CLEAN computers Re: Grid 1520

[Doc Shipley]

Joe R. wrote:
> At 12:39 PM 12/12/04 -0500, you wrote:
> 
>>The thing that astounds me
>>is that this laptop is probably nearly 16 years old and it is far
>>cleaner inside than anything I use day to day. It must have been in a
>>lab or never taken out of its case. The keyboard is shiny new and the
>>drive area is spotless, still with the colored stickers in place.
>>Pristine, really.
> 
> 
>    I was offered a complete HP-150 system last year but had to go get it.
> It turns out that is was in the Florida Regional Crime Lab. I went and
> picked it up and it was THE cleanest computer that I've ever seen. It
> looked like it had just come out of the factory and was spotless inside and
> out. Not even any stickers on it. It turns out that it had spent it's life
> inside a lab hooked to a gas chromatograph or some such were NO
> contamination could be tolerated. It was real shame to bring it home and
> stuff it into the outbuilding with all the other computers. Anybody else
> run into situations like this?

   I got a PDP-11 (well, a pair of them) that had been decommissioned 
from a med supply warehouse that day.  Pristine clean, inside and out, 
and they still had the card-separators on the rear edge of the Qbus 
cards.  They told me that if Compaq hadn't refused to renew their 
maintenance contract, they wouldn't have replaced the machines.  I 
didn't know about Mentec then, and apparently neither did their field tech.


	Doc