[cctalk] Re: Computer Collection Dissolution

Am 16.12.25 um 22:16 schrieb Jochen Kunz via cctalk: [...] Some feedback on this to the general public: First many thanks to the good wishes for my health situation. I think in the mail it sounds worse than it is. It is not going to get better, but it is OK. Not fine, but OK. I simply have to be careful to not make it worse. Carying heavy things is risky and may make things worse. So I simply don't take the risk. I am 52 years of age and plan to stay here for at least an other 30 or so years. I would not mind of an other 52 years, albeit that being a bit unrealistic. I hope to spend this time in good health and have a high quality of live. A bunch of old computers are not worth to risk anything. Simple, isn't it? Initially I was anxious that I might not get rid of all the stuff. Ohh, man. I got overwhelmed by the amount of reactions and offers for help that arrived by e-mail. Thanks to all who reached out. On the other side I am now in the conundrum to decide who gets wich machine. I still have to compile a comprehensive overview who requested which machine to sort out allocation. Some machines are very popular. I think 90% of the mails requested the Octane, the Indigo 2 Impact, the PDP-11/73 and then a bunch of other machines. DEC and Sun is very popular... I am not surprised by this. Obviously I will not be able to satisfy all wishes. Also: I got contacted by the chairman of the VzEkC, "Verein zum Erhalt klassischer Computer e.V." (Club for Preservation of Classic Computers) I didn't not know that this existed before. The chairman is actually a friend from the good old VAXpower / UnixIron times. There was already a thread going on in there forum about my project. So I registered an account to participate in the discussion and give first hand input. I immediately felt at home. I resonate with the vibe there. Even better, I soon discovered that many friends from the old times are user over there. The VzEkC offered to me to take all and everything, help cleaning out the junk, rearrange furniture, ... A dream come true. Especially as I am overwhelmed handling all the requests myself. The VzEkC will put everything in temporary storage. Later it will be sorted, cataloged and then there will be a raffle among VzEkC members. Some things will go into a public raffle at the Classic Computing 2026 festival https://www.classic-computing.de/cc2026/ This is the best solution. As said, about 90% of the requests I got was in the form "I want the SGI Octane, the Indigo 2 Impact, the PDP-11/73 and XYZ" Where XYZ was a bunch oc DEC or Sun stuff. Some single machines are in so high demand, I could give away a dozen of them and still not satisfy all requests. So I think a raffle is the most fair solution. That said: The VzEkC will not get everything. From all the requests that I got, I will pick a few and try to preallocate machines to some people. Criteria are: - People that I already know from the good old times. - Open Source / Free Software projects. - Local community. - Education, public museums and empowering young talent. For now I can tell that the PDP-11/34A is assigned to an electrical engineering student from Poland. I got many requests for the /34A. I know, most of those people would pick up the /34A, shove it into there storage and let it rot for ever. (As it has been rotting at my appartement for the past 15 years...) From all requests, he is the singe and only one that showed the true and genuine interest, motivation, commitment, knowledge and skill that is required to get this machine back to live. I am very, very happy to give this machine to him. And I am in total resonance with him. He is a TTL logic fetishist as I am... For this reason he will also get the Sun 3/260, as this machine is a TTL logic fetishist's wet dream come true: About 1,5 m^2 PCB area densely packed with 74 TTL, DIL RAMs, lots of PALs, some 10k ECL. The VAXstation 4000-60 and -90 will go to an old friend. The Sun Ultra 5 and 10 will go to an Open Source project in the Netherlands. To make there 1000+ km round trip worth the effort I will add in some nice and beefy machinery on top of the Suns. But I still have not decided on the add-on. Arrangements and negotiations are ongoing. I will try to answer every request. Even if it is only a "sorry, already claimed". Further updates coming.