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Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

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Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#31

Post by AnimalMuppet »

kergonath wrote: post #27
low_tech_love wrote: post #6

Living in Europe, I’m deeply amazed at how much help and support he got for free from a bunch of people from one of the most important (and expensive) laboratories in the world. All of that just to basically have some fun and take some pictures. I’m absolutely sure that here he would never have any support to do this. We unfortunately have forgotten how to have fun and be creative here in the old world.

Living in Europe and working at the local version of the national labs, I would be very interested in doing this sort of things. An afternoon worth of fun with fire is well worth the paperwork. Well, as long as no radioactive materials are involved. The technicians are there anyway and we don’t need to justify each litre of fuel we use, so there is pretty much no expense. We do all kinds of experiments for visitors s…

Even more fun if you can burn the paperwork as part of the afternoon of fire...

Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#32

Post by kergonath »

low_tech_love wrote: post #26
anyfoo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's been living in the US for a while, but who grew up, lived, and worked in Germany all my life before, I'm not sure what you mean. Me and engineers I knew were humans who liked fun (and especially had curiosity), too. As long as proper safety precautions are taken, why not? Seems like it wasn't very different here, either: > "I need to have an MDS --- a Material Date Safety Shet --- on the paint before…

Sure but would you expect Fraunhofer (or something like that) to just give away resources and human hours to just burn a computer case? Of course Europeans have fun, that was just hyperbole; but institutionally speaking, it’s an extremely rigid place. You might even question whether it was ok to spend those resources. Maybe it wasn’t. But every time I go to the USA I’m positively impressed by how much they have the f…

I don’t know about Fraunhofer but my experience in other European countries (mainly the UK, France and Italy) is that you just need to be nice with someone with access to the facilities you need. Unless you need something very specific (read dangerous), there is no problem. We don’t let visitors play with the instruments or anything, but we’re happy to do it for them if we have the right gear and our schedule permits.

In more serious cases (if things like hydrofluoric acid, liquid sodium, or uranium are needed), then sure there would need to be a risk assessment, the health and safety people would need to get involved, and visitors could not be present. But otherwise there is pretty much no problem. In general, the decision would be taken with no involvement of any manager beyond the team level (~20 people). And that would be following the rules in place.

Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#33

Post by smm11 »

technothrasher wrote: post #30

Back in 1997 I went dumpster diving and got my hands on eight NeXTcubes that a company was getting rid of. Ok, it wasn't exactly dumpster diving, like the time in about 1983 that I got hundreds of blank floppies, but they were on the curb and when I asked they said, sure, take them. I was excited to get the score, but I didn't really need eight of them. So I told a bunch of friends they could share the wealth. By the…

I drove by a building with an SGI O2 next to the dumpster. Monitor, mouse, cables, and two banker's boxes full of software and manuals. Someone leaving said "have fun with it" while I was throwing it in the car. It came up with everything still intact, looking for the servers it was talking to, with data from maybe two weeks prior. This was in 2014.

Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#34

Post by kergonath »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #31
kergonath wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Europe and working at the local version of the national labs, I would be very interested in doing this sort of things. An afternoon worth of fun with fire is well worth the paperwork. Well, as long as no radioactive materials are involved. The technicians are there anyway and we don’t need to justify each litre of fuel we use, so there is pretty much no expense. We do all kinds of experiments for visitors s…

Even more fun if you can burn the paperwork as part of the afternoon of fire...

Indeed.

Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#35

Post by sammalloy »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #9
tpmx wrote: post #4

Besides missing the quality of writing in some of the better 80/early 90s computer mags (mostly familiar with US/UK), I also really miss the amount of money/skill/love they spent on getting high class photography and/or illustrations for the cover and key articles. This (1993) was on the tail end of that phenomenon.

i loved NeXTworld Magazine (not sure i got the lowercase and uppercase letters right)

It sounds like the OP was describing Mondo 2000.

Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#36

Post by sammalloy »

technothrasher wrote: post #30

Back in 1997 I went dumpster diving and got my hands on eight NeXTcubes that a company was getting rid of. Ok, it wasn't exactly dumpster diving, like the time in about 1983 that I got hundreds of blank floppies, but they were on the curb and when I asked they said, sure, take them. I was excited to get the score, but I didn't really need eight of them. So I told a bunch of friends they could share the wealth. By the…

> Back in 1997 I went dumpster diving and got my hands on eight NeXTcubes that a company was getting rid of.

Heh. Was this in SF? I think I know who that was.

Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#37

Post by tasty_freeze »

When I was a kid, I'd go to the hobby shop and get a little jar that had magnesium strips in it. Then I'd go home and light them. Seeing metal burn was mind boggling to me, as it seemed until then that organic things burn, not metal.

Anyway, had I been in the position of the author, I would have gotten a thin strip of magnesium (easy to get going) and put that on top of the case, lit the strip, and let that ignite the case.

Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#38

Post by jonstewart »

smm11 wrote: post #33
technothrasher wrote: post #30

Back in 1997 I went dumpster diving and got my hands on eight NeXTcubes that a company was getting rid of. Ok, it wasn't exactly dumpster diving, like the time in about 1983 that I got hundreds of blank floppies, but they were on the curb and when I asked they said, sure, take them. I was excited to get the score, but I didn't really need eight of them. So I told a bunch of friends they could share the wealth. By the…

I drove by a building with an SGI O2 next to the dumpster. Monitor, mouse, cables, and two banker's boxes full of software and manuals. Someone leaving said "have fun with it" while I was throwing it in the car. It came up with everything still intact, looking for the servers it was talking to, with data from maybe two weeks prior. This was in 2014.

What do you want for it?

Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#39

Post by technothrasher »

sammalloy wrote: post #36
technothrasher wrote: post #30

Back in 1997 I went dumpster diving and got my hands on eight NeXTcubes that a company was getting rid of. Ok, it wasn't exactly dumpster diving, like the time in about 1983 that I got hundreds of blank floppies, but they were on the curb and when I asked they said, sure, take them. I was excited to get the score, but I didn't really need eight of them. So I told a bunch of friends they could share the wealth. By the…

> Back in 1997 I went dumpster diving and got my hands on eight NeXTcubes that a company was getting rid of. Heh. Was this in SF? I think I know who that was.

No, it was outside of Boston. I think there were a lot of places dumping NeXT hardware back then.

Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)

#40

Post by technothrasher »

smm11 wrote: post #33
technothrasher wrote: post #30

Back in 1997 I went dumpster diving and got my hands on eight NeXTcubes that a company was getting rid of. Ok, it wasn't exactly dumpster diving, like the time in about 1983 that I got hundreds of blank floppies, but they were on the curb and when I asked they said, sure, take them. I was excited to get the score, but I didn't really need eight of them. So I told a bunch of friends they could share the wealth. By the…

I drove by a building with an SGI O2 next to the dumpster. Monitor, mouse, cables, and two banker's boxes full of software and manuals. Someone leaving said "have fun with it" while I was throwing it in the car. It came up with everything still intact, looking for the servers it was talking to, with data from maybe two weeks prior. This was in 2014.

I've still got a couple of SGI Indigo workstations sitting on the shelf. Many fond memories of those back in the day.
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