Stanford's PDP-6 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

17 Jun 2009

...
  From: Al Kossow
 Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 8:32 AM
 I'm resending this with a revised title so someone has a chance of finding
 this again in the future. I sent a similar message to alt.sys.pdp10 when
 the subject came up last time. 
This issue resurfaces every few years.  My first post related to it 
was to alt.sys.pdp10 on 2/28/1996 2:54 PM.  The last time I saw it 
discussed was February of 2006.  I have various messages on the 
subject in my email archive, including those between Gordon Bell and 
Rich Alderson in 1999.

This supposed dismantling of the Stanford PDP-6 predates even my 
tenure on the board of The Computer Museum, which started in 1995, so 
I can't make a personal testimonial.  But like Al, I've searched the 
files and spoken to people who were there.  I have no evidence that 
it is true, and I have gotten multiple declarations that it is 
false.  See, for example, the email below from Gwen Bell to me in 1999.

I don't know what else we can do.  I'm sure this is not the last time 
it will be discussed.  In my 1996 posting I said,

...
  It pains me to read some of the recent comments about
TCM's collection
 policy.  I can't answer any of the complaints about specific items,
 because I wasn't involved.  I do know, and this comes mostly from
 getting to know the Bells, that preserving computers in the context of a
 financially sound organization that can survive our lifetimes is their
 main priority. 
And it is ours still today.

Len Shustek
Chairman, Computer History Museum

...
 Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 19:09:13 -0800
To: Len Shustek <len at shustek.com>
From: Gwen Bell <bell at computerhistory.org>
Subject: Re: [Fwd: The Computer Museum did WHAT????
Cc: gbell at Microsoft.com ...
...
 The story of the "sale" of the PDP-6 boards
is pretty simple. The
original Museum was in the MR-1 and MR-2 facilities of DEC. These
were the engineering/manufacturing locations for the PDP-6. The
Museum had access to the "trash", the boards that were discarded
for use in the computers to be sold. We held them and sold them
at a single yard sale. I can get the VPs and Engineers in Marlboro
at the time to attest to this version. The Museum did not "strip"
any workable PDP-6 machines, these boards were already "surplussed",
whatever that meant ... but they were not used. And, like the Apple I
boards that we not sold, they would have been shredded and recycled.
This can be attested to by Alan Kotok (part of the 6 project now at
MIT), Ulf Fagerquist, who was engineering head of large computers,
Bob Glorioso, as well as Gordon who was their boss at the time.
The Museum folks essentially scavenged the bays of boards that were to
recycled or just discarded in the dump to sell to "collectors." This
was clearly a market or purpose that the company did not see. But was approved for
the purpose of history .. and building a body of
...
 other collectors and establishing collectables,
something that happens
for all kinds of technology museums. 