One That Got Away (was: Woohoo! Another DEC score!) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

26 Nov 2003

On Nov 27, 22:24, Witchy wrote:
...
  > -----Original Message-----
 > From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
 > [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of O. Sharp [...]
...
  > I'm _still_ irked about this... not least of
all at myself, for having
...
  > waited too damn long for a "right
moment" to ask about this machine.
...
   Damn it, damn
it, damn it.  :(
 ...There. That's my True Confession(tm). 
 Several years ago before I was collecting the company I worked for had
...
  expanded so much there wasn't room to house the
old DEC kit we'd acquired
...
  over the years. I didn't have room at home and
couldn't find anyone who was
...
  interested to take it so many things got tossed;
VT52s, VT100s, VT102s, a
...
  VT180 (I kept the disks), RL02s, TS11 or two, TU81,
MicroVAXen, MicroPDPs,
...
  terminal servers........etc etc etc....gah! 
OK, mine concerns a PDP-11/40.  When I got it, it wasn't in a rack,
just lying on the floor, minus the power supply, a few wires cut, a bit
of rust here and there, and no docs.  At the time I didn't have a
Unibus machine with a full lights-and-switches front panel, so I took
it anyway.  After 2 or 3 years of lying on *my* floor, I gave up trying
to get a power supply sorted out, and gave it away to someone whom I
suspect broke it up.  The sad thing is that it had a full complement of
boards in the CPU (my present 11/40 has no FPU, no MMU, etc) and a few
extra goodies.  Moreover, it turns out to have been been one used for
the developmenmt of MUMPS, so it was actually a more historic machine
than many.
--
Pete                                            Peter Turnbull
                                                Network Manager
                                                University of York