It did seem to be mostly PC stuff and rackmount
servers, neither of which interest me particularly. I
was there from about 11.00am onwards. However there
were some other bits and pieces buried in amongst the
new stuff.
Was it me or was there a really *bad* smell in the air
? Anyway in spite of the smell I came away with quite
a bit of gear. I have questions on these items which I
will post separately.
DEC Professional 350 ? no monitor or keyboard. When I
inspected the unit at home I noticed the screws from
the PSU cover are missing so I hope that doesn?t mean
someone has been interfering with it. The unit is
otherwise complete and appears to contain an RD51
drive (10MB) and the monochrome graphics option. I
haven't tried powering it up yet - the missing screws
on the PSU cover bother me enough that I want to poke
around at it first before applying power.
HP-9134A 5MB disc unit. These things are ancient. I
have been looking for something like this to replace
my HP7908 which is still languishing in the corner
with power supply problems.
Charles River Data Systems Universe/68 computer,
badged as a Datapoint system.  This is about the size
of a MicroPDP-11/73 (perhaps a little fatter). In
addition to the CRDS  Universe subrack, the chassis
houses a lot of terminal I/O ports and an 8? floppy
drive on the front. There?s a SASI interface connector
on the back for mass storage.
Zia Tech ZT 488 GPIB Analyzer. I have had a CS/80 disc
emulator project for Linux on my to-do list for some
time. Perhaps this will get me moving on it.
A couple of ?? tapes for my 9-track drive. Always
useful.
Books ? a couple of National databooks from the mid
70?s; a 1970 System/360 JCL book; a book about
repairing music synthesizers and a Springer-Verlag
publication ?Computer Architecture?, 1975.
I passed  on two Televideo 925 keyboards. I also
passed on what appeared to be an IC test system. It
had dozens of test cards corresponding to DTL/TTL
devices of yesteryear, and a test slot where you'd
presumably drop in the test chip. Looked like fine but
was rather large. I forget who the manufacturer was.
Regards,
Dave
--- chris <cb at mythtech.net> wrote:
  I went to the Trenton Computer Fest today. I
didn't
 get over to the MARCH
 table, sorry. I did see John Allain however, but
 down the end of a row,
 and by the time I got down there to say hi, I lost
 track of him.
 Back to the point. I picked up a pair of NeXT slabs
 for $2 each. I think
 even Sellam would agree that is a good price ;-)
 One is a Turbo the other is a Color. No idea yet was
 is in them other
 than visually, there is a floppy drive and a hard
 drive. I've never
 played with a NeXT, and at that price, I wasn't
 going to ask many
 questions.
 The Turbo has a DA-15 connector that looks like a
 Mac RGB connector. Is
 it compatible with Mac monitors? The Color has a
 connector that I don't
 know what it is called, but looks like a Sun monitor
 connector. Is it
 compatible with those monitors? I'm crossing my
 fingers for a yes on both
 counts since I have both available to me already.
 And to verify, the keyboard/mouse uses ADB correct?
 These slabs were just
 the computer, nothing else. (although I did find a
 guy that had a NeXT
 mouse, but he was holding it to sell with his MacTV
 and wouldn't part
 with it. I considered getting the MacTV, but since I
 got one from John a
 while back, I decided against spending the $50 since
 it didn't have any
 docs, software, cables, keyboard, remote, or the
 correct mouse).
 The only other thing I picked up that might be of
 interest to this group
 is some kind of video conferencing terminal. I don't
 know anything about
 it at all yet, I wasn't actually interested in it,
 but the guy said if I
 took it away right then, I could have it for free,
 so I took it simply
 because it looked cool.
 Over all, I was a little disappointed this year in
 the items available.
 It is only the 2nd time I've gone, the first was two
 years ago, and I
 remembered there being far more vendors with a
 better selection. This
 year was a bunch of so-so priced used PCs, TONS of
 old laptops, and some
 over priced used Macs. I was surprised I couldn't
 find a decent deal on a
 rack mount PC server, or much in the way of RJ-45
 patch panels (I needed
 two 72 port ones, I was able to find two 48 port
 ones at an ok price, and
 that was about it). Its possible that some of the
 vendors just weren't
 there yet or fully unpacked, I was there from about
 10 am to 12:30. I
 also didn't go indoors anywhere, so I may have
 missed a bunch of other
 dealers (I had limited time today as I had to be
 back home by 2, and it
 takes about 1.5 hours on the drive).
 Anyone else get anything of interest? Oh, and Hi
 John, since I didn't get
 to say it to you today. :-)
 -chris
 <http://www.mythtech.net>
  
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