18 year old buys IBM mainframe for peanuts

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I forwarded the video to the local computer society (AHCS) list, and I was told he was at  our VCFSE 5.0 show two weekends ago. I saw speeches by early Apple/Mac programmer Andy Hertzfeld, and Radio Shack parts manager/force behind the TRS-80 Don French (and Chuck Peddle by Skype), but regrettably I hadn't heard of this guy, much less knew he was at the show.

I and friends talked with Don French a few times before and after the speech, he really likes to talk with people. Here's a pic I took of Don (right, and fellow AHCS member Flash holding the computer) just after he autographed an original TRS-80.

We had our monthly meeting yesterday. Another member got yet another "mother lode" of equipment being decommissioned, and he gave me (okay, he insisted I take) one of several Sun Blade 150s he had.  So now I get to learn to install Unix/Linux and be a System Admin.
 

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Thanks for posting that Ian.
And I thought I was a hoarder!
 
After decades of collecting dust and cobwebs in my back lab I finally carted my old 16 bit computer (heathkit version of DEC LSI/11) to the road for trash collection a couple years ago. The part kit, part assembled system cost around $6,500 in 70's dollars.

In the pile is huge DEC printer (with acoustic modem for 300 baud telephone line com), a stand alone computer terminal (remember those?), huge dual 8" floppy, etc... Back in the '70s it was a big deal. I ran my mail order kit business with it, and even designed multistage filters plotting out the combined amplitude response with tab function of my dot matrix printer.

The local junkers picked through the pile and more than half was gone by the time the town came around to collect it.

JR
 

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