Making the save at the scrappers

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com>
Date: Wed Sep 17 03:26:00 2003

Weird, good day at a scrapper today. I got the chance to literally rescue
some goodies as they were being tossed in the breakage bin, and found some
curious stuff.

4 person sized IBM rolling storage racks, and a pallet stacked as high as
my head of old servers from UCLA, plus a bin of misc from the same place.
Sadly I can't take anything big and ALL the hard drives were pulled, but
anybody interested that can hook up in SoCal/Corona very very soon email me
asap. Curious stuff I found are stacks of floppies that claim to be S/390
microcode from 1991, a dozen maybe 3363 optical discs, a stamped metal
wrench with an IBM part number, PowerPC diagnostic CDs, and piles of misc
parts and optical cable. Most of the servers were the big double wide
chassis monsters, but I did put my name on a couple of the smaller ones, a
C20 and I think its called a WorkStation 400 (desktop PC sized with a odd
flip up visor type thing on the front. The C20 I think is the last of the
MCA designs from IBM, and it doesn't look like AIX will be too hard to get,
even if I have to buy a legal copy.

Opto22 modules were the literal grab from the breakage bin. Maybe a dozen
pc boards, half with modules (like logic to 240 vac) and screw down
connectors, half Sensory Input boards with just screw downs and a ribbon
connector on the back. Quick check on ebay and looks like my retirement
plans are on hold, but in a way thats good news since its all cheap enough
that I can afford to play with it, instead of greedily selling it.

I found about half a dozen Sony optical discs, I can't remember the exact
model letters, but Sxx501-21, and the connectors are kind of like old style
floppy PC board fingers. Condition unfortunately unknown, and they were too
expensive for me to speculate on.

Simpson multimeter in a rough but intact leather case, looked to me kind of
like a big 360, but I think it said 730 and was not in greatest condition.
I didn't take the leather case, but stuck the meter in a box to haggle over
tomorrow.

Anyway its good to be up to my armpits in a junk bin for a couple hours.
Received on Wed Sep 17 2003 - 03:26:00 BST