Man I've had a great week.
Last Monday I went to the U. of Oklahoma surplus department to check out the
inventory that would be available for the next day's sale. I saw some IBM
unit that looked vaguely interesting, but it hadn't yet been priced. I
decided to look for it the next day at the sale.
On Tuesday, the IBM thing was nowhere to be seen. I went to an employee and
asked, "Where's that big IBM thing?". He didn't seem to understand. "You
know, like a mainframe?" I asked. The people at surplus are moderately
knowledgeable about computers, but like many, they don't know the difference
between 'bigger than a PC' and 'mainframe'. "Yeah, we got a mainframe on
eBay," he said. I thought, "Oh great, they've discovered eBay. Just what I
needed: several million competitors." I went home to see what they had on
eBay. I found this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2068622725&rd=1
Holy cow! A VAXvector 6000-520! But... their reserve was probably around
$10K. Yeeeeah. I went back to surplus to ask what would happen when the bid
never reached the reserve, but they guy responsible was out for the day.
Thursday, I went back and made contact with the guy. He assured me that they
would honor the high bid, even if it was below the reserve. He took me back
to see the VAX. It was in great shape, with hardly a scratch and very little
dust. It had two scalar processors, one vector processor, 128MB RAM, DEMNA
(ethernet), KLESI-BB (tape), 2 DMB32 (serial/parallel), and CI clustering
interface. There was a separate SA900 disk cabinet, and it had 12 RA7x SDI
drives in 3 SA70 (?) enclosures. I wanted it.
I made note of the tag on the VAX, which indicated that it was surplused
from 'University Computing Services'. I figured that the department was
somehow related to the IT department, so I proceeded to the IT offices,
which inhabit the second floor of the EL building, above the computer
science offices. I've always wondered what was up there, and I was glad to
have an excuse to find out. I explored the entire second floor looking for
some sort of receptionist, but didn't find one. Finally, I accosted a
hall-walker, and it went like this:
Me: "I found this really old, really big computer down at surplus, and
I'm looking for informa--"
HW: "You need to go to the helpdesk in Felgar 300 for help with your
computer. We don't do that here."
Me: "You don't understand. It's really big, like five feet tall and it
weighs several hundred pounds. Someone here--"
HW: "We don't help students with their computers here. Go to Felgar."
Me: "This isn't a student computer; it was surplused from University
Computing Services."
HW: "Hmm. We haven't been called that for maybe ten years."
Me: "Right. This is a *mainframe* [sic]. One of your people would have
been responsible for this machine."
HW: "I don't know who that would be. That was a long time ago."
Me: "OK, do you have anybody here that fits the term 'old timer'?
Someone who keeps the old stuff from breaking? Does anybody have
reel-to-reel tapes in his office?"
HW: "Hmm. Maybe <name>... What kind of computer is this?"
Me: "It's a VAX. It's got--"
HW: "Oh yeah, go to <name>. He'll help you."
Me: "Thanks."
So I went to <name>'s office, and BINGO, he's the VAX guy. He knew the VAX
that was at surplus and told me it was just removed from the machine room. I
told him about classiccmp and the enthusiast community, and he was quite
amused. I asked him if there was any software or documentation for this
machine that he no longer needed, and he pointed to a large bookcase full of
manuals. "We can't do anything with the software, but I no longer need that
entire bookcase." I thereby scored:
(0) A 6'Hx10'W superwall of VAX, VMS, and layered product manuals. There
is an orange wall, a grey wall, a white wall, a multicolored wall,
another white wall, and so on. I don't remember how far back it goes,
but the latest wall is from OpenVMS 7.2. I will pick these up on
Friday.
(1) About 100 blank magtapes, as soon as <name> runs them through the
bulk eraser.
To top off this generousity, <name> pointed me to <name2>, who made all of
the College of Engineering's PDP-11 purchases back in the day.
So I went to see <name2> over in Carson. He's known among the students for
his flamboyant lecture style and for his leadership of the electric car
team. He told me that he purchased an 11/34, an 11/70, 11/44, and an 11/23,
and that they were all gone now (actually, by 5 years ago). He did, however,
tell me the name and employer of the guy that used to be this region's DEC
representative. He said, "If anyone around here has that sh*t lying around
in their garage, it's him."
Sunday afternoon, I got in the high bid of $102.50 on the auction.
Today, I paid for and picked up the machine as detailed in another post.
During this process, the boss of the surplus department came up to me:
B: "I'm glad you paid us for that, because if you didn't, we'd have to
pay someone to haul it off to state surplus."
Me: "State surplus?"
B: "Yeah, that's where all our big stuff ends up anyway."
Me: "So that's why, in 1.5 years, I've never seen any of this stuff for
sale here?"
B: "It all goes to state surplus."
Me: "Can I buy stuff there?"
B: "Yeah, they have an auction like every two weeks."
Me: "If you get big computer stuff like this in, could you hold it for
me?"
B: "Theoretically, but you'll have to check back often."
So, in summary, I scored the following this week:
(0) VAXvector 6000-520
(1) SA900 Storage Array
(2) Superwall of manuals
(3) Promise of blank magtapes
(4) Name of former DEC representative
(5) Knowledge of the state surplus department
(6) Knowledge of how to find big stuff at OU surplus
--
Jeffrey Sharp
Received on Wed Nov 20 2002 - 03:44:00 GMT