Repairing core

From: Sellam Ismail <dastar_at_ncal.verio.com>
Date: Wed Apr 21 01:39:09 1999

On Wed, 21 Apr 1999, Bill Yakowenko wrote:

> On 19 Apr 1999, none other than Sellam Ismail <dastar_at_ncal.verio.com> himself wrote:
> ] I don't see what the big attraction to a core plane is. You stick it on
> ] your wall. Whoopee! Look at me, I have a core plane on my wall. Big
> ] fricken deal. Nobody even knows what it is anyway. From afar it looks
> ] like a black square. Closer up it looks like a piece of a window screen.
> ]
> ] Unfortunately, my rant is not going to stop the lame-o's selling it from
> ] hyping it up as some cool collectable, and it's not going to stop the
> ] techno-wannabees from buying it to stick on their wall.
>
> So what kind of wall hanging is more appropriate for a geek?

I took the cover off an old, dead MFM drive and hung it on my office wall
back in 1994 or so. I took it with me through several office moves, and
took it with me when the company closed down. It now hangs in my
warehouse. Its a great conversation piece. Anyone who sees it asks
"What's that?" Its fun to tinker with. It has moveable parts. You can
spin the platters and move the head back and forth. Whee. A coreplane
just sits there.

> Besides, where the heck am I going to find the rest of a Univac
> to plug it into? I like the "bait" theory and all, but...

There's one out there, waiting to be discovered, but I'm going to find it
before you.

> And too, I'd wager that most of your collection is of the "look at
> that" variety. You can't tell me you actually _use_ more than a
> handful of them. I've seen your schedule, remember?

Well, currently? Yes. But within a year my collection will be made
available for public utlitization. I'm opening the doors of my warehouse
as a public resource center for the study of "obsolete" computing
artifacts. I'll have more details once they're relevant.

> And let's not drag bubble memory into it, eh?

I've got a box of them, so selling off one here or there to fund my
operations isn't going to deplete the supply. If anyone truly NEEDS a
bubble memory module then I'd be happy to help them out.

Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Wed Apr 21 1999 - 01:39:09 BST

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