Heaven and Hell!

[Steve Robertson]

Sounds like Joe Rigdon's house ;-)

See ya,
SteveRob


tom ponsford wrote:

> Hi ALL!
>
> I had the good fortune to witness something truly extraordinary yeaterday.
>
> I imagine there are some on this list that have stumbled on large
> collections by
> accident or by design, and marvel at thier good fortune and curse their
> luck at
> not being the owner.
>
> Well, such a thing happened to me yestrday and I was truly awestruck.
>
> I had met a retired engineer at the auction I attend religiously at the
> University of Arizona. I have been attending these auctions for about 5
> years, there
> are some who have been attending for far longer, and also have been
> collecting
> from other source even longer.
>
> Roy is such a person. He lives alone in a very large red brick hacienda in a
> very lush part of the San Pedro River valley in SE arizona, only a few miles
> from me.
>
> Upon arrival at his home which is at the end of a very muddy and rutted dirt
> road, I was greeted by a very large vulture sitting on a telephone pole
> outside
> the driveway to his house. An omen of things to come?
>
> I proceeded down the driveway several hundred yard through a huge thicket of
> willows and cottonwoods to come upon a HUGE graveyard of old computers,
> electronics parts,equipment racks and large piles of junk moldering in
> the humid
> arizona sun.
>
> Sitting upright in the mud/grass were the remains of a DG Eclipse,
> next to a stack of DEC RL02 disks about three feet high. piles anf piles
> of old
> dot matrix printers were next to several equipment racks. An old school
> bus stood
> forlornly by. It was stuffed to the gills with equipment.A hazeltine
> terminal/computer half buried in the mud. A Variax? 10KW
>
> I was greeted by Roy and we entered his house. I should say warehouse,
> as the
> this house was crammed from floor to ceiling with computers, test
> equipment and
> electronics gear. The floors were concrete and suported industrial steel
> racks
> packed full of stuff..in every room save one!
>
> Have you ever seen people who have collected books or papers and went
> overboard..Well imagine this with computers.Not just computers, but old
> computers and electronic gear.
>
> On my hour tour of the premise, I spotted:
>
> At least three Data General Nova 2 and Nova 3's, with a paper reader and
> terminals. All in great condition. One was turned on for me!
>
> At least two HP 1000 and at least one HP 2100 series.
>
> Dozens of Tektronix terminals and the early 405xx series computers
>
> Roomfulls of HP testing and analyzer equipment and so many of the early HP
> computers they were too numerous to count.
>
> Shelves and shelves full of old DG terminals (the oval ones) Ahmdahl
> terminals
>
> At least two ASR 33's and some teletypes that might be even older.
> A rack full of a pre WW11 commercial radio transmitter.
> WWII and later aviation instruments!
>
> A TOW missle. (the warhead had been replaced with intrumentation and
> there was
> no fuel in the missle but the rocket engine was intact)
>
> A very early laser!
>
> A shelf crammed with DEC decpacks RK11/RK02 all with RT-11 inscribed on the
> sides. A big amount a older DEC documentation!
>
> Huge bookshelfs full of documentation forTektronics, HP, DEC most
> pre-1990 some
> pre-80! some pre 70!!!
>
> A large file cabinet stuffed with new in the box 8" floppies., paper tapes
>
> 8" inch floppy drives of all makes and models.
>
> Various disks from HP to DEC to DG.(dozens)
>
> A room dedicated to electronic testing equipment, mainly HP but also
> scores of
> others. most pre-1980. dozens of Oscilliscopes.
>
> A scanning electron microscope!
>
> Dec VT52, VT100 terminals. It was said there is a VT05? hiding somewhere!
>
> It was almost too much for me too comprehend.
>
> I'll be heading over there soon to pick up an RX02 that I spied hiding
> in a corner.
>
> O yeah.. a parting gift included a LSI-11 that looked somewhat complete,
> all the
> cards.
>
> There was a unibus pdp11 buried somewhere in the racks of equipment, behind
> other racks of equipment.
>
> There was more stuff that I probably missed or forgot than what I
> remembered (I didn't take notes!)
>
> This may take a while!
>
> Cheers
>
> Tom