7-Sep-2019

Today, a really big piece of iron has joined my collection — rescued just in time.

A VAX-11/785 had been sitting in a building for 20 years. The building was scheduled to be demolished, and originally another collector had been handling the project. After two weeks, however, he had to admit that he would not be able to pick up the VAX or rent a truck — leaving me just a few days to organize everything myself.

Finding a large truck on such short notice was both stressful and extremely expensive. In the end, I provided a new home for the VAX, and many of the other items thankfully found new homes with other vintage computer collectors.

The building was dry, but mice and rats were everywhere. It smelled really bad, and most of the other equipment was in bad shape.

Fortunately, the VAX was mostly sealed shut, so no mice or other wildlife had found their way into the cage.