EEVblog #1112 - Vintage Computer Warehouse Diving!

The Australian Computer Museum Societies' warehouse has to shut down next week, so Dave goes warehouse diving.
If you know of someone willing to donate warehouse space in Sydney, please let me know.
UPDATE: Please don't contact them with offers of small donations space, they need a HUGE space, as in hundreds of square meters. Thanks.

Support the EEVblog through Patreon!

Stuff I recommend:

Donate With Bitcoin & Other Crypto Currencies!

[LGR]

Here's hoping the really unique stuff finds a new home before it's too late! The mountains of documentation especially. Although I'd happily carry all those PC-compatibles away if I was local, heh. So many older x86 components are rapidly becoming harder to find and oddly sought after.

[timthomas]

AH! Memory Lane!

The first computer I used was a VIC20, then a Commodore 64, then the infamous Radio Shack TRS80 Model 2000.

From there it was a 386, 486DX2 with 2 40mb hard drives. When the Pentium 2's came out, HAD to have one.
After that I went to work as a computer tech for an Epson authorized dealer. Still have the certificate for each of their equipment.
My Brag Book, with all of my licences and certifications has a cat sitting on a VIC20.
Thought bubble, "I don't know what this thing is, but it's sure nice and warm".
Gave it to my Son. He just looked at me funny. I don't need all that stuff anymore. Nobody needs an old Satcom certificate for something that doesn't exist anymore. It was fun while it lasted.

[movaxh]

6:30 - PDP-11 enginerring drawings. What a score.

[NoName-nwkn]

This is KILLING ME! He walked by a lot of interesting stuff. I think he totally missed a PET clone in the monitor room.

[mycosys]

That weird IBM you walked past was THE FIRST HARD DRIVE commercially available - the IBM 305 RAMAC. As soon as you said RAMAC i was jaw on floor

[timothystevenhoward]

part of that room was in TRON, I am sure of it.

[NeilRieck]

VAX BI Bus was found in the VAX-6000 series IIRC (VAX was a native 32-bit architecture but the BI bus allowed VAX to map above 40 bits of address space).

[bertoid]

23:40 Is an IBM 1401 computer. At one time (circa 1960) these were the most widely used systems in the world. Over 10, 000 were made, only about 6 left worldwide now.
I still have the core memory frame from one of these.

[ketturi]

It would be awesome, if all those old books, manuals and other paper stuff could be digitized and published in free online catalog. Often when working on old stuff information just can't be found from internet and old information could be almost impossible to get if nobody has stored physical versions and put them on catalog. Sadly scanning and photographing piles of documents is time consuming and often just not done before throwing stuff away.

[zakofrx]

Google and Micosoft Australia should be donating.
To sad to watch.
I used to have a heap of rare vintage computers and a family member chucked them all while I was away.
He thought it was just old crap.
(Rare IBM keyboards that are now up near $5000 second hand etc...)

[photopuppet]

They need to be a lot more selective in what they decide to save. Stuff like PC clone systems, a lot of the old monitors, random printers/peripherals are really just junk apart from unusual designs and there's a lot they should not have accepted or recycled when they first got it. Probably only a small amount of those piles of documentation are worth keeping - again, needs sorting and looking at it as its received rather than just dumping straight away on a pile in the warehouse! If the actual valuable/rare gear was then properly organised, it would take up a fraction of the space they're using now.

[Screamingtut]

I worked on the PDP11/ 20, 34A, 40, 45, 60, 70 computers plus RP05, 6, 7, RK05, RX01 etc.

[heathwellsNZ]

23:20 - "who wants it" - I bet the 8-bit Guy is yelling "me me me!"

[electronicsNmore]

I love looking at old stuff like this. Thanks for a great video!

[justice]

We need to setup a fund to help move and store this stuff.

[movaxh]

6:03 - These IBM 3278 terminals are beutiful.

[georgemurdocca]

Great blog post Dave. I went there today and gave a few items a new (temporary) home. Hopefully some serious movers come in and preserve this amazing mountain of computing history. ABC radio interviewed them (and me while they were at it) which should air on Monday and spread more awareness.

[philscomputerlab]

Why isn't there something like that in Perth? :D Good on ya with that Amiga 2000! Some of those old PCs looked interesting to me, but yea, wrong coast for me.

[NeilRieck]

The DEC RP-06 at 7:36 could only support 200 MB. I know this because I did an awful lot head alignment routines on these at Bell Canada in the 1980s. IIRC, they employed 10 platters but only 18 heads (the top surface and the bottom surface were not used). If you forgot to remove your wrist watch before launching the heads, then you would need a new watch :-)

[tpcdude]

RSTS an early timesharing system the ReSource Timesharing System. a breakthrough OS which ran in 32KB on PDP-11 computers .. i am one of the many unknown heros of this era.