Heaven and Hell!

[Joe R.]

At 09:10 AM 8/21/05 -0400, Steve Robertson wrote:
>Sounds like Joe Rigdon's house ;-)
>
>See ya,
>SteveRob

   Yes, it does :-)   But you haven't seen it since I added all the DEC stuff.

   Joe


>
>
>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
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