Subject: New finds and disorganization

From: Ian Primus <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jul 4 08:20:01 2003

This week has been pretty hectic, what with working late and at the 
same time acquiring new hardware, all in the midst of my current 
project of trying to reorganize and clean the basement. The three day 
weekend should give me some time to catch up on stuff though. Anyway, 
apologies again to those of you that wanted to buy something, I'll get 
everything straightened out  here soon.

My new finds this week:

A Prime 5340 minicomputer. This is a really interesting machine, it 
seems to be pretty loaded with expansion hardware, and even came with 
two waist high rack cabinets, one with a 9 track tape drive, and one 
with two more hard drives. I even got a stack of software manuals. This 
thing took a lot of work to move, and I haven't really had the time to 
start cleaning and documenting any of it yet, let alone even think of 
powering it up. Before I power it up I need to go through and check the 
power supply, as this had been sitting for a while. I also don't have 
any software for it, although the hard drives should have the operating 
system and stuff. This will be an interesting project, especially since 
this is the first large computer in my collection, and I haven't really 
worked on machines like this before.

Tektronix 4051 computer. This is pretty neat too, it has a built in 
storage tube for the screen, and a tape cartridge drive. It was 
absolutely filthy when I got it, but I managed to get it cleaned up and 
tested. The computer works, but the tape drive needs some help. The 
eject mechanism is broken, and it won't read any tapes. Now, I only 
have two tapes, and they were stored in the back of the manual, which 
was with the computer, in a filthy storage area, so I don't know how 
good the tapes are. I would be interested in getting a known good tape 
so I can be sure the drive reads.

This weekend will be spent on cleaning the basement, finding someplace 
good in  the basement to put the large Prime computer, and getting 
stuff ready to ship out to people.

Ian Primus
[email-masked]

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From: "Jay West" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jul 5 15:33:29 2003

You wrote...
> with two more hard drives. I even got a stack of software manuals.

Woah! Being a Pick/PrimeInformation nut, I'm very jealous. Great score!

Jay West

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From: "Fred N. van Kempen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Jul 6 10:24:00 2003

> Woah! Being a Pick/PrimeInformation nut, I'm very jealous. Great score!

Aaaargh.  A year and a half ago, I had to throw out the Pr1me 550-II,
which we used to have at university in Amsterdam.  I dreaded that
machine, though, but more because of the endless hours screaming
at its slowness than because of technical issues.

Last year, I had to also throw away its documentation, because nobody
(here in NL) wanted it.  Docs totalled about 10 feet :)

Sad...

--fred