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I bought one of NASA MSFC's old "mainframes" a few years ago, just for fun. It was huge and I didn't have three phase power so I was never able to turn it on,
by oomkiller 15y ago
I bought one of NASA MSFC's old "mainframes" a few years ago, just for fun. It was huge and I didn't have three phase power so I was never able to turn it on, but it was cool to take it apart and examine all of the cards that they were using, and see all of the engineering and design of a million dollar computer. It was an SGI Challenge 10000XL "Rackmount" that was fully loaded, I paid $25 for it. It was utterly huge, it was the size of a refrigerator and the weight of a small car.
- pestaa 15y agoEver thought of donating it to a museum? I mean, I don't see much use in it, apart from showing it to your grandchildren someday.
- oomkiller 15y agoThere aren't many computer museums around Alabama, and it was cost prohibitive to ship it anywhere as it weighed close to 2000 lbs. Anyways, I was able to find a buyer at $700, and the guy even came and picked it up :)
- xxpor 15y ago2000 lbs? Holy crap. Where was all the weight? Did they use a 1/4 in steel case or something?
- oomkiller 15y agoThe case was pretty thick, maybe not 1/4in but about 2-3mm. A lot of the weight came from the power supplies though, it had 3 48V monstrosities that put out a total of 1900W IIRC. Plus there were disk carriages, a squirrel cage cooling fan, and about what seemed like 100 boards that connected to a common "backplane" for IO and power. It added up to be pretty heavy.