Sad experience

From: Mzthompson_at_aol.com <(Mzthompson_at_aol.com)>
Date: Fri Jul 20 21:32:02 2001

If it is any comfort John, yours is not an isolated experience.

With regards to my recent rescue of all the NeXT stuff. It was rescued
from an "institution of higher learning". It was removed from service
around 5 years ago. They decided at the time to have a 'yard sale' and
include these machines. That never happened, and after 5 years they
decided to rid themselves of it.

If that were an isolated case I wouldn't mind. After all I got to rescue
the stuff. The gotcha is that they just decommissioned all their DEC
hardware. You can darn well bet by now all docs, tapes, etc. have been
pitched. On my last visit I asked if any of the DEC was available.
The response was that they had just decided to put it all the DEC in a
yard sale. Oh Joy! So those DECstations, VAXstations, Infoserver(s),
Alphas, and who knows what else are going to sit in a warehouse somewhere
until who knows when. And I know from the NeXT experience that they will
be picked over, and in some cases there won't be enough of a given machine
left to even sell to the recyclers.

Given the four "institutions of higher learning" in this town, I have
worked for one full time, taught at another part time, and dealt with
the other two with regards to equipment rescues. I have come to the
conclusion the higher learning does not create greater smarts, and
in most cases lessens the amount of common sense. I suspect that
a boot full of common sense would not help, even with instructions
on how to use written on the bottom.

That's my opinion, and I'm stickin' to it.

Mike
Received on Fri Jul 20 2001 - 21:32:02 BST