One That Got Away (was: Woohoo! Another DEC score!)

From: Fred N. van Kempen <waltje_at_pdp11.nl>
Date: Thu Nov 27 06:57:55 2003

> ...There. That's my True Confession(tm).

In 1985, I was in University in Amsterdam. I after a brief fling with
the Prime system, I got kicked out of that class (we, first-year
students, were not allowed to know more than our teachers, writing
programs in PL/I was in that category..) the Prime's sys admin took
me to the final-year quarters ("The Dark Side" of the building..)
and introduced me there. They gave me an account, pushed me into
a chair in front of a terminal, slapped three A4-size binders on
the desk, and said, "come back when you're done". So, I did UNIX
in two days, C in three, and came back. Soon thereafter, I was
doing unscheduled system crashes on that machine (11/34A with V7)
because I was tinkering with its drivers ;)

So.. they got fed up with that, and gave my my own 11/34a to work
with/on (standard box, no fancy drives: 248K, 2xRK05, RL02, two
RK07's, RM80-ish thing off Emulex card, Kennedy tape unit). I had
to install 2.8BSD UNIX on it, as my "passing test" :)

Anyway. I already had two racks filled with an 11/10 (plus TU56),
an 11/35 (plus RK05) and an 11/45 in the second rack. Lots of
fun, all docs included, etc.

Then summer break snuck in.

So, we all enjoyed the break, and then returned to school, in
august 1986 or so.

THE WHOLE ROOM WAS GONE.

Turns out that School Management wanted to show a crisper look
to people, and they decided that The Dark Side had to go. They
did not call, or anything.. just just fuckin' tossed the stuff,
everything included! The only things left were the two 11/34's,
since they were behind a "wall" of steel locker cabs.

Needless to say, I thre a fit that lasted a few weeks, ending in
me leaving there, and moving to another university instead. A
life-lasting trauma had been created...

[looks around at home]
Yeah, a trauma, most definitely. :-)

--fred
Received on Thu Nov 27 2003 - 06:57:55 GMT