Dec core mem on eBay

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_panix.com>
Date: Fri Feb 6 20:03:51 2004

On Fri, 6 Feb 2004, David V. Corbin wrote:

> John, hopefully you are joking about using this card as "art". There are
> many of us who could and would put it do good use in an active machine.

  Yo Dave: Keep yer shirt on.

If you look at the pix on the ebay page, you will notice that this is only
half the system, and I contacted the seller (who I know) - it's all they
have. Its just the core planes and the switching logic. Its a 32KW
stack, BTW...

  I have been active in this hobby for many years, have owned several very
rare systems and devices, and rescued and put back in service my share of
legacy computing machinery, software and docs and books. I give a lot of
volunteer time as well. I deplore folks who tear up computing history for
'art' if there's a good chance that a system could be 'saved' otherwise.
There is a special place in Hell for one individual of my acquaintance,
who's "hobby" is collecting just the console panels from mainframes and
minis - the which Hobby he pursues with screwdriver and diagonal cutters.
He sees nothing wrong with that activity, BTW... ;{}

  In this case - I'm not *destroying* the board, and anyway it's condition
is unknown - could already be electrical trash - I won't know until I get
it. But nonetheless, I intend to frame it, open, and hang it on the wall
in my machine room, Dave. I think it's beautiful, and I think it's enough
of a piece of computing history that various people might like to have a
look at real core memory. Our IT guy at work has been doing computers for
a living for quite a while, and he had no real idea what the word 'core'
actually meant....

  Now, if it came to my attention that there was a specific, rare or
one-of-a-kind machine that could be restored to full operation but for the
board that I have - you can bet it would be in FedEx the next day to that
site, and I'd find another.

  Anyway, DEC core stacks are not all that rare - two of the machines from
my last big collection had core memory. I want this one to be a display
piece in my personal collection... and so it shall be.


  Cheerz

John
Received on Fri Feb 06 2004 - 20:03:51 GMT