Okay, I've been watching this thread with some disgust for a while now. I'm not really sure if i should even bother replying, but i guess i will anyway. It seems to me that the root of this whole thread is that some people don't agree with other people. Is this stating the obvious? Maybe, but it hasn't been addressed. It's a fact in a world as big as ours, with people as diverse as they are, that not everybody is going to agree with everything you think or believe. This in and of itself is not a problem. What is a problem is when I start thinking less of another person because they don't believe the same as I do. I think an example is in order. I have strong religious beliefs. Most of the people I work with don't have the same beliefs that I do. This doesn't mean that they are any less valuable as humans. It doesn't mean that I am superior to them. It doesn't mean that I should respect them less because they think differently than I do. I might even try to convince another person to join my religion/sect/denomination/whatever. If he/she joins me, great. If he/she doesn't, it doesn't mean that he/she is any less of a person or deserves any less respect because of it. Okay, the example is long-winded but I think it applies directly to Classic Computer Collecting. Most of us have political, religous, or moral beliefs. Most of the people on this list have beliefs about Classic Computer Collecting as well. I'm sure for many on this list, computer beliefs rank right up there with the others. It's only natural that a person who believes a classic computer should be kept in operational condition will react negatively to a another wishing to remove the CPU from a functional computer, rendering it non-functional. This person may even try to convince the other to not do it. Does this mean that either of these people is superior to the other? No. They simply believe different things. Back to the religion thing again... If I was giving something away, and a person wanted it to use it for some purpose which I am 'religiously' opposed to (I can't think of a good example off hand) I would probably try to find someone else to take the item. I think that this should be my right. (I do have the right to practice my religion, don't I?) I hope you can see how this applies directly to the computer issue. This is getting to be a much longer email than I had intended, and I could keep going on, but the short of it is: We all have our reasons for collecting (I think someone already said that in this thread) and we shouldn't think we are superior to another because they think differently. This also goes the other way. We shouldn't feel attacked just because someone else doesn't believe the same as we do and maybe even tries to convince us to believe the same as them. I just deleted another three lines... I really should stop here. This mailling list is supposed to be fun. Let's keep it that way. ttfn srw (Sorry about using 'they' and 'them' in singular context. I'm choosing politically correct over grammatically correct :-)

OK folks, I'm a lurker. I've never posted, and I feel ashamed that this message will be my first impression for the rest of this lists members. Enrico, will you please stop whining and say something relevant to this list? I'm a busy man, responsible for an elderly parent and lotsa lotsa expensive Sun hardware... my bosses give me little time to play. I'm here to read about Sym's & Kim's, ELF-II's, Altairs, LSI-11's, TRS-80's... in short, all the computers I grew up with as a kid and have lost because of foolish youth and multiple cross country moves. Can we *please* get back to the fun stuff? PS - when I was fifteen I built a PDP-11 from scrap parts out of DEC dumpsters... I'm sure you can do the same. I've seen this junk at flea markets, in commercial basements left by tennants long forgotten, at garage sales, in open dumps, on the sidewalk on trash day, and still find myself washing coffee grinds off my tee shirts, after a bit of dumpster diving, holding some neat piece of old junk I remember. Go get it like everyone else, by getting dirty and in the thick of it. Stop making an ass of yourself by suggesting that your collector collegues ought to go out of their way to help you for whatever reason. It's simple, if someone wants to help you they will. If not, they won't. If you want to ensure overseas delivery, may I suggest you attempt a business transaction with the seller, and offer him/her a healthy profit? This is one of the best ways of ensuring prompt delivery on your terms. Respectfully, J. Maynard Gelinas On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, e.tedeschi wrote: <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>

Although I don't necessary agree with the reason for the posting below, I do agree that I would like to see classic computer relevant postings in this group. I have subscribed for about 2 weeks now, and I am finding that the signal-to-noise ratio tends to be low. I have especially been disappointed with many postings that contain unnecessary profanity. But, I just installed Netscape Communicator 4.01 whose Messenger component provides reasonably flexible mail filters. I now have quite a few filters running that instantly delete any mail with profanity, and a few other selective rules, too. So, flame on! I'll never see them now! But, please continue with good, relevant classic computer postings! Dave J. Maynard Gelinas wrote:

And why not! It is better than all of the complaining lately... Best Dumpster treasure: Cray Y/MP boards. I did not get the goodies, but a buddy did. Apparently one had been decommissioned (and probably sold for scrap), but many of the spare parts were not included in the sale, so they were just thrown away. My personal best was finding a PDP-8/e that was literally thrown away, as in _dropped_ out of the building into the waiting container below. It was missing the bus loads card, so I could not test it. A few years later I found a proper board, and the machine worked with out a problem. DEC makes tough machines. William Donzelli william(a)ans.net

On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Brett wrote: [snip] Hehe. This stuff won't be thrown away for several years. However, there are a *lot* of sparc 1s, 2s, and Sun 3/xx equipment floating around out here. I just missed a sparc 2 base for $270 out at the M.I.T. flea two months ago - and I was there, like, at 9am start, and at the table within 15 minutes of opening. Damn! That sucked. Sparc 1s can be had as cheap as $70 bucks base. I know this isn't really on topic for people looking for 4 and 8 bit computers, but you have to admit these kinds of prices are significant considering what this box will do. Where I work has several Sparc 1s and IPC/IPX's floating around still in production. Most of them are bootp servers, X-Terms, or snmp log grabbers. It's amazing that a computer that old is still so useful. Yup. I seriously thought about the AIM deal that was floating around, but I have an opportunity for an original Apple II. Keyboard works, the system prom boots, but unfortunately he lost the disk controller. He still has the old full height 5 1/4" drive, however. This thing is quite dirty, and a few keys will have to be cleaned carefully with alchol, but it looks good. I'm curious to know if I need to find anything other than the floppy controller. Didn't Microsoft Basic come on a prom card? Or was that on the floppy controller card? Or was there at one point a mixed controller/BASIC card? This guy has the original Interger Basic... cool. I can't believe anyone can find 8" disks wihtout having to special order them. What are you checking, sheet metal factories? Now, what are you using to drive the print step motors? Do you have an interface to a PC, or are you going to something more esoteric? Do you machine the skeleton, or build it from parts like an erector set? I just dive the dumpsters, I'd rather not make a scene with some landlord. If it's in the trash, I figure it's public domain. Around here, poor folk (like I have been throughout much of my twenties) rely on trash scores for chairs, cheap tables, whatever. However, I live near Harvard U. and you have no *idea* what some of these students will thow away! And the computers... I have a friend that *just* collects 3b1's. You know, I may have a dissenting view here, but I think some of this stuff *ought* to go in the landfill. Sure, it will get destroyed, but landfills will be our legacy 500 years from now. It would be wonderful for a few high quality specimens of every type of computer made to survive in museums, but we also want to give our future archaeologists some reasonable sample of system distribution geographically. Oh well, disagree if you like. Cheers, J. Maynard Gelinas

On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, J. Maynard Gelinas wrote: What's he got to trade? That's my own personal favourite machine -- in my arrogant opinion the aesthetically finest machine ever made. (And I had my 3B1 for a couple of years before I went to work for Unisys at the old Convergent Technologies plant in San Jose). -- Ward Griffiths "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Claire Wolfe

On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, J. Maynard Gelinas wrote: Those future archaeologists are going to have to pry my computers out of my cold dead hands. Well, that's their job. -- Ward Griffiths "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Claire Wolfe

[followup scattered throughout text] On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Paul E Coad wrote: [snip] Sun hardware was damn sturdy. Their later servers - such as the current E3000 and E4000's I don't think are really as tough as something like one of the old 3/280's.... Man those things are tough and still in production in rare situations. We have a 3/60 in production just to gdb code because our 680x0 cross development/emulation platform doesn't handle debuggers terribly well. No, but I think you might want to check the Sun Hardware Reference FAQ available at: ftp://ftp.ece.uc.edu/pub/sun-faq/FAQs/Hardware/ This contains good information about what's *indide* those old boxes, and from that you can extrapolate pretty well about what time it was released. It also has some quality system release dates, but is not a complete reference for such things. A sparc 1 or Sun 3 base is about the same price around here. I found a sparc 1 with an HM-4119 (Hitachi tube 19" color monitor), a dual sbus cgsix, two 110mb drives (one of which was trashed by the famed spindle lube gone - no spin up - problem), type 5 keyboard and optical mouse, AUI to 10BaseT adapter, and 4MB RAM (that needed upgrading); the price $100. What it lacked: a 13w3 to 4BNC cable (I obtained a 13w3 - > 4BNC adapter thingy for $20, because an original cable would have cost me $120.00 and 13w3 to 13w3 cables are *everywhere*. These things make *great* X-Terminals, especially since they are very cheap, and the architecture is well known. You can find tiny X + system kernels for rarp booting 3/60s if you want to go diskless, or stick a cheap old boot disk on the thing. The Sparc 1s out there are even more useful since they will run modern software - albeit slowly. I figure you can get a functional X-Terminal for around $300 on average... at this price you could put together a small office with a large Linux server and ten X-Terminals running StarOffice or ApplixWare... cost? Software included, easily under five to seven grand. I have yet to find a single small office interested in this type of setup, however. Since I don't make my living trying to sell this stuff, well, that's no skin off my back. But I tell my friends with small businesses, and those I wind up meeting at parties, or in Harvard Square, attempting to set up cheap youth compute centers what a Linux box and X-Terminals can do and how much it will cost. Few believe me. Oh well! \_o_/ | / \ J. Maynard Gelinas

On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Paul E Coad wrote: A Sun 3/60 makes a _great_ X terminal for a Linux box. -- Ward Griffiths "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Claire Wolfe

On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Scott Walde wrote: <blah blah blah> Ok, this has gotten way out of hand. Can we get back on topic? I joined a fucking listserve so I wouldn't have to put up with off-topic shit. Bill, could you start doing a little regulating please? PS. No offense meant to Scott. Sam ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass