On Fri, 31 Jul 1998, Seth J. Morabito wrote:
> A few years ago, I heard a rumor bandied about somewhere on Usenet that
> BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, a rail system running around some of the
> San Francisco Bay) was, even to this day, controlled by pdp8/e systems.
>
> Can anyone lend any credibility to this rumor? Any chance of scoring
> some PDP8 equipment if they decide to upgrade their system sometime soon?
This is true. I heard this first hand from a contractor that I had hired
to do some programming a couple years back. He wrote some software to
control the signs in the BART stations. He told me a little bit about it,
and I was surprised to learn they had such old beasts gainfully employed.
Unfortunately, said guy turned out to be a total fricken flake/scam artist
and I wouldn't call him if he was giving away a PDP/8i. So I wouldn't
want to contact him to find out.
However, if you want to talk to him, and you promise NOT TO MENTION THAT I
REFERRED YOU, because I want to have absolutely nothing to do with this
cretin ever again, you can go to his web page at
http://www.tlcone.com (or
.net). From there I would imagine you can e-mail him. His name is Emile
Carter. He's at least personable, so he may want to talk to you about it
if he's got the time, and perhaps refer you to someone at BART, but I
wouldn't be surprised if he burned those bridges as well. Anyway, its a
possible lead.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Sat Aug 01 1998 - 00:05:33 BST