[rescue] OSU surplus store (was Re: Origin 200 - flaky serial console)

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Kurt Huhn writes ...
> "Sheldon T. Hall" <shel at cmhcsys.com> wrote:
>
> > I lived in Columbus, Ohio from '97-'01; the two things I miss
> > most are the OSU surplus store ($5 SPARCstations!) and the
> > Hamvention....
>
> Where is the OSU surplus store?

Umm, I can't remember the name of the road, but it's on the "West Campus".
Take Lane Ave from High Street, heading West, go under I-70, take the first
right turn, and look for the sign in the first clump of metal buildings
about 0.25 miles down on the right.

Open Tues-Weds-Thurs from 8:30 AM, IIRC.  They stock the store only on
Monday, so there's always a line of folks waiting to get in on Tuesday
morning.  Checks only, no cash or credit cards.

You can go weeks without finding anything but crappy office furniture and
dodgy Intel PCs, then OSU'll decommission a computer lab, and the surplus
store will have a pallet of SPARCstations all at once....

Generally, a CPU is $10, unless it's fancy ($20) or they have a bunch of
them ($5) or it's been sitting around for a long time ($5, sometimes free).
Well, they were two years ago, anyway.

The rules used to be that you couldn't open the boxes, any CPU got a
keyboard and a mouse, and you could only buy cables if you bought a CPU they
would plug into.  Of course, the guys there don't know what really goes with
what, so I once bought a pile of NEC '486 PCs to get the memory (FPM
Parity), the drives, the NICs, and to get a couple of Sun keyboards (free
keyboard with each CPU) and some SCSI cables.

The chaps there are OK once they have seen you a few times, and will be
happy to explain the system, but they don't know nuttin' 'bout no computers.

Happy hunting!

-Shel