On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Zane H. Healy wrote:
> > I have a ton (literally tons) that I've been trying to find a new home
> > for. Shipping is, of course, an issue (they weigh 22lbs each).
>
> What on earth possessed you to.... Wow! Hey, that stuff is carpet covered
> isn't it. Been a long time since I've seen carpet covered tiles.
<Unnecessarily long story...>
Well, at one point I needed it. You see, when I was storing my stuff at
the ACCRC, we wanted to put up a nice computer museum there. There was a
wide open (well, mostly anyway) 1200sqft space upstairs that was mostly
dead space, so it was the perfect place for the museum. The only problem
was the floor was in horrendous shape. The building we were occupying
used to be an ice cream factory. So there were these huge steel i-beams
cemented into the floor that acted as supports for the heavy machinery
that was once there. The floors were sloped slightly to the drains.
Run-off over years of spillage or hosing down the machines for cleaning (I
suppose) caused erosion. So it was a big mess.
At first we thought we would improve the floor by filling in the damage
with a new layer of concrete. Hans and I set about bashing the i-beams
from the floor with a sledgehammer and a steel bar, plus a jackhammer we
rented. One set took several hours. It soon became apparent that this
was not going to work. So the new idea was to cover it over with computer
floor tiles. On multiple levels it was a cool idea: 1) it would make the
floor look nicer; 2) it would even out the floor; 3) it was oh so
classic.
So we started looking, and looking, and looking, and nothing turned up. I
called all over and checked all around and could not find anything. The
real sad part is that the space I occupied before I moved in with the
ACCRC had one area that was once a computer room for the county offices,
and had about 400-500 square feet of nice computer tiles with the framing
and everything. I was trying to get the building manager to let me have
it but he wasn't sure he could let it go. Had he known that he would have
eventually had to pay to have it removed (I'm assuming) once the building
was renovated then he would've probably given me the go ahead.
Anyway, finally, Brian Knittel of Quarterbyte clued me in that Lawrence
Livermore National Labs had a batch of tiles listed on their monthly
auction inventory. So being that I live only a couple blocks away from
there, I mosied on over and checked them out. It turns out it was just
the tiles: no supports. But still, considering that this is the only
stuff I'd found, I figured I would come across the supports later or just
figure something out.
So I hauled it all to my house one pick-up load and SUV load at a time.
Luckily I had a roommate then with a pickup. It took about 20 trips (20
very slow trips...going with any speed over any sized bump in the road
resulted in violent recoil on the truck's suspension system).
I checked around and found a computer floor tile outfit near my area. I
talked to them about doing a trade--so many tiles for so much support
material--but the tiles were so old (and with that blue carpet) that it
was worthless to them. They didn't have any use for them nor did they
have the right support material.
So I went on to Plan B. I came up with a design for a grid system made of
1x2 wood slats from the hardware store (~$1 for an 8 foot slat) and bricks
to support the corners and intersections. My (now wife's) birthday party
was coming up and we wanted to have a nice outdoor area for people to
lounge since it was the middle of August. But my backyard was/is still
unlandscaped (i.e. weeds at the time). So since I needed to build a deck
anyway, I decided to turn it into a feasibility study to see if my grid
design would work. I decided to build an 8x12 tile (16'x24') deck with
the floor tiles.
I bought a pallet of broken up landscape bricks for something like $1.47
at Home Depot, so I had all the support structure I needed. The slats
were another $40 or so, plus a box of screws. I spent a few days making
grids, clearing the area, laying out bricks, leveling everything from
every corner and angle, then finally placing the tiles. It worked great.
The deck was very level and sturdy. I could jump up and down on it
violently and it held (for the most part...I had one failure that I
repaired). I finished it off by putting in some pavers from the cement
pad by the sliding glass door to the deck, putting down some bark and some
nicely placed potted plants, throwing up some bamboo fencing around the
perimeter, and finally running Christmas lights around the border of the
deck and the hanging icicle lights from the bamboo fence. Voila! Instant
paradise.
Unfortunately, it ended up being colder than usual that night and most
people stayed in. But it was nice to have a place to hang out in the
backyard finally (if only I'd put my money into landscaping rather than
all these old computers :)
I picked out the 350 nicest tiles (Livermore had decided to remodel on top
of the tiles and then remove them, so a lot of them had drywall dust and
sawdust all over them; others had stains or odd holes cut in them for
ducting and what not) and hauled them all (50 at a time in my SUV) to the
ACCRC. I carried each one (4-6 at a time) up a flight of stairs, all
350, and stacked them in the museum area.
So finally, what happened at the ACCRC? Nothing. I lagged too much (my
budget was shot), the ACCRC decided to move, and the project never
materialized. So I ended up being stuck with having to dispose of 350
very decent computer floor tiles (no time or energy to move them back so
into the metal bin they went), and still have 1,000 tiles sitting in my
sideyard.
I have a very nice deck to show for it though. It's going on its second
winter and, amazingly, it's still holding up. The bamboo is long gone,
and some of the corners have sunk a little and so it's not as even as it
used to be, plus some of the carpet is peeling off from the tiles. At any
rate, it's lasted through countless barbecues, a couple raucous nights
with the water pipe (lots of burn marks), and two rainy seasons. It's not
fun to walk on when it's wet, and the carpet has faded, but it's still
nice to set out a lawn chair once in a while and think about the old
machines that used to perform some imaginatively wild calculations while
resting atop those same tiles :)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Wed Dec 17 2003 - 01:19:45 GMT