North Star Horizon

From: William Donzelli <william_at_ans.net>
Date: Sat May 16 23:01:59 1998

> When you consider there were no more than a 1000 of either that's pretty
> scarce if 1-2% still survive.

Oh yes, I would guess that there are only 10 PDP-12s in captivity at this
time. I would not at all be suprised if more show up from storerooms and
basements. Just about 20 months ago, the PDP-12 population "grew" by
three, as RCS/RI hauled a bunch of stuff from a university. Certianly
there are more buried.

This is where I do not agree with the 10-20 percent survival rule.
It works well for small machines, perhaps upto the large deskside
workstations, but above that, the survival rate starts to dive. Why? Small
things can be "swept under the carpet" during cleaning sessions - put on a
shelf, taken home by a hacker, placed in a crawlspace. Not so with 2 tons
of mainframe iron!

1-2 percent is probably pretty close to the survival rate for the bigger
beasts, just as Allison points out above.

William Donzelli
william_at_ans.net
Received on Sat May 16 1998 - 23:01:59 BST