Thanks for the encouragement Tony. Like I said, I know of several z9s that have been scrapped, that would've been perfect (they were ECs). You'd think in a huge city like Houston, with all the industry, oil companies, etc, it would be easy to find such things, but I've not had any luck yet. Right now I'm hoping for a Multiprise 3000, and I hope to some day acquire a z9 EC (I actually think this may not be THAT ridiculous).
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Tony Harminc <t...@harminc.net> wrote: > On 2 June 2010 18:52, Kevin Keith <krfke...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I know this idea might sound crazy, but I was wondering about the > prospects > > of an IBM mainframe for personal use. I'm aware of the hurdles > considering > > the Service Element (hard drives being detroyed, etc.) HMC, OSes, and > other > > problems. My question is where would one go about looking for one of > these? > > I could obviously buy one from a reseller for thousands of dollars, but > I > > can't really afford that. I feel like there are many of these machines > > being dumped and scrapped (especially since they are relatively recently > no > > longer supported) is there any way to get one just ONE of these before > its > > destroyed by a scrapper? > > It is a problem - some would call it market failure of a kind. There > are resellers who have, or claim to have, just about any IBM hardware > you'd like, and as you say, they ask a huge amount for it. I'm not > sure I understand their business model, but I'm sure in many cases > they don't actually have the hardware in question, and act more as > brokers. On the other side, these machines are going to the scrapper > all the time (I just saved one from that fate), where they have in > effect negative value, i.e. you have to pay someone to take it away, > and depending on where you are, pay various recycling charges because > there may be lead-acid and/or NiCad batteries, and other non RoHS > stuff inside. > > I think you've done exactly the right thing - ask on this list, and > the several other mainframe related ones. Doubtless somewhere a reader > of these lists knows that the boss is deciding that it's cleanup time > for that dusty corner of the datacentre, and typically these things > happen suddenly. If you are prepared to pay for quick packaging and > shipping (evidently not as outrageous as I imagined), are prepared to > arrange drive wiping so they won't be physically destroyed, and remind > people occasionally that you're looking, I think your chances are > pretty good. > > Tony H. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO > Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html > -- Thanks, Kevin Kevin Keith OLPC Volunteer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
