At 09:45 PM 7/21/01 -0700, Sellam Ismail wrote: Oh, you're just saying that because I made you look up "cloaca". :-) That box would've been nice, but I'd rather have good relations with the folks for the next thing I want that's actually sell-able and unmarked in price. I'd also like to find the real Dumpster where all this goes. I suspect they have one of those enclosed compactors behind an overhead door. Bummer. I used to get quite a lot of stuff from their old open Dumpsters - especially all the disks and manuals they'd toss that week. The last I got was three years ago or so, when I got an ASR-33 Those paying close attention would also note that a year or so ago, I bought a stack of mag tapes from this place that were almost 20 years old that actually contained files I worked on when I was working for the university. While an IBM hardcover box looks like "software" to them, apparently mag tapes don't. Similarly, they don't religiously zap software from systems unless they're PC-compatible, so the SGI Indigo that some guy got for $25 this week probably still had Irix and e-mail on the hard disk. The desire to enforce policy apparently ends at having to learn much about the system they're selling. Fortunately, this also extends to pricing. A few months ago I got a pair of Spectra Logic Bullfrog robotic backup libraries for $25 each. Each had 4 DDS-3 tape units in it, and the carousel held 58 tapes, so this puppy can handle more than 450 gigs. I eBay'd one for $400 or so and kept the other. I thought it should've gone for much more. A Wisconsin state agency paid $31,000 for it in 1996, according to Spectra's customer history. - John