9 May
1998
9 May
'98
7:19 p.m.
I just spent Saturday morning in an Ali Babas cave of old computers
ranging form a huge 6ft tall by 10 ft wide analogue computer through a
few DEC machines (see below, and old ICT 1301, a Telefunken TR4 a
burroughs 1800, a few French minicomputers and quite a number of
unidentified systems. Included were lots of tape and disk drives, boxes
of documentationa nd software. Just a dream come true!
The collection belongs to ACONIT : "l'Association pour le Conservation
de Informatique et Telematique" I guess that's pretty clear even to non
french speakers. It has been accumulated over since 1985 and is
currently stored in a warehouse in a town called Voiron near Grenoble.
ACONIT has acquired larger and more convenient premisies in Grenoble
itself and will be moving the collection there later this year and we
plan on setting up workshops etc to restore as many of these systems as
possible.
Among the DEC machines I saw was a complete PDP-9. How rare are these?
Anyways, if anyone is in the Grenoble region later on in the year drop
me a line and I can provide a personally conducted guided tour of what
we have.
I'll keep you all informed of what we are doing as thngs develop.
Regards,
Hans B Pufal
13 May
13 May
4:44 p.m.
In a desperate effort to get on topic, I dug this out of the pile...
I just spent Saturday morning in an Ali Babas cave of
old computers
ranging form a huge 6ft tall by 10 ft wide analogue computer through a
few DEC machines (see below, and old ICT 1301, a Telefunken TR4 a
burroughs 1800, a few French minicomputers and quite a number of
unidentified systems. Included were lots of tape and disk drives, boxes
of documentationa nd software. Just a dream come true!
French minicomputers...hmmm, those sound interesting. I rarely see French
made electronics here - I would like to see how it compares to other
things. What was the name of the manufacturer?
Among the DEC machines I saw was a complete PDP-9. How
rare are these?
You may never see one ever again!
The 18-bit DEC machines were never a really big hit (they were odd ducks,
mostly made for process control), and really did not survive well at all.
I would venture to say that there are probably less than ten of the 18 bit
machines in captivity today, and that includes PDP-1s, 7s, 9s, 9/Ls, and
the various 15s.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
6:50 p.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
That is good news (for us). Do you have contact details for anyone who
has one?
Are you connected with the Rhode Island group? If so I would appreciate
some pointers on how to operate such a group. We have this huge
collection here gathering dust in a storehouse but plans are in place to
move it to a location where some, hopefully many, of these machines will
be restored to working state.
Regards,
Hans B Pufal
In a desperate effort to get on topic, I dug this out
of the pile...
Yes, on topic messages were getting rather thin on the ground ;-)
French minicomputers...hmmm, those sound interesting.
I rarely see French
made electronics here - I would like to see how it compares to other
things. What was the name of the manufacturer?
Micral, SEA, Bull are three that come immediately to mind. I don't have
access to the inventory yet.
Among the DEC
machines I saw was a complete PDP-9. How rare are these?
You may never see one ever again!
The 18-bit DEC machines were never a really big hit (they were odd ducks,
mostly made for process control), and really did not survive well at all.
I would venture to say that there are probably less than ten of the 18 bit
machines in captivity today, and that includes PDP-1s, 7s, 9s, 9/Ls, and
the various 15s.
7:58 p.m.
Micral, SEA, Bull are three that come immediately to
mind. I don't have
access to the inventory yet.
OK, those names are familiar (is that the same Bull as in
Honeywell-Bull?). Nope, they do not show up around here!
That is good news (for us). Do you have contact
details for anyone who
has one?
The DEC Australia collection probably has one (but they have damn near one
of EVERYTHING DEC made!).
Are you connected with the Rhode Island group? If so I
would appreciate
some pointers on how to operate such a group. We have this huge
collection here gathering dust in a storehouse but plans are in place to
move it to a location where some, hopefully many, of these machines will
be restored to working state.
I am one of the directors of the group, and one of the "later" founders.
Operating the group is quite a task, in that we also have a rather large
collection, but we have it housed in a rented room at an old rubber
factory - a very useable space with power, STRONG floors, a freight
elevator, and a dock. We do not, however, have extra space. Right now we
are looking into getting pallet racks to get some of the collection off
the ground (4 ft. DEC cabinets in a room with a 20 ft. ceiling is a bit of
a waste!).
Money for rent, of course, is a bit of a problem. We all have to chip in.
We also sell some of the stuff we get donated (anyone here want to buy
some brand new fibre, or how about an original NSFnet router?). Getting
linked up to a big company or two really helps for the donations, even if
they are nothing more than old PeeCee junk.
Getting machines for the collection is the easy part - building a
collection of 1970s and 80s iron (our forte) can happen in a very short
amount of time. And yes, every so often a real gem comes along!
Maybe you can hang around or list for a while, just to see our day to day
activities - let me talk to our list owner.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
9568
days inactive
9572
days old
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