eBay

[Dave Brown]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gil Carrick" <gilcarrick at comcast.net>
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" 
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 2:09 PM
Subject: RE: eBay


>> I feel the same way. You can spot the people who only care
>> about the biggest
>> collection because they have very little in the way of
>> hardware upgrades,
>> software, magazines, and manuals in their collection (since they 
>> don't
>> usually turn them on).
>
> I have been thinking about this question the last couple of days, 
> and I just
> want to share a slightly different point of view. I teach Computer 
> Science
> at a University, and being a pack rat of long standing, convinced 
> our then
> chairman to let me start a "computer museum" so I could clean out my 
> garage,
> closets, attic, study, etc. In this environment there is merit in 
> older
> machines, even if they don't run. One of my favorite items, and one 
> that
> gets the attention of the students, is a voice coil magnet out of an 
> unknown
> drive. It weighs about 60 pounds, IIRC.
> (http://www.cse.uta.edu/TheMuseum@CSE/Whazat.html)
>
> I tell them that it was in a drive about the size of a washing 
> machine

 SNIP************

Hi Gil-
 They certainly were that big!
At one time I had ten of them in the back yard here for a couple of 
months while I worked on them-huge washing machine type drives.
That voice coil assy on you web page is something I well remember - 
probably used in may different drives but they are identical to the 
ones in the CDC (Control Data Corp) drives I 'rendered down' about 20 
years ago. I still have two or three of the centre pole pieces (great 
door stops) and a few of the permanent magnet pieces (they were in 
three 120 degree segments I think) from the VC drives. Had an 
identical VC to the one in the picture as well till quite recently. 
There's still some docs round here somewhere for those drives.
They were ex an ICL system-can't recall the model.

Cheers
 DaveB, NZ




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