Re: Retrocomputing

From: David Lubkin (lubkin@unreasonable.com)
Date: Fri Oct 22 1999 - 11:37:59 MDT


On 10/20/99, at 1:08 AM, Bryan Moss wrote:

>I'm planning on starting a little collection of all the computers I really
>wanted to own and can now afford due to obsolescence (although I imagine
>the Connection Machine will still be quite costly, I've found some NeXT
>computers between $200-$1000). Hmm, what about old Cray supercomputers?
>Surely there'd be people willing to *pay me* to get rid of them, being so
>big an' all.

Had I but known.... When I worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
we scrapped a CDC 7600 supercomputer to make room on the floor for a Cray-YMP.
No one wanted it; the cost for electricity and maintenance was too high.
I have a souvenir memory board on my mantle. It was large enough you could
have turned it into a small bedroom.

I want an Elecom 100. It was the first minicomputer, selling for $100,000,
when the only alternative was in the millions. One of my grandfather's
inventions. His company was undercapitalized, failed, and was bought by
Univac.

On a humorous note, some years ago a PC company offered to accept any
computer as a trade-in towards one of their computers. They received all
sorts of things, but lots of the small, wedge-shaped Timex-Sinclairs. Someone
(John Dvorak?) was curious as to what the company did with these puny machines
they had received in trade. So he asked. Answer: Doorstops.

-- David Lubkin.

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