[ale] geezer notice with meeting idea

[Dan Lambert]

On Fri, 2010-04-30 at 18:12 -0400, Brian Pitts wrote:
> On 04/30/2010 09:36 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> > Excellent extension idea! Some of the old gear I have was actually used in
> > the creation of art (My SGI Octane was used animating Scooby-Doo in the
> > first live movie with Sara MG of Buffy fame). Another SGI I had was used in
> > the operation of another kind of art - high energy physics (Brian Pitts has
> > it?). I also have some of the (then) high end software (Lightwave, other
> > goodies) that I _may_ be able to hack into a running order (at least show
> > scenes from Babylon 5).
> > 
> 
> I've still got this. It has IRIX on it, but I think it's supported by
> kernels post 2.6.25 [0].
> 
> Sometimes old x86, Sun and Apple equipment flows through Free IT Athens.
> Usually, we're able to find a volunteer or local collector who'll take
> it; otherwise, it's get recycled. The oldest thing I've seen show up at
> Free IT was an IBM clone from 1984. The neatest thing I've seen was a
> fully working Macintosh SE. Either that, or a Toshiba laptop with a 286
> processor and a nice keyboard with mechanical keyswitches; we gave that
> to a guy who planned to turn it into a serial console.
> 
> I personally don't have a lot of old equipment due to space constraints
> and self-restraint. I'm trying to limit myself to one computer per
> architecture. When I find a nicer specimen to add to my collection, I
> give my current one away. I snapped a picture of what I have earlier
> this week. [1]
> 
> HARDWARE
> ----------------
> PowerPC - Apple Mac Mini G4
> SPARC -Sun Ultra 10
> M68K - Macintosh Quadra 660av
> Alpha -Digital Alphastation 200 4/166
> VAX - Digital Vaxstation 4000 96
> MIPS (big endian) - SGI Indigo2 10000 Impact
> MIPS (little endian) - Asus WL-500G Premium
> PARISC - HP Workstation c3700
> 
> Other than the VAX, I believe these can all run Debian. The Alphastation
> is the only one I've found the time to install it on.
> 
> WISHLIST
> ----------------
> If anyone has Itanium or S/390 gear they could send my way, that would
> be excellent.
> 
> For the Ultra, it would be nice to have a 13W3 to VGA adapter so I can
> use the video card that came with it rather than the onboard vdeo.
> 
> For that Quadra, I need to get an ADB keyboard and mouse. Finding a
> CD-ROM drive with a DB-25 SCSI connector and a PDS Ethernet card would
> be nice too.
> 
> For the VAX, an adapter for whatever it's video output connector is (it
> looks like three coax connectors in a D-sub case) to VGA would be handy.
> I have the proper monitor, but dang its bulky and heavy. Also, a
> transceiver to go from either 10BASE5 or 10BASE2 to 1OBASET would be nice.
> 
> For the Indigo, a CD-ROM drive with a 50-pin SCSI-1 connector would be
> nice to have.
> 
> For the HP, one of their Visualize series of PCI graphics cards would be
> cool. It's not to important though, as the serial console works well in
> HP-UX and linux should support many graphics cards.
> 
> [0] http://www.pfrst.de/download.html
> [1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/puerexmachina/4554834402/
> 

Wouldn't you know it!!

When we moved in October, I disposed of about a half dozen media
converters for a 10BASE2 to 10BASET. I asked everyine I knew, and no one
had any use for them. I should have posted them on ALE!

Dan