At 19:39 29-04-98 +0100, Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Doug:
>>
>> > Is the reason those old radio/phonograph boxes are not being thrown
-- snip --
>> The real crime is those who buy sewing machines with pedestals and
>> treadles, throw away the sewing machine and turn the pedestal into an
>> olde worlde iron framed coffee table. I am told by a friend in the
>> trade that this is v. common.
>
>I agree... About 15 years ago I rescued a Bang and Olufsen Colour TV in a
>beautiful wooden cabinet. Had I not grabbed it, it would have been turned
>into a cupboard...
>
>One day I must get round to repairing it...
Good luck in repairing/restoring it.
>
>\begin{off-topic}
>
>It's a 3200 chassis - a hybrid of valves and transistors. All the
-- snip neat stuff I'm into and understand but not used to those "strange"
tube(valve) numbers :-)
>\end{off-topic}
>
>One related problem with minicomputers is that on several occasions I've
>been told 'You can have the computer and all the peripherals, but we want
>the rack' The standard 19" racks used by just about everybody are still
>useful today for test equipment.
>
>So a lot of my machines are either a pile of boxes or in non-original
>racks. It doesn't bother me too much since to me the circuitry is the
>important thing, but it probably would bother some people.
>
>> Philip.
>
>-tony
I had a problem when I got my IBM 9370 system in which I WANTED the rack
cabinets but had absolutelly NO way of getting them into my house. Each of
the two steel cabinets were too large and rather hard to handle. IIRC, they
were 29"(74 cm) wide, 36" (91 cm) deep and about 72" (183 cm) tall and each
weighed nearly 300 pounds when completely stripped. (Hmmm, there beggets
our expression "big iron".)
The only place they could go was into the basement. Stairway much too
small. The garage was out of the question as we live in a climate with COLD
winters and cool, damp springs and autumns. So, when I was given this big
iron thing I had to let the salvage yard take the empty cabinets. Darn,
drat, doggonit, %~^# !, etc. The system still works with the DASD (hard
drives) and other components stacked upon each other though it won't finish
its IPL. Gotta troubleshoot that later this year.
Even in our new house we just moved into a month ago, the same darned
thing: if I had the cabinets, they still could not fit into the house :(
By the way, a second, more minor problem was my wife. When I was describing
the size of the 9370 system before I brought it home, here eyes got real
big and she stated: "Just where are you going to put that!??!" And when I
got two six foot tall 19"rack cabinets from an old machine controller at
work that I tore down, I temporarily set them in the new garage sometime
before we moved in. She spied them, stared at them for a few seconds and
asked "What are _those_ monstrosities?" I had to do some quick explaining
to get through that incident. She generally supports my collecting though.
Wish I could afford a heated, insulated garage.
-- Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL:
http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/
Received on Thu Apr 30 1998 - 08:40:56 BST