Thinking about acquiring PDP stuff

[Brad H]

-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Noel
Chiappa
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 9:08 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Thinking about acquiring PDP stuff

    > From: Brad H

    > So I wondered what PDP guys did to keep interested and how much they
    > actually used the machine over the course of, say, a year.

Well, I have to get all mine running first... ;-) Seriously, though, I'm
looking at several years of work to get them all running. (And there are
also various peripherals to do, like tape drives, etc.)

And then there's the project Dave B and I have to creat new blinkenlitz
panels (not to mention SD-card based mass storage to replace those cranky
old disk >drives for every-day running, the original purpose before the
blinkenkraze hit us :-) for the PDP-11's...

>Seriously, though, like all hobbies, it's primarily to amuse me, not to
create anything useful. And it's _very_ successful at that.

>	Noel

True enough.  I enjoy the repair and build aspect of the hobby.  When I got
a dead Digital Group Z80 system, repairing that and getting it operating was
like going on an exploration of ancient ruins.  Seeing it come to life was
amazing.  But I don't find a lot of use for it day to day.  Likewise with my
TVT project -- the experience of building it is fantastic, but not sure I'd
have much for it to do once done.  Even my old Commodore only gets sporadic
use, and only because it has so much of my old games library.

That was kind of why I thought buying a PDP in pieces over time might be my
way to go, even if it took eons to get everything I needed to rebuild one.
It'd be fun to try and piece one back together.  But yeah, I'm trying to
think of what I would do with it afterwards. :)