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And now I’m wondering what it’s worth on the open market. Biggest problem is it’s not something you could easily ship. It’s pretty heavy and not something you w

And now I’m wondering what it’s worth on the open market. Biggest problem is it’s not something you could easily ship. It’s pretty heavy and not something you want tossed around.

neilv 6y ago
If a couple people could lift it into the back of a normal $20 U-Haul van (maybe partially disassembled, if the legs come off), without injuring themselves, then the daytrip radius might cover a lot of geography of people who might want it. (Otherwise, you've got professional crating, freight, lifts or docks, pallet jacks, insurance, etc.) When I arranged for my university to donate an HP-PA box to the Linux kernel effort, one person made the trek to pick it up (and I vaguely recall they might've been relaying it to someone else). If a DECwriter needs a van rather than a trunk, it seems not that much different. Nostalgic vintage systems might be even more motivation for some enthusiasts to collaborate. Tangentially related: I was thinking yesterday (when tempted to get a real VAX or Alpha VMS box, but not know what to do with it other than explore a while and then maybe put it up on the 'net for free accounts that would probably get abused)... What I'd really like to see happen is a very active in-person hands-on museum/clubhouse/afterschoolprogram/hackerspace for these systems. One half of your warehouse floorspace is a working setup of various of these systems, set up so that people can sit down and use them, terminal-server into them, etc. And the other half is where you hold classes/mentoring/workshop space for kids and adults who are already enthusiasts, as well as to introduce disadvantaged kids to the opportunity and catch them up on mentoring support in techie stuff that many kids have and we'd like everyone to have. I know there have been some places like that, and maybe there should be more, and refine the idea, and people will be happy to chip in to acquire pieces for the hands-on collection, like a DECwriter.
- ChicagoDave 6y ago
  Well that's easy: http://chiclassiccomp.org/ http://chiclassiccomp.org/

And now I’m wondering what it’s worth on the open market. Biggest problem is it’s not something you could easily ship. It’s pretty heavy and not something you want tossed around.

neilv 6y ago

If a couple people could lift it into the back of a normal $20 U-Haul van (maybe partially disassembled, if the legs come off), without injuring themselves, then the daytrip radius might cover a lot of geography of people who might want it. (Otherwise, you've got professional crating, freight, lifts or docks, pallet jacks, insurance, etc.) When I arranged for my university to donate an HP-PA box to the Linux kernel effort, one person made the trek to pick it up (and I vaguely recall they might've been relaying it to someone else). If a DECwriter needs a van rather than a trunk, it seems not that much different. Nostalgic vintage systems might be even more motivation for some enthusiasts to collaborate. Tangentially related: I was thinking yesterday (when tempted to get a real VAX or Alpha VMS box, but not know what to do with it other than explore a while and then maybe put it up on the 'net for free accounts that would probably get abused)... What I'd really like to see happen is a very active in-person hands-on museum/clubhouse/afterschoolprogram/hackerspace for these systems. One half of your warehouse floorspace is a working setup of various of these systems, set up so that people can sit down and use them, terminal-server into them, etc. And the other half is where you hold classes/mentoring/workshop space for kids and adults who are already enthusiasts, as well as to introduce disadvantaged kids to the opportunity and catch them up on mentoring support in techie stuff that many kids have and we'd like everyone to have. I know there have been some places like that, and maybe there should be more, and refine the idea, and people will be happy to chip in to acquire pieces for the hands-on collection, like a DECwriter.

ChicagoDave 6y ago
Well that's easy: http://chiclassiccomp.org/ http://chiclassiccomp.org/