[rescue] Re: How would you ship this

[Gavin Hubbard]

>After seeing this on e-bay
>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3031167872&category=11216
>my mind immediately drifted to how I would ship such a
>machine to NYC.
>   Does anyone have an idea what shipping might cost, or
>even how you go about finding a company that will pick
>it up.
>I figure there is no point researching if the seller/item is
>real, if I cant get it home.
>
>Thanks
>Brian


Hi Brian

As someone who runs a non-production E6000 I say you should go for it. However it is definitely worth paying a moving company to help you shift it as they have the neccessary equipment (pallet jacks etc) for moving stuff over uneven surfaces.

For what it is worth, the E6000 is exactly the same system as the E6500 (the E6500 has a *cough* bigger cabinet and a *cough* faster CD-ROM). They both have an 83MHz Gigaplane, so you can upgrade using the relatively inexpensive X2601A and X2611A carrier boards. When I say inexpensive, a used X2601A board costs around $70 on the open market and you need one for eavery pair of processors.

Processors are _dirt_ cheap. I bought 30 used 336MHz/4MB modules on EBay for around $15 each! Memory is also cheap - 1GB single bank kits sell on EBay for around $160 each. They're just standard EDO/ECC 168pin DIMMs (but you need matched sets of eight). If you have trouble finding the processors you need, I do have a full set of 30 used 250MHz/4MB processors that I will sell for $100 per set of ten + postage (contact me off-list if you're interested).

The E6000 rack is powered through a fairly hard to get power cable (well, hard to get on its own). Try to get it with the rack if possible. If you can't, you can always plug the main system chassis directly into the wall (it has a standard 15 amp, 240 volt IEC socket). Power comsumption on my system is around 8kW fully loaded.

FWIW the system you linked is almost certainly been frankensteined out of surplus parts. I say this because the memory loading pattern does not follow Sun guidelines and the clock board's time-of-day has not been synchronised with the I/O boards. Plus that 250MHz/1MB processor in slot 4 shouldn't really be in there.

If you need any more info, please post to the list. I'd love to see another system up and running in private hands - they're great machines with cheap and easily available modular upgrades.

Best regards,

Gavin