Houston Computer Museum liquidation July 24th

[NeXT]

Me and several others threw money at them to freight items and all got ghosted as soon as we mentioned pre-arranged freight pickup.
The keypunch has disappeared but the keyboard from it popped up on ebay today for $800.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Looks like the same seller has a lot of stuff (at insane prices) from the Houston museum.

 

[VERAULT]

So what happens to all of it, since "all must go" and I know "all will not go". Just gets recycled? Too bad.

There is no such thing as "recycling" as you think the word is anyway. Scrap, destroy, garbage. They arent turning it into anything else.. Recycling (in the US anyway) was debunked and doesn't exist. All we were doing was sending some types of materials and plastics to China.. then they told us to stop. It all goes to various Landfills now. Another huge lie perpetrated on the American people.

 

[tradde]

Yeah, I guess I just didn't want to say the word scrap. I hate when stuff like this is scrapped. But nothing I can do about it either.

 

[whartung]

Scrapping is recycling. Scrapyards don't take things just to drop them in a hole in the ground. It takes away the readily reusable stuff and then, moves the rest down the food chain. If the entire "thing" isn't simply buried in a landfill, but has gone through some process (however you call it) where something has been extracted before the rest has been put in the landfill, then some portion of it has been recycled and reused. Just not in its original form.

Cars are scrapped and have an entire lifecycle of processing before the remains are eventually buried. In the UK they have to recover 95% of the cars weight.

 

[VERAULT]

Wasnt the UK just found out for having sent Hundreds (or thousands) of shipping containers full of their rubbish to Malaysia and Indonesia illegally? Its not hard to find, look it up.

 

[rittwage]

IMO, there is no way a "computer history" museum could ever survive on it's own long-term. There just isn't a large enough audience. Any of them that exist would only be from a very wealthy individual that is looking for a tax dodge.

I would love for it not to be the case, but that is what it is. It is only interesting to us 0.01%

As for what is left here, it's obviously the worthless scraps...

Obviously some took this as harsh, and it is. I apologize to those that are dedicating their time or resources to do something like this.

If you can use donated real estate, donated equipment, and donated time - then obviously you can make a go of it and make a difference to some people, and that is worthwhile. It can't go on forever if you lose even one of those elements, though, and that is what we have with this liquidation.

 

[Timo W.]

I only see stacked junk saved from a landfill or recycling center. If there ever was a museum, it's long gone and these are just the remains no one wanted.

 

[Timo W.]

If you can use donated real estate, donated equipment, and donated time - then obviously you can make a go of it and make a difference to some people, and that is worthwhile. It can't go on forever if you lose even one of those elements, though, and that is what we have with this liquidation.

If you need donations to start at all, you shouldn't even bother setting up a computer museum.

 

[whartung]

If you need donations to start at all, you shouldn't even bother setting up a computer museum.

Vintage Computer museums are like Pez museums. Simply, they're more interesting to the curator than the general public. The issue isn't having these museums, the issue, as in this case, is what happens to the museums inventory when the museum closes (for whatever reason).

If you're a gazillionaire, you can set up a trust dedicated to preserving the facility and its contents, otherwise, it's up to whoever is liquidating the estate, who are typically not as enthusiastic about the subject as the collector is.

The lesson here is that if you have some collection you're passionate about, and we're all getting older every day, if you care about the inevitable disposition of your collection, it behooves you to reduce it yourself, under your terms, rather than wait for a dispassionate party to do it after the fact.

 

[Unknown_K]

So did anyone go and buy anything?

 

[NeXT]

So did anyone go and buy anything?

We spoke over the phone. I said sorry for the above outburst (for the record the ebay keyboard is NOT related to this in any way) and figured out a way to help him however I financially could to get some items moved.
I bought one of the 029 keypunches (correct keyboard included*; the 129 turned out to be a 029 Model C that had been paired with the 129's badge and keyboard) and combined the freight cost with two other people to get a bunch of items palletized, wrapped and all the paperwork prearranged so that on 0-day it was picked up by the freight courier and it's on the way. In all about 850lbs in items and I wanted more but cost was getting silly. I heard rumors there was a few other people who also either came around or did the same but it wasn't my business asking.

We'll all find out how well this gamble paid off in a few weeks.

 

[pkhoury]

I didn't realize this had a thread. I ended up bringing home about 6 or 7 trailers' worth of stuff from the Houston museum between July and August 2021. Some of it cost money, some were free. Got a TON of CRTs that I'd love to start selling that I rescued (and had to leave behind at least three trailer loads' worth).

 

[VERAULT]

I didn't realize this had a thread. I ended up bringing home about 6 or 7 trailers' worth of stuff from the Houston museum between July and August 2021. Some of it cost money, some were free. Got a TON of CRTs that I'd love to start selling that I rescued (and had to leave behind at least three trailer loads' worth).

Share some photos so we can all live vicariously.

 

[pkhoury]

Share some photos so we can all live vicariously.

I need to figure out how I'm going to share these photos. I'll see if I can just share a dropbox link. I'm copying over 90+ photos from my phone. I didn't grab everything and I think I missed a few trailer loads. I had a lot of stuff in storage totes in my barn, of which 80% has since been moved to storage. I'm *still* going through a lot of stuff that's going on ebay (and of course, some things I kept for my own collection, particularly Sun stuff).

 

[pkhoury]

Here we go!
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/1wz1...q9MlksCI?rlkey=1mej952v5wiuycdddfw7g33rk&dl=0

I did pick up the 3274 and eventually need to list it for sale. Also picked up a MIPS chassis that was supposed to be tossed (salvaged an SMD hard drive in the process). I didn't grab everything in the pictures, but all the stuff you see in the trailer, I did grab. I don't think I got photos of everything from my haul. Got a lot of stuff - RS/6000's, a bunch of VAX/DECstation stuff, Sun 3 and 4, tons of ISA cards, hard drives, floppy drives, loose floppies (boxes and boxes), tons of documentation that I'm still going through, other rare/random oddities. Picked up 3 VT101's (that I did have to pay for) and a DECmate, though I got the RX02 (I think that's the drive number) for free. The DECmate doesn't show anything on the CRT (though I recapped it), but recapping the three VT102's got those fully working. Also paid for a VT220. It had a big 'ol X written in sharpie on the top. I don't remember what was wrong with it, but I swapped parts from another terminal and ended up with a working VT220 with beautiful green phosphor screen with ZERO burn in. Just need to troubleshoot the "no keyboard detected" errors I get, which I wonder if it's related to recapping the keyboard PCB.

 

[VERAULT]

Here we go!
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/1wz1...q9MlksCI?rlkey=1mej952v5wiuycdddfw7g33rk&dl=0

I did pick up the 3274 and eventually need to list it for sale. Also picked up a MIPS chassis that was supposed to be tossed (salvaged an SMD hard drive in the process). I didn't grab everything in the pictures, but all the stuff you see in the trailer, I did grab. I don't think I got photos of everything from my haul. Got a lot of stuff - RS/6000's, a bunch of VAX/DECstation stuff, Sun 3 and 4, tons of ISA cards, hard drives, floppy drives, loose floppies (boxes and boxes), tons of documentation that I'm still going through, other rare/random oddities. Picked up 3 VT101's (that I did have to pay for) and a DECmate, though I got the RX02 (I think that's the drive number) for free. The DECmate doesn't show anything on the CRT (though I recapped it), but recapping the three VT102's got those fully working. Also paid for a VT220. It had a big 'ol X written in sharpie on the top. I don't remember what was wrong with it, but I swapped parts from another terminal and ended up with a working VT220 with beautiful green phosphor screen with ZERO burn in. Just need to troubleshoot the "no keyboard detected" errors I get, which I wonder if it's related to recapping the keyboard PCB.

Just WOW! Id be like a kid in a candy store. Not sure where I would put the stuff all this point. Thanks alot for sharing the photos.

 

[kb2syd]

I think my basement is a mess then I see piles like this. I'm in OK shape.

 

[syzygy]

Here we go!
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/1wz1...q9MlksCI?rlkey=1mej952v5wiuycdddfw7g33rk&dl=0

I did pick up the 3274 and eventually need to list it for sale. Also picked up a MIPS chassis that was supposed to be tossed (salvaged an SMD hard drive in the process). I didn't grab everything in the pictures, but all the stuff you see in the trailer, I did grab. I don't think I got photos of everything from my haul. Got a lot of stuff - RS/6000's, a bunch of VAX/DECstation stuff, Sun 3 and 4, tons of ISA cards, hard drives, floppy drives, loose floppies (boxes and boxes), tons of documentation that I'm still going through, other rare/random oddities. Picked up 3 VT101's (that I did have to pay for) and a DECmate, though I got the RX02 (I think that's the drive number) for free. The DECmate doesn't show anything on the CRT (though I recapped it), but recapping the three VT102's got those fully working. Also paid for a VT220. It had a big 'ol X written in sharpie on the top. I don't remember what was wrong with it, but I swapped parts from another terminal and ended up with a working VT220 with beautiful green phosphor screen with ZERO burn in. Just need to troubleshoot the "no keyboard detected" errors I get, which I wonder if it's related to recapping the keyboard PCB.

I looked at every photo. Hate to be redundant, but, WoW and WoW.

 

[pkhoury]

I looked at every photo. Hate to be redundant, but, WoW and WoW.

I think some photos were redundant, but I tried to take pictures of as much as I could.

Yeah, loading up the trailer was f**king MISERABLE. I had to contend with 90%+ humidity and temps of 80-95 degrees during several thunderstorms - this building had NO air circulation. Couple that with a even a milder case of hyperhidrosis, and yeah - heat stroke ruins your day. That's why I posted a picture of a cooler. Got smart and packed some light snacks, water, Body Armor and straight unflavored Pedialyte - and spaced all of them out.

I really had several motives in mind - I obviously collect this stuff and have since high school. But my primary business is also reselling this stuff, so I added some things to my collection, got a bunch of stuff for resale (I actually spent about $7000 with the guy who was running things in the end, excluding my time, hotel stays, diesel fuel and storage totes, and made that money back in a few months), and saved lots of things from the dump. I saved either a Sun ELC or SLC from getting trashed (it was in the trash pile because of MASSIVE broken plastic and supposedly didn't power on - I haven't powered it up yet, but that might be something I bring to VCFSW to sell), the chassis for a MIPS (he sold the boards, but left the case, which I saved (who knows what condition it's in as it's outside and tarped the last three years) and hard drive that's since been removed and put into dry storage. Let's see - documentation for lots of rare/obscure systems. Unusual cables, several Intel InBoard 386 cards (and other 8088 upgrade cards) for $2.00 apiece, etc. Got a steal on a DEC 4000 VLC along with two other DEC items I sold - $100 in total. The 4000 VLC I'm keeping (it feels like a SPARCstation IPC in speed, but it's a cute little machine). TONS of CRTs as y'all can see. I might post photos of them on here at some point, as I'd love to sell the CRTs between $25 and $75 each (saved some BNC as well as what I felt were obscure CRTs). Got tons of 5151 and 5153 CRTs with various degrees of case damage, but unknown if they power on. I'm trying to think what else. The software room (room with lots of boxes scattered all over the floor) - I ended up picking through for things I thought was worth saving, and in the end, ended up getting about 98% of it (with the bulk of it being free). Picked up a bunch of old luggables that I think set me back $200 or so? Some Columbia Data Systems, Corona, Compaq Portable (the original), some II's, some III 286's (with plasma screens), Zenith, etc. We're three years later and I'm STILL going through things, photographing and listing on ebay or finding things to complement my own collection. And here I thought Computer Reset was a goldmine (I picked up an Option/370 from CR that went in my 5170 AT - cool, but otherwise useless).