New subject: VAXen (was Re: Approaching Scrappers)

19 Oct 1999

You are quite right Mike.

I personally know some of the owners/controllers of some of the largest
scrap companies (thats how I get all my minis) and the guys I deal with get
contracts to level factories and mills. They don't know what a PDP 8 is and
don't care. They want  to either relocate some of the major machinery or
melt it before setting the explosives in the building. Most of these
companies don't care if you'd be willing to pay $1000 or even $2000 for a
PDP as most of the contracts they get are worth millions.

Best approach I have found is accept ANY and ALL minis/mainframes that come
their way. I don't dicker with them and don't him and ha... If they have an
old  Wang or some old IBM then I take it anyway and scrap it for parts...

A company I am going into at the end of this month has minis that were
installed before 1968. No one has any idea what they are and no one cares.
The factory is being levelled in middle November and anything that is left
will have the building dropped on it. (I did however find out from a prior
purchasing officer that the systems I am pulling out are:

Vax 11/780 - yuck, I'll trash that.
IBM 360 and/or Classic PDP 8 (seems they possibly had both)
and other minis that controlled various processes

The controller refered to old system as a "huge computer that filled up a
room , we didn't get rid of it because it wasn't worth moving".

If you have deep pockets to buy every computer mini they find in an old
factory then you can score quite often.

john

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Ford &lt;mikeford(a)socal.rr.com&gt;
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt;
Date: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 3:36 PM
Subject: Re: Approaching Scrappers

...
  on them, but to
no avail.  They have bigger fish to fry
(like aircraft fuselage assembly jigs, for example). 
Man I am really suffering from rejection. One of the salvage joints I like
just made the back room closed to everybody including me. Bigger fish to
fry, insurance, theft, etc. and now nobody can look in the boxes. I'm
getting a bit shaky already, and the withdrawal hasn't even hit strong yet.
I gotta find a new yard to poke in soon, or who knows what could happen (I
might fix the upstairs toilet or something crazy).

Maybe my point is approach with caution. Like it or not, you aren't the
thing that pays the bills at the end of the month. They may like that cash
once in awhile, but don't do ANYTHING to disturb the main money flow. Help
out if you can and the person wants it, ie sort out a box of cables etc.

Nothing gets you in tighter with a scrapper than giving them leads. Give
them a contact that pans out with a contract, or even a one time deal, and
they may even answer your phone calls.