[rescue] advice on rescuing an e10k

[Skeezics Boondoggle]

"Tom 'spot' Callaway" wrote:

> I've recently been offered a working E10K for Aurora (Fedora Linux on
> SPARC) at no charge, but the catch is that I have to either get it or
> get it delivered. They quoted out a delivery charge of ~$3200.00 US.
> While this is probably a pretty decent bargain for a functional E10K,
> its a LOT of money for Aurora, which isn't even a non-profit, and would
> have to solicit the funds from donations.

How many miles?  I've shipped two CS6400's to Oregon, one from Texas and 
one from Northern Cal, for less than $1k each.  Obviously fuel costs have 
gone up a bit in the last few years... But $3200 sounds like a 
cross-country trip!

You might even ask Sun for assistance, although they may have cooled on 
Linux a bit since the Solaris 10 release...

> I was considering renting a truck and trying to get it myself, but I
> have no experience doing this. Does anyone have any advice to offer
> here?

I called SunMOVES - the group at Sun that coordinates these things.  That 
$3200 sounds like a quote from them. :-)  Their group will not only ship 
the box - they can (optionally) decommission, pack up, unpack, and then 
re-commission the machine at the destination.  $3-5K for that service for 
what was a multi-$M machine was a great bargain.

Since I was doing this as a hobbyist/collector/rescuer/crazy person, with 
my own funds, they gave me the number for North American Van Lines 
directly, who they contract with to move big Sun iron.  I explained the 
situation, and NAVL gave me a phenomenal discount (the second time I 
called up I mentioned the "crazy person" discount, and they remembered me 
:-), and I got the machines delivered (shipped three SC2000Es and two 
CS6400s with them) via padded van with no scratches.  Even inside delivery 
to a building that required a liftgate truck.

If you've never secured a large heavy item like that, I sure wouldn't want 
to risk having your E10k land on its pretty purple face with a great big 
thud - potentially damaging the truck, and smashing up your machine... I'd 
really recommend calling SunMOVES and see if they'll put you in touch with 
the pros.  They can give you the weights and specs so that the movers can 
give you a reasonable quote, if nothing else.

Good luck!  I'm jealous... I'd love to have a Starfire to play with, and 
I've stupidly let _three_ from the local area get away in the last year or 
so - but I don't *yet* have a space suitable for the older machines, and 
couldn't commit myself to buying _another_ huge machine until I had a 
place to set it up - having it gather dust in a storage unit seemed silly.  
Sigh.  Someday... stupid real estate bubble. :-)

-- Chris