Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000

[jim s]

On 1/10/2015 7:41 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
> Yes, I tried to talk to him at about the same time and got nowhere. 
> This time I made an actual
> offer but I needed to see it and might up it depending upon the 
> condition.  As you can see from
> my earlier posts today that because of the way it was put into storage 
> and the way it was stored
> it's basically all just scrap now which is too bad.
>
> TTFN - Guy
>
I talked to him at length and got a little more on the story.  The path 
the systems took apparently was from a company where he worked, then 
idle.  The company donated them to a local college where they were used 
in some capacity for a while then stored.  The storage was not under his 
control, and though he'd had direct interaction when it was originally 
in production, he did admit that he thought some damage had occurred 
when the college had stored the units.

I'm willing to say that my impression of the guy is that he had very 
high expectations of what he had stored, and has invested a lot in it, 
but doesn't get what is really required to make these things go.  When 
you deal with people heavily invested in something they are not 
realistic, and will want more than an item should be priced at.

He may or may not be at the end of his capability to store it or 
whatever where it is, he says he needs to sell it as he has imminent 
plans to move to NM, so that deadline is self imposed, and should not 
legitimately impact the negotiation.  Just he should be and seems to be 
more open to negotiating now.

I'm sad to hear it was damaged as badly as it was, had high hopes the 
4341 had at least stayed closed and somewhat safe.  I think the console 
controller is in the end chassis.  The main swing outs have the main 
processor.  Don't try to swing them one at a time, the thing will tip.

Jim

> On 1/10/15 6:51 PM, Marc Verdiell wrote:
>> I talked to the owner maybe 6 months ago. It was a bizarre and difficult
>> interaction. He refused to let me see the units, and insisted I give 
>> him an
>> offer first. He would not even give me the list of the items he had. 
>> We went
>> into a circular discussion: that I couldn't give him an offer if I 
>> didn't
>> know nor see what the items were, to which he replied that if I were a
>> serious buyer I would make him an offer beforehand, therefore I was not
>> serious and he would not show me the items nor give me the list. So 
>> that was
>> not very helpful. Then later on he sent me 3 or 4 close up pictures 
>> of only
>> the name badges of some of the machines (one badge from HP, maybe two of
>> IBM). I got the distinct impression that either something was fishy 
>> or that
>> the guy had unreasonable expectations. Or maybe both. I just gave up. 
>> Looks
>> like you are faring much better than me, so that's positive. I am 
>> interested
>> in the IBM system, the tapes and tape controller units mainly, if you 
>> don't
>> want them.
>> Marc
>>
>>
>> On 1/9/15 6:38 PM, Lyle Bickley wrote:
>>> When Bob and I initially talked to the owner, he told us that what he
>>> had was a major find for a collector. He spoke in glowing terms as to
>>> the condition of the 4341 and the HP mini (de-installed from a running
>>> environment and then stored for many years). So as you would expect,
>>> Bob and I were very anxious to see both systems. What we found was a
>>> serious disappointment. As Bob said, the 4341 and the HP mini were
>>> crammed into a storage unit with lots of other junk. It was impossible
>>> to see/determine what system components were actually there. There was
>>> no way to know how complete or what features either system had.
>>> Repeating what Bob said, everything was water damaged, rusty and in
>>> poor condition - and I do mean everything. We told him that his asking
>>> price was too high - and that the condition of the systems was so bad
>>> we wouldn't even make him an offer. Lyle
>> Well that's a disappointment.  I'm still going to take a look at it
>> tomorrow...but I'm going to be prepared to walk away from it.
>>
>> TTFN - Guy
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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