One of my favorite crazy facts: in 1991 a Hungarian university got an IBM 3090 mainframe as a gift, while outdated it was still insanely more advanced than anyt

One of my favorite crazy facts: in 1991 a Hungarian university got an IBM 3090 mainframe as a gift, while outdated it was still insanely more advanced than anything else available in the country. They found a spot on the top floor for it but it was impossible to get it up there so they removed the roof and used a crane. Memorial page with photos: http://hampage.hu/nosztalgia/netto/ursus/index.html http://hampage.hu/nosztalgia/netto/ursus/index.html In 1995, when another university got a VAX 9000 cluster for the bargain basement price of 50 000 CHF (~130 000 USD equivalent today) -- the Swiss basically discarded it as outdated, this truly was cheap -- and they tried to switch it on, it blew the fuse ... of the district. They needed to run a new power line from the nearest substation.