AN/ UYK-20X(V) a different aspect:

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_panix.com>
Date: Sun Dec 8 12:55:00 2002

  Just a bit of a Thought here....

  Yeah, I don't think I'm going to buy two or three of these machines -
Xmas y'know - bills to pay, relatives arriving from foriegn galaxies -
that kind of thing.

  And I doubt there are any Listmembers who would wish to fork over
US$24K (obo!) for a milspec 'puter, even if it *is* new-in-the-box.

  BUT: observe that there is an awful lot of 'orphanned' military
hardware, test-sets, and ground support equipment piling up out there.
With the enormous and radical changes in the HiTech infrastructure in the
last ten or fifteen years, it is becoming increasingly hard for the
Gummint to keep 'em flying (or driving, or floating..) when the Main Test
Set for your craft is based on a DG Nova 3 with special I/O cards made by
Hughes Electro-Optics in 1980 - and they made exactly 14 of those cards,
and the schematics were tossed when HE-O was shuttered, and the engineers
who worked on them are retired - not to mention who you can get to work on
the Nova itself - but still you (as Commander) have a mission to fulfill.

  So, if you have run to the end of your AN/UYK spares, and three of your
six mission-critical machines are irreparably casters-up... $24K suddenly
becomes a most attractive price. Funds are transferred to Canada and the
C-130 lands in Dubhai and scoops 'em up. Problem solved....for now.

  And if I was a Consultant to that poor Commander and had been looking
all over for UYKs... I'd get them all for 24K/per and charge 5K EACH just
to arrange the deal and qualify the hardware - (is it complete and
as-described?) and THEN, I'd (of course) help with the set-up and
Operational Checks, and put out any fires, step on the bugs, un-glitch the
glitches.... for yet bigger bux, and Shirin's sorta-off-topic post would
have worked out well for All Concerned, and that's what the List is for.
Instead of being scrapped, the UYKs would have been put back in service
where they belong...


  So there are other aspects to Classic Computers than us Collectors,
though I know some of us don't like the intrusion of 'business' into the
'hobby'. C'est la Vie...

  Cheers

Beltway Bandit
Received on Sun Dec 08 2002 - 12:55:00 GMT