On 11/27/19 8:47 AM, Jon Elson wrote: > CDC may have had many more custom/one-of-a-kind machines, while IBM had > tons of identical units in the field.
The "scorched earth" policy came right from the top- After it was discovered that some "customer' had assembled a working system from scavenged parts and then signed up for CE service, Bill Norris reportedly hit the ceiling. I saw one-of-a-kind systems utterly demolished. If a functional subassembly was removed, the order was to damage it with prejudice. I have a heatsink from a STAR-1B computer--that was the only bit in the dumpster that remained recognizable. The stations and SBUs were repurposed as spares for the STAR-100. CDC Sunnyvale had the only two 1Bs at the time. The STAR-65 was shipped down from Canada and similarly demolished. The same fate befell countless peripherals and older systems like the 160A that managed to find their way into the facility. I've got a few oddball cordwood modules and a head from an 808 disk drive. That's about it. I used to have a platter from one, but it was left behind in a move. --Chuck
