Re(2): Re(2): [SunRescue] Offerings

[Kent Rankin]

>On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Tim Hauber wrote:
>>No, not that kind of museum, a museum dedicated to the preservation AND
>>USE of computer hardware often viewed as obsolete, or just old enough or
>>unique enough to be interesting to "computer types".  The goal is to have
>>everything in the museum fully operational, and for people interested in
>>using them to have access to do so.  I've never liked the fact that you
>>can't touch the stuff in museums.
>
>  Hey man, I like that idea! :-)
>
>        -Dave McGuire


    It would be nice to have some places like that, but the problem is that
most of the boxes that are worth keeping are quite nasty to manage.  You'd
need raised flooring, environment control(ie. keep it at 67 degrees(F), and
don't let it change more than 3 degrees(F) per hour(ever)), high-quality
power
(3-phase, several thousand Ampere's worth of service, and all of it on
backup
as well), a staff to manage things, etc.

    There have been a few mentioned attempts at this, but they usually come
from students that can't come up with another excuse to use the gear for
themselves.  =)  God... I guess my old "Well, I plan to port Quake to it
one day" excuse just doesn't work as well anymore.  =)  Generally the gear
gets wasted heavily in such cases(we're talking about larger machines,
here).

    This would be a wonderful thing, though, if someone would do it.  I
imagine
that all of the people with such dedication are already monks, though.  =)

    And, really, if anyone will do it, and I can tell that it would be a
good
situation, I'd be more than glad to start contributing.  It wouldn't be too
hard for me to obtain a number of supers for such an institution as long as
they would be properly managed, and available to the proper sorts.


                                                    -Kent Rankin