> Hello all -
>
> About a week ago I put a bid on a Micro PDP-11/23 on ebay. I was top
> bidder until the end. Of course the end was when I was asleep (3 AM)
> this morning (serves me right for sleeping). Got up and was very
> disappointed. Since the recent discussion about collectors vs.
> enthusiasts I thought I would share this with the group. As a new
> collector, I have been reading alot about sources and establishing
> networks but they are not in place yet so one of my main venues is ebay
> at this time. I plan to start contacting scrappers, universities, and
> friends in companies soon. But, alas, today a PDP-11/23 flew by.
>
Well I was the person who outbid you. By the way its an 11/73,
I don't think the person who is selling it really knows the
configuation. If I recall correctly, I was the first person
to bid on it when it first appeared on eBay.
There were several reasons why I was interested in it:
1) Its in the same country that I'm in, and reasonably close,
so I save a lot on shipping and customs. Not all of us
who bid on eBay have "deep pockets", so when I see a system
where I can save more than $100 in shipping and customs I
bid more aggresively. All the complete systems I've bought
on eBay have been located in Canada for just that reason.
2) I use these systems to host vintage graphics displays. I
have an E&S PS390 arriving this week, and I need a host
for it. I don't intend to leave it in a corner as part
of a "collection", I intend to have it up and running.
3) Cheap systems are hard to come by in this neck of the
woods. There were not a large number of PDP11s shipped
to Edmonton to start with, and many of them ended up
in process control systems. Unfortunately, these machines
were typically scrapped when the system was upgraded. I
have contacts within a number of the companies where they
are still used, and I hope those systems will eventually
come my way. But, I don't know when, and I can't be sure.
About a month ago I was offered two PDP11/44 systems, but
I was called a few hours before going to pick them up, the
deal was off. It turned out that the company found another
use for them, but they promised I'd get them when they
were finished with them.
Basically, eBay is still cheaper than going to resellers
to get stuff. For those of us who want working systems
and aren't in Silicon Valley or on the East Coast, there
aren't too many other choices.
--
Dr. Mark Green mark_at_cs.ualberta.ca
Professor (780) 492-4584
Director, Research Institute for Multimedia Systems (RIMS)
Department of Computing Science (780) 492-1071 (FAX)
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada
Received on Sun Oct 17 1999 - 16:33:35 BST