I was given the name of a company a couple of days ago through the company I
am getting my Super Computers from. They told me to give this guy a call and
see if he had anything I was looking for. I called the number and asked to
speak with an officer of the company.. the answering service took my name
and number. About an hour later the owner of *this* company called me back
and asked me how he could help me. I told him I was looking for old
minicomputers, not some flake.. paid for shipping and paid more than scrap
prices... I asked him if he ever got minicomputers/mainframes in.
(getting interested)
He laughed at me and said his crew of *20* goes through and cuts up for
gold more than 15 MILLION pounds of mainframes per year. (I thought he was
full of shit). I told him my scrapping company name and he invited me out. I
flew to his place and this is what I saw:
When I got there I saw a huge building with an office. In the back of the
building there were 4+ forklifts driving around like mad with skid fulls of
IBM mainframes and dropping then op top of each other. When I pulled around
and parked my rental car I saw a guy with a pair of shears inside an IBM
1130 :-( chopping it to pieces. I went inside this *factory* and 40 feet
high in places were stacked super computers, minis, micros (apples, PS/2,
micro vaxes, etc), and an unbelievable number of boards. After touring
through the work area I found the office and talked with the owner (was
rather busy).. He gave me a quick tour showing me some super computers they
were hacking up, HDS (Hitachi data Systems), IBM 3840?, and some other water
cooled high speed CPUs. It blew me away.. I never thought there was such a
large gold processing site for this.. that's all this company does. They
also melt down CPUs direct from IBM , Hitachi, etc... I missed a bunch of
old DEC stuff by one day.. They guys were just finishing killing a bunch of
PDP-8s and 11s.
(here is the positive spin):
Of course being in total shock (I never saw so many apple computers piled to
the ceiling waiting to be stripped)... we talked price on some of the
systems. I can't buy them from him at scrap prices *nor* will he put systems
aside... I asked him if I could go through the warehouse and check for some
parts (promised not to be a nuisance).. I found a heap of super computer
boards and brought one to him [the other stuff I wanted had been
butchered.].. he did not want to sell them at first as he was *required* to
destroy them.
We came up with a deal:
Any mini/mainframe computer with front panel switches and light will be put
aside for one week. I have to fly down every week to see what he has there
(quickly) and purchase immediately what I want. As my references panned out
he will allow me to purchase boards and equipment from him under three
conditions:
All serial numbers removed.
I don't publicize what he is doing to historical computers. [don't know why
he cared]
I *agree* to destroy anything I buy from him ;-)
**** His company generally pays $8-10K for a super computer as the raw
materials when extracted are generally worth 4X that! [I did *not* know
that.].. I spent more time with him and he showed me the insides of some of
the huge IBM mainframes...[water cooled].. can't say I ever saw one
before... He *only* new the metal content in every piece and $$$ .... HAHAHA
(rather funny... no idea of the technology)
We also cut a *really* sweet deal. He owns a transport truck line and his
trucks pass through Toronto *empty* every couple of weeks.. he agreed to
pick up any systems I wanted around the country, drop off the ones I wanted
and he would pay me for the systems I would not want [every load must of
course have a mainframe or mini for him).
I bought some super computer boards at slightly above gold prices... [you
will see them on EBay].. They are *amazing*. Processors beyond belief...
I will update everyone with a list of the minis I get and will keep my eyes
out for the systems in the wish lists I have received so far.
Never in the world did I ever expect to see a few thousand minis, mainframes
and micros being scrapped by so many people.... BTW: That stuff in his
warehouse came in over the past two weeks *and* while I was there, there
were 3 transport trucks waiting in line to dump off loads of water cooled
IBM/Hitachi mainframes.
On a sad note, on the way out I saw a front panel with all kind of lights
and switches.. It was 8 bit and was made of plastic... It was called "data
systems" or something like that.. anyway.. it was crushed. :-(
I will try and take some pictures the next time I am there.. I know I am not
supposed to do that but I think I can get a few snapshots of what is in
there just by taking a couple of photos from the outside.
I took a list of IBM numbers of what was in there and will post them later
on tonight.
In amazement and kind of annoyed,
john
PDP-8 and other rare mini computers
http://www.pdp8.com
Received on Thu Dec 02 1999 - 16:41:12 GMT