pdp-11s and rainbows becoming available...

From: Megan <mbg_at_world.std.com>
Date: Mon Mar 29 07:01:20 1999

As usual, contact the person in the post, not me... I don't have anything
to do with the machines...

- - - - -

Rainbow and DECMate fans:

Please feel free to cross-post in full to any and all interested LISTSERVS and
groups:

The Press of Atlantic City NJ is about to begin unloading its supply of
well-maintained (and heavily used) DEC Rainbows, and possibly other equipment
as well, including one or more PDP-11/84s(? the last -11 built, the
half-height equivalent of the PDP-11/70) with lots of heavy-duty port
equipment, etc.

The monitors, keyboards, and I believe power supplies, chasis components and
disk drives are identical to those used on the DECMates and some parts seem
identical to components of the earlier VT 1XX and 2XX terminals.

Final negotiations between newsroom/pressroom management, MIS and corporate
are now underway. It appears the situation will be 12 will go immediately upon
paperwork approval, with another three dozen or so, operating, plus parts, to
follow.

Tentative price for working machines with 2 floppies, no HD, a random
monochrome monitor (green, white or amber) and random keyboard (many with
special labels on keys for the editing system) and varying amounts of
memoryis $25, +packing and shipping, or $25 for direct pickup in
Pleasantville, NJ (southern NJ, about 12 miles inland from Atlantic City)

We (them of us who have used the machines and kept them alive) would prefer
seeing them used or put on display or put to use repairing DECMates rather
than scrapped.

The price for the -11s and/or their components have not been set, but they are
due to be out of service by December.

Software is a question - I believe the machines can be released with MS-DOS
3.10, but licenses for the newsroom and classified advertising systems would
probably have to be negotiated separately. While the Rainbows have passed my
personal Y2K basic complience tests (they keep running and reporting the right
date) I have not done any file creation or editing tests. MS-DOS 3.10 is NOT
supposed to be Y2K complient.

The newsroom software (I forget the vendor) and PDP-11 software in use is
reportedly NOT Y2K complient, and you wouldn't want to try to run a newspaper
off one of these systems anyway unless you're still using Linotypes.

Please post any offers to tips_at_pressplus.com and note in the first line of the
body of the message Attention: David M. Razler. I'll pass them on to the folks
doing the selling and arranging the shipping.

PLEASE - Do not respond to originating address of this message.

                                        dmr

David M. Razler
david.razler_at_worldnet.att.net
Received on Mon Mar 29 1999 - 07:01:20 BST