Upon closer examination: 1) It's missing a board in the MEMPRT slot. Probably means the memprt board is missing, but could be the boards were shuffled around by someone who didn't know what they are doing too and it's another board missing. If it's the DCPC or M.E.M. board missing (the only other two boards slots in that area) - well, not a great system to say the least. Makes me suspect someone pulled the board for other use. 2) There appears to be one controller and one memory board. This machine only has 64K (I didn't bother to look up the exact board number - this could be a 64KB or 64KW board - HP labeled them both ways over time). Regardless, 64KB or KW, either way, isnt a lot for an RTE6/VM system. Odd. Almost suspicious. Every RTE6 systems I've gotten my hands on has had almost a full complement of memory. Also, for small memory cables, smaller daisy chain cables were usually used. While not a clear indicator, my first blush gut feeling is someone has pulled memory cards from this unit. 3) Two front panel switches are broken. This is very bad. I don't believe those switches are repairable, and switches 2 & 3 are quite common targets for boot loader use. Wouldn't be fun to try and live without them. 4) The machine is an F series, but, it's missing the Floating Point box. Without it, it ain't really an F machine to me anyways. The floating point unit on the F is a rackmount box racked right along side the cpu. No floating point box, and you almost can just consider it an E series machine which is common as dirt. 5) There is clearly something braindead with this unit. It may be as simple as the battery backup option is installed but no battery is connected. But the "all register select lights on" in the picture is a yellow flag for sure. 6) Very low on the I/O card cage. BACI board is good, but as I've found, can be problematic unless you have a 246X terminal to go with it. Using a regular terminal on a BACI board works for most diagnostics, but definitely doesn't work right for RTE and all the RTE utilities. Bus I/O isn't one of the more fun cards to play with. 7) Seller lists "lots of hardware and software docs on CDROM". Do I smell a bitsavers copier? 8) There is a lot of stuff he lists on the ebay ad that is correct and detailed knowledge. But there is a lot of other things mentioned in the ad copy that indicate someone who doesn't have a CLUE. Either one is perfectly fine, but the dichotomy is a yellow flag to me. All this for $800 bucks? Ludicrous. Based on a long history of acquisitions of HP 21MX gear, I would estimate the cpu with the above deficiencies to go for about $120 to $160 on ebay, and that's allowing for uninformed overzealous bidders. Honestly, I think such a machine is worth around $40 bucks. $800... hell... even $200 for a machine in that state is just... insane. Jay

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 04:23:10 -0800 (PST), Vintage Computer Festival <vcf(a)siconic.com> wrote: Exactly, I know if I had one and was stupid enough to put it on ebay I would get ?20 for it. Dan