James Willing wrote:
> You know, I always hate these moral dilemmas...
>
> In the last few days the collection received an AT&T UNIX PC (aka
> 7300,
> 3b1) in extremely good condition. It arrived with all of the original
>
> docs, software, and mouse. The docs were unwrapped , and the mouse
> was in
> its original foam packing. "Kind of nice when someone packs things
> away
> properly" I thought.
>
> Well, its been a bit busy around the garage the last couple of weeks,
> so I
> put the unit and its associated stuff on the shelf and covered it up
> for a
> time.
>
> Last night, while I was working on a notebook (yes, one of those
> 'modern'
> things) for one of my wife's friends, I decided to have another look
> at the
> UNIX PC while I was waiting for a disk scan to finish...
>
> Found a spot for it on the bench, made a cursory check of the unit
> (nothing
> loose, nothing rattling...) and powered it up. It hummed and beeped
> happily and started drawing little boxes on the screen as I recalled
> it
> doing when it was starting up...
>
> However, about 3-4 minutes and 4-5 lines of little boxes later, it
> starts
> to dawn on me that it should not be taking quite this long to get a
> prompt
> of some kind. So, I move the keyboard to have a look at the floppy
> drive
> (it hides behind the keyboard you see) and sure enough the machine is
> looking for a floppy.
>
> Fine... so, I grab the binder containing the software distribution,
> open it
> up...
>
> All of the disks are still sealed! At this point it starts to dawn on
> me,
> that this machine has never been run! A comment flashes back to mind;
> made
> by the person who gave me the machine... "My father bought it for his
> company, read the manuals and realized that he had no idea what he was
>
> doing..."
>
> I find myself wondering... Back around 1985 when this thing was
> released
> (and about $10k+), who could have afforded to buy one of these things,
> open
> the manuals, decide that they were in over their heads, and just put
> it on
> the shelf without even loading the software??? EEK!
>
> And so, the dilemma... do I open the disks and crank this critter
> up? Or
> just pack it all away as another classic 'artifact'? (or leave it
> until I
> have a fair amount of time to spend with it)
>
> No flame wars please, just the random philosophical question...
>
> -jim
>
> ---
> jimw_at_agora.rdrop.com
> The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
> Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
IMHOP, Crank it up! Otherwise, it might as well be an empty shell!
Nobody asked, just my opinion.......
Will
Received on Sun Nov 16 1997 - 17:10:54 GMT