Museums

From: Geoff Roberts <geoffrob_at_stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au>
Date: Tue Mar 23 19:48:27 1999

-----Original Message-----
From: Megan <mbg_at_world.std.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 24 March 1999 10:03
Subject: Re: Museums



>>I think our vision of such a place may be something like a Cybercafe with
>>a dedicated place for old computer equipment to be renovated and
>>experimented with. Obviously there would be a place for visiting
>>computers systems as well as space for "The Collection".

Ahem, yes. Mine too. I run an Internet Cafe.
 We have a big workshop out the back, which is partly filled with Vaxen in
various stages of repair/decomposition.
As well, I use an 8530/CIBCA? and TU78/TA78 pair as a room divider in the
cafe, and a HSC50 and a half height cabinet, with 3 RA81's in it, as a
counter. Oh, yeah, there's a 6310 and SA600 (working system) in there too.
(Single phase conversion done)
There is a large warehouse (ex-bakery) next door, (was a s/h shop but they
went broke) that I am trying to rent at a reasonable rate. The landlord
currently wants unreasonable rates, by local standards. (it's a small place,
15000 or so) It's perfect, solid building, big doors, concrete floors, 3
phase power (they had electric kilns) and plenty of room for even very big
systems, which I hope to specialise in, several desktop machine "museums"
around, but very few with big iron it seems.
(I'm currently looking for PDP-8, PDP-11, Vax, Prime and IBM "big stuff" in
Oz, preferably South Australia)
A Cray would be nice too, but no idea where I'd find one....

Any other big systems that list members think might be worthy of inclusion?

>>I propose the Cybercafe part to raise enough revenue to pay for the space
>>but I down't really know if you could generate enough to keep out of the
>>red.

Not at the moment, but it looks like it might eventually, diversity is the
key, we also do repairs and sell s/h systems.
Tea, Coffee, Lollies, drinks and ice-creams do surprisingly well too. In a
museum they'd probably do better.
Surprisingly good market for $100-200 computers, of the 386/486 variety.
People on Unemployment, Supporting Parent and Invalid Pensions can't afford
to buy $1500 new computers, and typically just want to play a few games and
do a little word processing......

>if I were a little more financially
>set (like after winning a lottery),

Now that would help, I'd buy the whole damn place off this guy, $100k would
buy my shop, the attached house, and the bakery complex.....

Seriously, I think your concept is good, biggest headache is floor space, my
bet is that you need to set up in a smaller place, a country town, not too
far from a big city, but where the rents for warehouse space don't look like
the NASA budget. I suspect this is why most museums I've seen/heard of
concentrate on desktop stuff, they don't need a huge area to house it.


Cheers

Geoff Roberts
Computer Systems Manager
Saint Mark's College
Port Pirie, South Australia.
Email: geoffrob_at_stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au
ICQ #: 1970476
Phone: 61-8-8633-8834
Mobile: 61-411-623-978
Fax: 61-8-8633-0104
Received on Tue Mar 23 1999 - 19:48:27 GMT