Demography

From: William Donzelli <william_at_ans.net>
Date: Thu Mar 5 11:25:24 1998

Well, lets see. I am 28 or so, living now in Carmel, NY (about fifty miles
north of NYC), and like old things in general. Mostly. I am employed by
one of the ISPs (originally the first ISP - the NSF) as an engineer. As
you can probably tell by now, I tend to pick up the scraps of the network.

I originally collected old radios. I had a small collection of consumer
sets, some working, but dropped the hobby when two others came into my
life - computers and old industrial/military electronics. The latter is
simply from my consumer radio collecting days. The computers, however,
probably started with the Apple II, like so many other kids in grade
school.

The first computer I ran into is my old DEC PDP-8/S, purchased "thru" a
hamfest back in 1986. I was eyeing someone's PDP-11 boards (I was already
a hamfest regular), and a man approached me with an offer I could not
refuse - for $5, I could have a real, six-foot tall computer. I still have
the machine.

After that, I started getting others - mostly PeeCee and small mini
machines. Sometimes they were pulled from dumpsters, other times they were
purchased for a song. Right now, the collection consists of a PDP-8/S,
PDP-8/E, PDP-11/23, PDP-11/34, Interdata 14, IBM S/1, IBM 5100, Sun 3/50,
3/60, 3/280 and 4/280, SPARCstation 370, SGI Iris 2500T, IBM
RS/6000/T3B, and HP 2100A. Some machines work, some need work. There are
parts of many others, but I am not counting those.

I also have a bunch of ancient Sphere/SWTPC/Exorsisor stuff that I need to
get rid of (I have no interest in it). Most of it will migrate to RCS/RI
(so Allison can play with it).

In addition to old computers, I collect old Naval radios and radar sets
from the 1930s and 40s, as well as vaccuum tubes. At this point, I do not
know which collection takes up more mass, as some of the shipboard radio
transmitters are six foot monsters as well. Look at some of the old
serials from the 1950s - they tend to show up as props in monster labs.

And I do not play bassoon. I also voluteer time as part of the restoration
crew on Battleship Massachusetts - a place with _real_ computers. Sorry
guys, but engineering and craftsmanshipwise (is that a word?), the
mechanical fire control computers are far more impressive than any of the
digital stuff.

William Donzelli
william_at_ans.net
Received on Thu Mar 05 1998 - 11:25:24 GMT