Firsts

From: Wirehead Prime <wirehead_at_retrocomputing.com>
Date: Mon Jan 12 10:54:07 1998

> The PDP-8i was pretty big and heavy. The 8e smaller and lighter but the

When we loaded the 8is into the truck on Saturday, we left them upright
(to keep cables from flopping around on the floor) and tied them off to
the rails inside the truck. I tied off the two nice machines with the
front panels and my assistant tied off the parts machine missing its
front panel.

I should have checked his knots.

We went over to pick up an 11/34 (oh my GOD is it heavy! We were nearly
killed.) and at a corner the one he tied off must have slipped out of his
ropes (the guy was in the Army, you'd think he'd know how to tie a knot)
and ******BOOOOOMMMMM******!!!! I thought someone was firing artillery.
Unfortunately, I had to pull through the intersection to pull over and
stop so when I took off....***wwwwwwhhhhhhhhhiiiiiirrrrrr BOOOOMMMMMMM***
as it must have rolled backwards and slammed into the door.

*I* retied it after that! Never let someone who doesn't care about your
computer collecting hobby do anything that might affect the safety of
your items. They don't care and think of it as just junk so they won't
think about what they're doing or try to protect your collectible.

At any rate, I inspected it and it appears none the worse for the wear.

But 8/is ARE heavy. You walk up to the machine and see the little normal
size front panel and think "that's not so bad" but then you look inside
and realize that that black door BENEATH the front panel is the actual
computer. OOPS!

> tiny one was the 8m as it didn't have as many slots nor the heavier power
> supply needed to power it, it was shorter in depth. The 8m was in the 50
> pound range as I remember.

Anthony Clifton - Wirehead
Received on Mon Jan 12 1998 - 10:54:07 GMT