[rescue] Rescue of a life-time.. or the year at the very least.

[Skeezics Boondoggle]

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004, Patrick Finnegan wrote:

> So, after forgetting to bid on the 11/780 that was on eBay, ending on 
> Sunday (I slept in 15 minutes too late), I decided to drop the guy a 
> message and see if he had another 11/780.

[snip]

I was watching that auction too, just curious as all get-out to see how
much an 11/780 would go for these days... $68?  Sigh.  But it seems in the
last few weeks a ton of great old DEC stuff has suddenly come to the fore.
A local guy here in Portland has had an 11/780 for a while (he describes
as "mostly intact"), and a 750 too that I hope to go see next week.

But your haul is most impressive - I mean, wow. :-)  Congrats.

My list of "must haves" is pretty short these days:

Apple Cube - no rush, lots of 'em out there, but I have to have one to set 
next to my NeXT cubes at some point. :-)

Xerox Alto II - pure unobtanium, but one can hope...

DEC VAX 11/750 - might pick up next week! :-)

Sun E10K - did anyone else catch the auction for the 48-way (336mhz), 36GB 
E10K "with Enron asset tags" that went by on Ebay this week?  The one that 
mentioned "free shipping"?  I am kicking, kicking, KICKING myself for not 
jumping on it immediately.  "Free shipping" and the sale of a couple of 
system boards could have translated into a *free* E10K with, say, 32-36 
CPUs... ARGH.

But I'm currently unemployed - by choice, actually - and have been so
wrapped up in buying/fixing up my house that I wasn't thinking clearly,
and was a little gun shy about the $5K "buy it now" price on the E10K.  
Recently I had the dubious honor of turning down two $80+K/yr jobs in one
day - probably the boldest and/or the dumbest thing I've done in my life.  
But I've been so burned out and haven't had a vacation in 7 years...
besides, my house is full, my storage unit is getting full, and you only
get one stomach lining, eh?

So now instead of working to feed the hobby, I need to get the hobby to 
feed me.  Sure, an E10K at home raises some interesting possibilities, but 
it's less about the hardware than the application that draws in paying 
customers...

Anyway, that was a tremendous haul, Patrick - some really cool stuff
there.  If I do snag a 750 locally, I'll know where to turn for help and
advice.  :-)

-- Chris