New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

Hi folks,

Just thought I should join the forum and introduce myself, as I've just moved myself, my family, and the entire Corestore collection from New York to Welly!

(the 'entire collection' came to something like 30 tons according to the movers...)

It *badly* needs updating and doesn't cover some recent acquisitions, but a fair part of the collection is documented here:

http://www.corestore.org/compute.htm

It's predominantly 1960s and 1970s DEC pdp and IBM mainframe and midrange systems. Here's a System/3 to keep you going

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y-7hYXZ324

Mike

That's awesome Welcome aboard!

I apologise in advance for our mains voltage, must be a nuisance with all that gear.

SpidersWeb wrote:That's awesome Welcome aboard!

I apologise in advance for our mains voltage, must be a nuisance with all that gear.

Thanks! Been here since October and loving it. We've been here a few times - have family here - so we knew what we were letting ourselves in for

Scottish born and bred, lived in the UK for years before moving to New York - so a fair bit of the collection is UK-origin, so your voltage is just perfect for it, thank you! As for the stuff from the USA, well the frequency is more of a problem than the voltage. Some clocks depend on frequency, some power supplies may care, but disk drives are the biggest problem; quite often they had different diameter drive pulleys for 50Hz vs. 60Hz... may need a big motor/generator for some of the stuff.

My general policy is 'everything works - or dies trying!'

Mike

Did you really ship all that from the US? Cripes! Moving house is a nightmare for most people, but moving between countries... with all that...

Welcome! I've got a couple of twinax cables rescued from a clearout about 12 years ago at the accounting firm I used to work for - haven't had the heart to throw them away, drop me a PM you want them

Forgot to add - on the motor/generator thing, one other approach is to use a 60 Hz oscillator, fed into a big audio amplifier then into a transformer. It depends on the power you need - for some of that big iron it's not practical, but for small stuff it shouldn't be a problem.

welcome to the forums Mike. Is that "big iron" able to be fired up now and again?

falco wrote:Did you really ship all that from the US? Cripes! Moving house is a nightmare for most people, but moving between countries... with all that...

Well it's the second move really... the collection first moved from the UK to the USA, at which point it filled a 40' container to the gunwales.

For the moved from USA to NZ, it filled two 40' containers to said gunwales!

Here's a rare photo: the DEC portion of the collection (well, 75% of it) all lined up, so you can see it all at the same time:



Cheers

Mike

That is some serious hardware!

tezza wrote:welcome to the forums Mike. Is that "big iron" able to be fired up now and again?

Thanks tezza, if you look at the first post in this thread there's a link to the System/3 up and running... here's a pdp-10 power-up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVAHSzz9-Zg

Is it possible to embed video from Youtube here?

Mike

Corestore wrote:Thanks tezza, if you look at the first post in this thread there's a link to the System/3 up and running... here's a pdp-10 power-up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVAHSzz9-Zg

Is it possible to embed video from Youtube here?

Mike

Awesome. Loved the System/3. Whirring noises....blinking lights.... just need the spinning tapes?

You may not be able to embed. Links are fine though.

tezza wrote:

Corestore wrote:Thanks tezza, if you look at the first post in this thread there's a link to the System/3 up and running... here's a pdp-10 power-up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVAHSzz9-Zg

Is it possible to embed video from Youtube here?

Mike

Awesome. Loved the System/3. Whirring noises....blinking lights.... just need the spinning tapes?

You may not be able to embed. Links are fine though.

Tapes? We do tapes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-MOkZ2d1Ls

Sometimes better than other!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJlqLyvAzNc

Mike

That all looks awesome!
Next meet is at your place

matsondawson wrote:That all looks awesome!
Next meet is at your place

I second that motion!

tezza wrote:

matsondawson wrote:That all looks awesome!
Next meet is at your place

I second that motion!

Yikes give me a month or two to unbox everything and get my feet under the table!

Mike