New finds and disorganization

From: Ian Primus <ian_primus_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Fri Jul 4 08:20:01 2003

This week has been pretty hectic, what with working late and at the
same time acquiring new hardware, all in the midst of my current
project of trying to reorganize and clean the basement. The three day
weekend should give me some time to catch up on stuff though. Anyway,
apologies again to those of you that wanted to buy something, I'll get
everything straightened out here soon.

My new finds this week:

A Prime 5340 minicomputer. This is a really interesting machine, it
seems to be pretty loaded with expansion hardware, and even came with
two waist high rack cabinets, one with a 9 track tape drive, and one
with two more hard drives. I even got a stack of software manuals. This
thing took a lot of work to move, and I haven't really had the time to
start cleaning and documenting any of it yet, let alone even think of
powering it up. Before I power it up I need to go through and check the
power supply, as this had been sitting for a while. I also don't have
any software for it, although the hard drives should have the operating
system and stuff. This will be an interesting project, especially since
this is the first large computer in my collection, and I haven't really
worked on machines like this before.

Tektronix 4051 computer. This is pretty neat too, it has a built in
storage tube for the screen, and a tape cartridge drive. It was
absolutely filthy when I got it, but I managed to get it cleaned up and
tested. The computer works, but the tape drive needs some help. The
eject mechanism is broken, and it won't read any tapes. Now, I only
have two tapes, and they were stored in the back of the manual, which
was with the computer, in a filthy storage area, so I don't know how
good the tapes are. I would be interested in getting a known good tape
so I can be sure the drive reads.

This weekend will be spent on cleaning the basement, finding someplace
good in the basement to put the large Prime computer, and getting
stuff ready to ship out to people.

Ian Primus
ian_primus_at_yahoo.com
Received on Fri Jul 04 2003 - 08:20:01 BST