Checked into the hotel about 30min ago. Not exactly the pre-dinner arrival we had planned, but we're here. Going to try to make the first speakers at 11am (EDT) and set up our stuff before or after. Pictures to come!

City impound yard

So I started packing at midnight last night. 90 minutes later I have a car full of random stuff I never intended to bring. I walked around the house/basement/garage/local dump and searched for things that, at least the last time I looked at them n years ago, were working. No one will be judging my display for continuity of theme, and certainly not for effort, so no worries. Just another day with a carload of dusty old electronics. This is my life.

Pretty much everything I’ve tried has failed or is broken. My display will most likely be a big pile of broken equipment, but still somewhat rare and possibly conversation-inspiring. Maybe I’ll shift gears and display some other stuff that I know works. Time to hit the basement closet and see what presents itself…

Well I’ve gone and signed up as an exhibitor for VCF Midwest and I’m not really sure what I’m going to display. Since I never have the time to really complete and restore anything I have, I’ll probably just bring some unique items and leave it at that. If they turn on and people can do things on them, all the better. One week to go, and I seem to be living at work lately….

HP6000-660S disk system I bought at Weird Stuff in Sunnyvalle, CA. I hooked it up to my laptop with a PCMCIA SCSI controller card and it saw three HP 2212A disks. I had to open it up to see what was inside – while it’s very heavy I didn’t expect these beasts. If there is any data on them, Windows wouldn’t know what to do with it.

Each disk is covered with a heavy metal shield that is screwed onto the drive both on top and on the front face. I’m not sure how it is removed, so I can’t find the real drive manufacturer or model number. The shield is labeled with model number 97548-60061, which appears to be an HP part number for a 660mb disk. 1.8gb of SCSI disk from ~1990!

This is what a Honda full of terminals, CP/M machines and software boxes looks like.

This is what a barn full of terminals and boxes (and hay) looks like.

Here are the decent-for-a-camera-phone pics I took at the Computer History Museum. I’m off tomorrow on another computer rescue mission. Adventure awaits…