Kevin - I really enjoyed reading
all the information and looking at the links. It is sad for me that you had to give up the collection and museum idea. I do fully
understand that you gave it your best try and I can't even imagine the
amount of time and work you put into this project.
Thank you once again for your great work over the years working with historical computers and events. Dave at the "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum".
Kevin Stumpf tell us about his commitment to collect and preserve mainframes and mini computers for 17 years- This is a great story and you will enjoy his adventure.
Dave has collected computers much, much
longer than I in fact I no longer collect nor do I have a collection
any more, but between 1984 and 2001 I either found or was given, and
then trucked and stored around 60 tons of computers, spares,
supplies, accessories, and documentation. A brief list with links to
photos of them is below.
I grew up with the “big boys” and
so even though I found all sorts of either discreet-logic or
micro-based desktops and portables, I very much enjoyed mainframes
and minis if for no other reason than “real computers have control
panels.” Besides, they gave me an excuse to drive big trucks too.
During this time there was a sense of
urgency. Many collectors, myself included, believed that mainframes
and minis and rare (read: unpopular or unsuccessful in the
marketplace) micros were being scrapped at an alarming rate so it was
up to us to ensure these artifacts would be around for future
generations to study and enjoy. Now I believe we were a little
over-enthusiastic. You probably won’t find as many ModComp’s as
PDP-8’s, but many, many gems are still out there. Perhaps my sense
of urgency is off kilter again, but I am sure there is still an IBM
System/370 Model 165 with my name on it out there somewhere
During the hay day some American
collectors made odd comments about me due to my escapades up here in
Ontario, Canada*. There was a rumour that I must be well-off to
afford the expenses that were bound to accrue when handling such
large items. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It was a labour
of love and I had the backing of my family so sacrifices were
willingly endured, but I rarely ever paid for these systems. That is
because I was providing a service by removing the systems in exchange
for them. The owners either had to pay someone or let this odd fellow
(me) do it for free – we’d de-install, remove false flooring,
cabling, docs, tapes, disk packs, furniture, everything!
Even though money wasn’t needed to
buy anything, there were always expenses and then storage costs. eBay
came to the rescue! There was always something extra or something
that no longer “fit” the collection so it was sold to other
collectors. Then towards the end of my collecting years I wrote
A
Guide to Collecting Computers and Computer Collectibles: History,
Technique, and Practice (
http://kevinstumpf.com/A_Guide_1998.htm
) and sold just enough copies each month to pay the rent.
Another silly comment I heard was
something along the lines that “it was good that Canada still used
so many old systems.” Give me a break. While such a comment
is technically inaccurate it seems to be, at the very least,
statistically impossible. If the market in the USofA is 10 times
larger than that of Canada there should still be a slew of old
mainframes below the 49th still ticking away or being
cloistered until written off; many more than the Canadian market
could support. Remember that /165 with my name on it? It will pop up
in the USofA, not Canada.
While none of my acquisitions were easy
to find, I would say I was blessed with resourcefulness.
Instinctively the search for mainframes started with leasing
companies who then introduced me to precious metal re-claimers**. The
idea was that since leasing companies were responsible to dispose of
the hardware when leases expired, they were a natural source to find
out what would be available and when. While continuing to work with
those sources I also held monthly chats with third party maintenance
companies because the mainframes I was after were no longer supported
by the manufacturers. Just imagine…perhaps the size of the
collection would have been 200 tons instead of 60 if I had lived in
southern California instead of an hour west of Toronto, eh. Just
joking.
It distressed me to no end seeing dust
accumulate on the collection. There it sat tucked away in a
“ware”house. There had to be a reason for me gathering and
preserving all this stuff. That’s when the idea for the Commercial
Computing Museum – COMMPUTERSEUM – popped up. If you are
interested in that part of this saga please visit
(
http://kevinstumpf.com/Account_of_COMMPUTERSEUM.htm
). The point I hope to make here now is that collections, I believe,
should be active, not passive. It is incumbent upon collectors to try
to put their collections to good use. There are activities you can do
on your own. What I mean is that you can use your collection to
educate and inform without working with or through clubs or
volunteer-run museums. Indeed VCFs, open houses like those run by
MARCH, and tours offered by the good folks at RICM, Bug Book
Microcomputer Museum, and the Personal Computing Museum are good in
themselves, but they are not the only venue from which you can help
others enjoy vintage computing technology.
My collection has been used to fill
retail windows in downtown stores or fill empty storefronts in
malls. You are hard-pressed to find a shop or mall owner who doesn’t
need and want help dressing vacant windows and storefronts. Another
venue is schools. We took a DG Nova to high school electronics
classes and called the class the School of Retrocomputing. We once
collaborated with another local collector and ran a fund raiser for a
downtown shelter by tidying the “ware”house and opening the doors
to the public. It was rewarding to see how surprised and pleased each
person was. Young and old saw things they would otherwise never see
let alone be that close to.
One of the coolest stories I
“collected” involved a sculpture and the control panel from an
IBM System/360 Model 65. I once tried to sell the control panel from
a /65 on eBay. A professor from a local university was combing eBay
looking for such an artifact so he called to ask if he could come
over to, essentially, make a blueprint of the panel because he is
also a sculptor and he wanted to make a metal sculpture of the panel.
How cool is that? He also mentioned he hoped to also make one of the
/40 panel so I was able to introduce him to the fellow who had
purchased my /40 panel. The final results can be seen hanging in an
exhibit travelling around the world
(
http://cgdy.com/?page_id=5&id_slideshow=29).
Who knew.
Dave thank you for this opportunity.
Peace everyone.
Kevin Stumpf
kevin@kevinstumpf.com
*Kitchener, Ontario to be precise.
Kitchener is a twin city to Waterloo. Waterloo is the hometown of
RIM, now called Blackberry. To learn more about my hometown please
watch a presentation called A grassRoots History of the Early Hi-Tech
Community in KW that was recorded at the Personal Computer Museum
(
http://kevinstumpf.com/grassRoots_intro.htm
). The Blackberry was created in KW for a reason. I wager that at one
time in the late 1960’s Kitchener-Waterloo had the highest
Instructions/Second/Capita in the world!
**I was always impressed by how well
these fellows knew their mainframe model numbers
Partial list of machines that were in
the collection…
A complete:
-
DEC KL-10 (the one at Paul Allen’s
Living Computer Museum)
-
-
-
DEC PDP-15
IBM System/3 Model 12
DG Nova (every model)
DEC PDP-8 (every model except the
Straight-8)
DEC PDP-11 (every model except the
11/20)
IBM System/23
-
Most of an:
-
IBM 4381 CPU (the tallest cabinet
IBM ever made)
Burroughs B-80
DEC PDP-9
IBM System/38
IBM System/34 (which I grudgingly
took because, you guessed it: no control panel!)
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| Univac Computer |
And control panels and consoles from all sorts of mainframes that I could have had, but at the time turned down (my bad), such as: Honeywell DPS-8, Honeywell Datanet-30, IBM 3705, Xerox Data Systems XDS-9, and UNIVAC 1108 and 418III. The console from the Confederation Life IBM 705, and also control panels that had already been stripped from the likes of an IBM System/360 Models 25, 30, 40, 65, and the beautiful 75, plus System/370 Models 148, 165, and 168, and then small ones from peripherals and minis. Also ADP equipment such as IBM card sorters and all sorts of keypunches. Additionally we had supporting material such as the complete library of the
Auerbach Computer Reports (publisher’s copy). Plus machines like the venerable Xerox Star, portables such as the IBM 5100 and DG/One, a smattering of early handhelds like a Workslate, strange boxes like Keronix and Hyperion, a mandatory Altair, early micros, and things called Macs
By Kevin Stumpf
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| A start on the move to new location |
We have been in our new location in the front of the Village Green in Floyd Virginia for about 5 days now and the displays are starting to look good. A few more days and we will be set up with the old and then bringing in more vintage computers. It is a lot of work but fun.
"by David Larsen" KK4WW Computer Collector Historian
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