Dont want to start a flame war here but - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

15 Nov 1999

<Just curious.  What motivates someone to collect old minis and mainframes??
<I can see it being nice to look at for a while, but something as big as a m
<very cumbersome to have around the house (let alone an apartment).  And wha
.....

Well my largest is the 8F maybe one of the VAXen.  The S100 crates do weigh 
in though.

Seriously, I use the S100 z80 systems for 8085/z80/804x/8051/1802 
development actively.  There are somethings that a emulator on a PC will 
not prove out.

The PDP-11s are active machines for expeimentation with older IO cards
some sound stuff and a robust os.

Vaxen 3100s and MVIIs, I like VMS and it's reliability.  I keep them active 
and plan to replace the @#$%^&&! PC with something I can eventually run a
24x365 connection to the net.

the PDP-8 and DECMATE-III are for PDP-8 programming and hacking.  Of all 
the machines these do get less than an hour a week on average.  Lack of 
mass storage on the 8F partly to blame.  Still it's convenient and has a 
front pannel so I'll turn it on and run Acc inchworm or try a few dozen 
bytes of code just because.  Core is nice for that.

None of these are mainframe class but, if you add them all up including the 
SBCs (all the working hardware that is) there are more than 30 systems.

Practical use... They are all practical, speed often is not a consideration
and in some cases they do ok for themselves.  Unlike old cars and the like
using them is good for them.

Allison