"DEC vs IBM vs ...": vintage availability, was WOW!!!! $15k DEC PDP-8 CLASSIC MINICOMPUTER SYSTEM DIGITAL PDP8

[Ethan Dicks]

On 7/6/05, Tom Jennings <tomj at wps.com> wrote:
> A lot of DEC stuff went to universities, where there was a lot of
> hands-on in the guts (how many 360's were moded by students and
> faculty?), departmental hand-me-down leading to surplus.

I myself have picked up a DECmate I, a PDP-8/a,  a PDP-11/34, and
several PDP-11/03s from Ohio State surplus over the years.  VAXen and
other PDP-11s I've gotten from scrap from local and not-so-local
businesses.

My experience of what's on the street is that I see 20+ DEC machines
for each IBM machine, and even then, it's always the smaller IBM boxes
like S/34s, S/36s and AS/400s.

I'm sure lease vs purchase, aided by a once-robust DEC third-party
reseller community have a lot to do with the state of things.

-ethan