[TriLUG] the "big machine" secret

[Chris Hedemark]

Well I consulted with my tribal elders and we came to the conclusion
that the "big machine" was not going to be practical to procure.

First, the secret... a company in Connecticut is retiring its VAX
hardware.  This consisted of about 4 cabinets full of hardware, a bunch
of terminals & printers, etc.

I wrote them a letter, telling them that I am in the process of building
a multi-platform open source build farm in my home and would they
consider donating the hardware to this effort.  Since I was the only one
who offered to take the whole enchilada instead of pieces here & there,
my name rose to the top of the list.  The caveat was that they want it
out by July 12.

Can I fit it in my house?  Yes.  Just.
Can I get it to power up here?  Yes.  With some rewiring anyway.

So what is the problem?  Transportation.  This won't fit in a pickup
truck.  It won't even fit in a pickup truck with a 4x8 trailer on the
back (not unless I leave some stuff behind).  Renting a box truck for
three or four days is prohibitively expensive.  So I was faced with a
choice;  either I could have a VAX cluster in my house (very cool but
not practical) or I could spend the same amount of money on a half
decent laptop.

We talked to a DEC guru who could look at the manifest and tell us if it
was going to be worthwhile or not.  He basically echoed our concerns on
power requirements, told us that the hardware would just barely run
*BSD, and that the tape drives & disks would be cool to have around but
not to spend much money getting them here.

Well guys the laptop won.

There is already a line of people behind me to get the hardware so I'm
not going to even bother posting all of the info on it.

If this thing had been in Virginia or something though this would have
come together.  Driving to Connecticut increased the expense beyond what
I thought was worthwhile for the hardware in question.