peter@ficc.ferranti.com (peter da silva) (04/26/91)
In article <130073@uunet.UU.NET>, rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim) writes: > At NBS, the excess property people didn't even bother hauling the > many Datamedia 1521 terminals to whoever auctions them off. They'd > simply SMASH the screens, and throw them away. That's disgusting. I know lots of people who would pay $25 or so for these because that's all they can afford. They'd love some cheap terminals. We have hundreds of people on local BBSes who *can'* afford a terminal and call up using those horrible 40-column teletext devices U.S.Videotel rents. If nothing else, donate them to some charity. Throw in some $50 1200 baud modems and a list of BBS numbers. DON'T WASTE A PERFECTLY GOOD RESOURCE! (I'm sorry, but this is insane. Your Government In Action) -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' peter@ferranti.com +1 713 274 5180. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"
chuck@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (charles bridgeland) (04/26/91)
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes: >> many Datamedia 1521 terminals to whoever auctions them off. They'd >> simply SMASH the screens, and throw them away. >That's disgusting. I know lots of people who would pay $25 or so for these >because that's all they can afford. They'd love some cheap terminals. We >have hundreds of people on local BBSes who *can'* afford a terminal and call >up using those horrible 40-column teletext devices U.S.Videotel rents. >If nothing else, donate them to some charity. Throw in some $50 1200 baud >modems and a list of BBS numbers. DON'T WASTE A PERFECTLY GOOD RESOURCE! >(I'm sorry, but this is insane. Your Government In Action) ------------------------------------------ indeed, my place of work is shortly going to be tossing many of their old ibm pcs--like, right out in the dumpster. they never have done anything with them that a c64 couldn't do, but they've been replaced with model 30s and 50, w/ color and hd--gotta have the latest. bah! -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- chuck bridgeland---anarchoRepublican "one thing about a police state, you can always find the police" l. neil smith chuck@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu hire me so I can quit this pit. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
libes@cme.nist.gov (Don Libes) (04/26/91)
In article <JOZALZ2@xds13.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes: >In article <130073@uunet.UU.NET>, rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim) writes: >> At NBS, the excess property people didn't even bother hauling the >> many Datamedia 1521 terminals to whoever auctions them off. They'd >> simply SMASH the screens, and throw them away. > >That's disgusting. I know lots of people who would pay $25 or so for these >because that's all they can afford. They'd love some cheap terminals. We >have hundreds of people on local BBSes who *can'* afford a terminal and call >up using those horrible 40-column teletext devices U.S.Videotel rents. > >If nothing else, donate them to some charity. Throw in some $50 1200 baud >modems and a list of BBS numbers. DON'T WASTE A PERFECTLY GOOD RESOURCE! > >(I'm sorry, but this is insane. Your Government In Action) Since I work at NIST (was NBS) let me give you the real story. (Ok, not necessarily real, but a good story.) I've not seen it with my own eyes, but what Jim says, I've heard from others and I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. Consider the kind of paperwork that the government would have to handle to give away stuff. There would be liability forms, waiver forms, inventory forms, dept of redundancy dept forms, etc, etc. We'd need a property officer, office, files, regular auditing, etc., etc. And all of this stuff generates its own overhead (health insurance, janatorial, personnel, office space, etc.) Believe me - it would cost (taxpayers) $500 to give away each $25 terminal. Maybe more. Ironically, much of this overhead exists as safeguards to prevent the government from spending money unwisely. Financially, it's a no-win situation. But when the government gets involved in charity it makes the financial hotbed tepid by comparison. (They don't care about money until it either gets 9 or 10 zeros behind it, or it has something to do with honorarium.) Historically, the feds have never known what they were doing when it came to social services and now you want to get them involved in another area. Forget you suggested it. (It's easier to ask for a piece of Alaska.) I suppose it's no excuse, but our trash really is worn-out. The terminals that get thrown out really are old and beaten. We do have a dusty cellar for storing things that might be used in an experiment next year. (We have some computers with mercury delay lines gathering dust in the same place as a bunch of Sun 1s. On the other hand, we still have an IMSAI controlling experiments in one of our labs.) By the way, I attended the Trenton Computer Festival last week and in the flea market, people were selling these same old terminals for $5. 1200 baud modems were $10. The talks were pretty good, too. Don Libes libes@cme.nist.gov ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes
rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim) (04/26/91)
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes: ?In article <130073@uunet.UU.NET>, rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim) writes: ?> At NBS, the excess property people smashed Datamedia 1521 terminals... ? ?That's disgusting. I know lots of people who would pay $25 or so ... Why didn't you tell me that when I worked there? :-) -- [rbj@uunet 1] stty sane unknown mode: sane
cafl@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Carol Farlow Lerche) (05/01/91)
If anyone in the Northern California area knows of PCs being offed (as was described by chuck@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Bridgeland), please email me. I am trying to computerize my daughter's school on the cheap (what other way works?) and am scrounging IBM/PCs for the purpose. Terminals would be of interest too, especially if they are VT100 compatible, as I have an old Onyx (Z8000) machine that could run 7 terminals doing Logo. (I know this is not the right group for this...in fact, there doesn't seem to be a group for computers in elementary schools. You could also send Email if you know to the contrary or have an interest in FSF-style development of software for schools.) Now resuming your normal wizardly ruminations....
bondi@dri.com (Bob Bondi) (05/02/91)
In article <chuck.672623199@mrcnext> chuck@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (charles bridgeland) writes: >peter@ficc.ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes: >>> many Datamedia 1521 terminals to whoever auctions them off. They'd >>> simply SMASH the screens, and throw them away. > >>(I'm sorry, but this is insane. Your Government In Action) >------------------------------------------ >indeed, my place of work is shortly going to be tossing many of their old >ibm pcs--like, right out in the dumpster. they never have done anything >with them that a c64 couldn't do, but they've been replaced with model >30s and 50, w/ color and hd--gotta have the latest. > >----------------------------------------------------------------------------- We have bunches of XT's that we are getting rid of. Turns out our legal group found it would cost us more to do all the paperwork and accounting and tax preperation stuff than to just toss them out! So toss them we are.