Nope, no paper goods in this storage. They would have been at Slim’s office at the school — and I understand the local radio club has already gone through that. Which is to say, we don’t have any schematics, and we’re probably not going to have another opportunity to go through his office.

By the way, Cort wasn’t with me this weekend. Had help from another friend, just for the record.

While Cort and you were cleaning up the storage unit, did you by chance stumble across the schematic – or anything remotely like it – for Slim’s Prototyping Station?

I’m still hoping you’ll come across some day.

Thanks!
Jim.

I think there’s only one computer, then I believe several peripherals, and a bunch of circuit boards that were near the other stuff and may or may not have anything to do with SWTPC. I should know more in a weekend or two.

My best friend is a huge OS-9 fan and always wanted an SWTPC, and I’ve already been in contact with the maintainer of the Internet SWTPC repository, so I can’t promise there’ll be much to go around, but we’ll see how it works out.

I worked there in 1977-78 while going to college. I never had enough to buy anything .

I worked in the computer repair department and also did the assembly instructions for the hard drive kit.

Doc McClenny

Of course, those of us in the industry know that the true input media is punched cards, and the true output media is watermelon paper.

As for the hardline, that may be quite in demand by certain amateur radio operators, since it usually has lower loss than even the best coaxial cable. The problem, though, are that connectors for hardline are usually terribly expensive, and it may have a non-standard characteristic impedance (75 Ohms versus 50 Ohms versus something weird). Plus, if it’s been stored improperly, it may have moisture contamination issues.

The SO-239 connectors look interesting, but the shipping would probably preclude them going very far. Also, they appear to be the common bakelite variety, rather than the Silver-plated/teflon-insulated variety that are the premium connectors (Ok, so I’m a connector connoisseur!).

The SWTP stuff could be quite interesting to a collector (which I’m not, despite lusting after a SWTP 6800 system in the 1970s).

As for the power inverter in the van driving the test equipment, make sure you calculate the power consumption requirements carefully. Pulling what seems like a very reasonable amount of power to run some test equipment can quickly lead to some ridiculous currents at 12 Volts, which can deplete even a van sized battery very shortly (leaving you stranded at a remote/desolate location). Maybe it’d be better to install an auxiliary battery, just to run the inverter, saving the main vehicle battery for starting purposes. As an added benefit, you can make the auxiliary/inverter battery a deep cycle battery (since deep cycling a starting type battery will quickly kill it).

Dave

I don’t do installs anymore but in the wild west of our company I used to do server and data switch installs and it was a right of passage to be able to do lacing. The local staff would teach us how to do it (regular and running lacing) and then make us buy them beer if we screwed it up (usually by twisting the laces over each other). I’m in my thirties so the practice lives on.

I have wax string in my personal toolbox next to the duct tape. When I installed lighting in an old hutch for my wife this spring I laced all the wiring =).

But . . . was it an older fellow, or are they teaching the young guys that, too?