range. :) However, if it isn't sold it will be
scrapped - I wonder if they will accept a couple of cartons of beer over
whatever the scrap offer is?
Anyone want it? :)
Adam.
17 Feb
17 Feb
6:47 p.m.
On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, Adam Jenkins wrote:
How often do these come up for sale? A Cray, about 6
or 7 years old,
apparntly, is being sold in Australia. They're asking $100,000, which
puts it a tad out of my range. :) However, if it isn't sold it will be
scrapped - I wonder if they will accept a couple of cartons of beer over
whatever the scrap offer is?
Well, I personally doubt anyone will actually pay that amount since you
could get similar computing power from a contemporary PC for a fraction of
that price, so that rules out anyone wanting to buy it to put it to useful
work, which leaves only the possibility that a collector or musuem would
buy it, but again, not for that amount. I say wait for them to move on to
the decision to scrap it and then try to bid on it.
But it won't be cheap.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (across the street from my
neighborhood) auctioned off their Cray in 1993 and it was sold for $10,000
to some oaf who said he could get lots of gold out of it and was thus very
excited (there was a newspaper article about it). I was incensed, but oh
well. I expect there will be similarly high bidding by the scrappers on
this poor guy as well.
Anyone want it? :)
Sure, but I think the shipping would put me back a few bucks.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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7:14 p.m.
At 16:47 2/17/98 -0800, Sam Ismail wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, Adam Jenkins wrote:
> How often do these come up for sale? A Cray, about 6 or 7 years old,
> apparently, is being sold in Australia. They're asking $100,000, which
> puts it a tad out of my range. :) However, if it isn't sold it will be
> scrapped....
$US or $A? Incidentally.
[snip]
I say wait for them to move on to
the decision to scrap it and then try to bid on it.
But it won't be cheap.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (across the street from my
neighborhood) auctioned off their Cray in 1993 and it was sold for $10,000
to some oaf who said he could get lots of gold out of it....
Tony Cole, who didn't scrap it -- he set up a company called Memorybilia,
pulled the boards, and sold them onesies, then managed to get the framework
erected somewhere as a sculpture. He did well enough out of the first one
that he repeated the process with several more.
Sure, but I think the shipping would put me back a few
bucks.
The CRAY-1 that went from Livermore to the History Center last year was
reputed to have weighed about six tons. From Oz to Northern CA, mmmm....
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
7:56 p.m.
Well, I personally doubt anyone will actually pay that
amount since you
could get similar computing power from a contemporary PC for a fraction of
that price
Umm, really...
Even a low end EL would waste a hotshot PeeCee in a real world number
crunch contest. A Pentium II (or Alpha, or UltraSPARC II) just can not
keep up a good, sustained vector flow like a Cray. Getting a decent 100
Mflops is very hard to do on a desktop system today, but not for a ca.
1976 Cray-1. If this Cray for sale is a decent Y/MP type, it could
probably sustain many hundreds of Mflops, perhaps into a Gflop.
And then there is the issue of the memory bandwidth...
so that rules out anyone wanting to buy it to put it
to useful
work, which leaves only the possibility that a collector or musuem would
buy it, but again, not for that amount. I say wait for them to move on to
the decision to scrap it and then try to bid on it.
But it won't be cheap.
RCS/RI is going to have to look into this...
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
18 Feb
18 Feb
12:36 a.m.
Sam Ismail wrote:
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (across
the street from my
neighborhood) auctioned off their Cray in 1993 and it was sold for $10,000
to some oaf who said he could get lots of gold out of it and was thus very
excited (there was a newspaper article about it). I was incensed, but oh
well. I expect there will be similarly high bidding by the scrappers on
this poor guy as well.
Did the cops catch up with you after you caught up with him? Did he die
slowly enough to encourage the rest of us to discourage the metal dealers?
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan: How many years must some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd: If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
they'll never be free.
10:33 a.m.
On Wed, 18 Feb 1998, Ward Donald Griffiths III wrote:
I must've read about a totally different guy, because Frank pointed me to
another story about some local guy who it seems bought several Cray's and
put one on exhibit at a local computer museum. He's taken parts and
boards from others which he has encased in Lucite and sells as
"memory-bilia" to nerds.
His story can be found at the URL Frank posted:
http://www.sjmercury.com/columnists/cassidy/docs/mc011898.htm
The story I read back in 1993 quoted the guy as saying he would scrap it
for the precious metals. Might have been the same guy but maybe someone
pointed out the scarcity of Cray's to him and he had a change of heart.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
The Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratories (across the street from my
neighborhood) auctioned off their Cray in 1993 and it was sold for $10,000
to some oaf who said he could get lots of gold out of it and was thus very
excited (there was a newspaper article about it). I was incensed, but oh
well. I expect there will be similarly high bidding by the scrappers on
this poor guy as well.
Did the cops catch up with you after you caught up with him? Did he die
slowly enough to encourage the rest of us to discourage the metal dealers?
17 Feb
17 Feb
7:46 p.m.
How often do these come up for sale? A Cray, about 6
or 7 years old,
apparntly, is being sold in Australia. They're asking $100,000, which
puts it a tad out of my range. :) However, if it isn't sold it will be
scrapped - I wonder if they will accept a couple of cartons of beer over
whatever the scrap offer is?
Unless they find a sucker, they are going to get a couple thousand for it.
What kind is it? That make a big difference. If it is a Y/MP-EL, it is
probably worth about $50 in scrap.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
18 Feb
18 Feb
11:07 p.m.
Is there an OpenBSD port for it?
.,.
U
-Mike
Adam Jenkins wrote:
How often do these come up for sale? A Cray, about 6 or 7 years old,
apparntly, is being sold in Australia. They're asking $100,000, which
puts it a tad out of my range. :) However, if it isn't sold it will be
scrapped - I wonder if they will accept a couple of cartons of beer over
whatever the scrap offer is?
Anyone want it? :)
Adam.
9820
days inactive
9822
days old
7 comments
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participants (6)
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adam＠merlin.net.au -
dastar＠wco.com -
engine＠chac.org -
gram＠cnct.com -
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william＠ans.net