-------------- Original message from Richard <legalize at xmission.com>: -------------- I have been going there almost daily, since the early 70's. when you could buy Aircraft fasteners, computer hardware, test gear, and anything in between. PDP 8a's where 25.00 and PDP 11's where 45.00. if it was a large rack system, just name your price. ( I have 3 PDP 11/60's, 5 racks each) The store has been going down hill ever since. Most of the good stuff never makes it to surplus. In the past 5 years, only "Boeing has beens" have worked there. I have heard that the system has 175 employees. Over the years this has just been a monkey on Boeings back and they *never* should have been involve in a retail business. They staff this with people that could only function in a Boeing Mold. These folks should never been involved with the public. The folks that did care and wanted to help where stopped by the turf wars and Boeing policy. I tried over the year to at least slow down the trashing of vintage items. No one cared. You could go in there and see carcass of vintage items. They would only put out what would sell quickly. Lately I found 7 HP suite cases with HP 79xx Alignment tools and packs. They where empty. They could get 25.00 for the suite cases. So they trashed the rest. They love to sell 3 ring binders for .25 each. If you watched closely there where 100's of DEC, HP, Cray, TEK, Sun, Motorola binders from the 70's and 80's. covering both computers and test gear. All empty. As for really good test gear, that was offered up to a local company first and what was left went to the store. I could go further on this but won't. As for the things that this "list" would be interested in. They had what they called pre-sort. if it was newer and/or sold quickly, send it to the store, if not scrap it. They would set out DEC and Data General systems, empty. They could sell the boards by the pound and did not have to worry about anything. I saw some Dumb terminals (VT100) setting in the back this summer and asked to make sure the came out to the store. I was told its was easier to scrap them. No TEK or Dumb terminals would be brought out to the retail store. They have a large amount of old computer boards going trough there each month. all go to scrap. You can go in there on a Saturday morning and see 7 to 10 $60,000.00 a year employees setting around drinking coffee and talking to one another with out any care about the customer. How much surplus do you have to sell to cover one Saturday In the last couple of years they basicly have been watching 10-15 ebay sellers that are at the front door each day and catered to them. Putting everthing out first thing and then sat back and watched the rush when the door opened. The best thing that could happen is for the company to put everything in lot bids so someone, that at least cares a little, has the items. As for the fire sale, everyone is headed for the door. Through the 1st of the year all Boeing employees only have 6 to 8 weeks left to work. So I would just wait for the first lot bids and follow the winner home. Just my .02 cents worth - jerry Jerry wright JLC inc g-wrigtht at att.net