VAX 780 on eBay

[Josh Dersch]

On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 2:56 AM Noel Chiappa via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

>     > This:
>     >     https://www.ebay.com/itm/275084268137
>     > ...
>     > Anyway I fully expect it to go ... for a _lot_ more than the opening
> price.
>
> Much to my surprise, it didn't sell at all (although a number of other
> lots,
> likely from this machine, did.)
>
> I'm rather puzzled that an -11/70 will sell for north of $10K, while a /780
> can't fetch $5K. I can only guess that PDP-11'S are seen as more important
> in
> the collector world (even though the BSD work, which had such a huge
> impact on
> UNIX, which has now - in the form of Linux - taken over the world, was
> centered on the VAX).
>

As others have mentioned, power is one concern, but my guess is this:

No blinkenlights.  It's not exciting looking.  This tracks for PDP-11s (and
8's!) as well.  No one pays big money for 11/04, 11/34, 11/44 or LSI-11
systems (though prices are creeping up like everything else) but 11/05,
11/40, 11/70, etc. sell for huge amounts every time.  There's an 11/70
front panel at over $500 on eBay right now with two days left, it'll
probably sell for $2500.

- Josh



>
>           Noel
>
>