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- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!anthony
- From: anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber)
- Newsgroups: k12.ed.tech
- Subject: Re: Computer Donation
- Date: 24 Dec 1992 01:21:09 GMT
- Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
- Lines: 30
- Message-ID: <1hb3a5INNcbg@uwm.edu>
- References: <29952.2B2DAD87@puddle.fidonet.org>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.7.4
-
- In article <29952.2B2DAD87@puddle.fidonet.org> Linda.Bush@f58.n104.z1.fidonet.org (Linda Bush) writes:
- >Please advise. Our school has been offered as a gift a Pyramid 9820
- >mainframe computer. Does anyone have any comments about how we may
- >impliment it. Is it a dinosaur? I understand that it is running Unix.
- >I guess we hate to turn anything free down but I am concerned that it
- >may take alot of money to be able to impliment it and we don't know
- >anything about it. Comments welcome.
- >Linda Bush
-
- You really haven't given enough information. How much RAM? How many
- disks and of what type? Tape drives? Terminals? Power supplies?
- Operating system, software?
-
- The Pyramids aren't exactly mainframe computers, they are I think data
- center unix machines. The term "mainframe" tends to be applied by
- most people to anything that has more than one user, which isn't very
- useful. A data center machine often needs to be installed in a
- dedicated room with a raised floor and it's own air conditioning system
- (HVAC). I'm not familar with Pyramids in general however, you may not
- need any special facilities. A problem with any donated equipment is
- that if you don't have any funding to maintain it the moment something
- breaks you have to junk the whole system. Beware that any "gift" may
- end up costing you a lot more money in room renovations, maintainence
- fees, and upgrades than a brand new system might. You might want
- to ask someone who really knows something about such systems, such
- as a consultant, or people in the Usenet newsgroup comp.sys.pyramid.
-
- You wouldn't happen to me in Masschusetts, would you?
- --
- <-:(= Anthony Stieber anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony
-