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Im picking up a supposedly working condition IBM System 36 plus from 1987 this week for free. What should I expect for chips, ram, etc.. They said the main box weighs like 100lbs. I don't have any idea what CPUs, etc... will be in this thing. Any ideas what to expect??
I wouldn't expect much in the way of CPUs or RAM. I'm pretty sure 87 is before the modern CPU era. I think everything was done with IC chips.Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron p
Have you checked evay for resale value? It is likely something a collector would covet.
I got a PM from a member in russia wanting the processors possibly. Theres none on ebay.
I think a processor chip is not likely. I would try to sell as-is. There are a couple of people on the forum who buy older machines who can give a fair assessment. I would search for "vintage computers" in the search bar.
If you are especially bored, you can run the IC's through Octopart and see if any have value. Just be careful trying to remove them.
The older man who is my contact said the system worked in 1995 last when the business shut down. It has to main towers that are around the size of refrigerators and HEAVY along with other smaller components and some heavy printers. He confirmed that they paid almost $400,000 in 1987 for it. Said it is full of silver and heavy gold components and I am free to have it. Tomorrow will be a blast!
Here you go [ link ]
Not much on the resale market right now - but it's always a good idea to look up the part numbers BEFORE you destroy older boards and ICs / Eproms .
Rare ICs / Eproms can be worth anywhere from $10 to $ hundreds each
The System X3650 servers are modern I am assuming? 1gb wasn't even around in the 80s I don't think.
I thought I'd mention that I'm cleaning up my operation and have about 200 laptops getting ready to ship off for recycling. My point is if the average price was about $500.00 each so.....$500 X 200 = $100,000.00. Truly astonishing what scrap used to be worth.Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron p
Take your time and investigate what you have before destroying anything. 73, Mike
We are waiting impatiently!Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron p
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System 5360! HEAVY
I thought these were the same units as in my avatar....like said before not really any modern computer parts but still a nice score with lots of mechanical parts
I haven't gotten to the logic side of the unit yet, but there should be some fairly significant boards, backplanes, and other PGM metals in there. Another site is telling me a few hundred in scrap $$. Working components would be more. What are the hard drive copper looking platters made out of?
They are aluminum and fairly heavy. I sold a bunch of them on ebay at $17 for two. Shipping for two was almost as much ... $13 I think, but buyer's paid that too. Be careful not to scratch them if you go that route. They scratch very easily.Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron p
Do those whole HD assemblies sell? Weighs probably 20lbs or more.
I didn't try because of the weight. Mine were definitely over twenty pounds. Cast aluminum front and back clam shell on the ones I had. The magnet alone was close to 10 lbs, maybe more.
Come to think of it, there was a sticker on mine warning that weight exceeded 60 pounds, :OQuote:
Originally Posted by HipoGear
We all want to see the boards! Looks like the picture below . If you do not mind, I'll queue up to buy a couple of cards from this computer.
And another big request: save for me a label, I'll buy it, for history ....
(Photo is not mine, borrowed from the Internet)
Sounds good Bator. I have no idea what this stuff is worth $$ wise, once I get the boards out, I will post some pictures. I will save you the label as well. :)
Thank you in advance!Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron p
cool, been a long time since I've seen the old large hard drive platters like that! (since college around '90 I think).
can't wait to see the boards
^^ What he said. A couple years ago I picked up a pallet of computers. I set aside a few that looked different. But that's all I did was set them aside. I ended up scrapping them before doing any research. After they were scrapped, I looked them up and 2 were still valued around $500 each (working ones). They were Alienware gaming computers with all-in-one cooling systems. The cases alone were selling for $100. I'm still kicking myself in the ass for that one. And now I look through what I have BEFORE I destroy.Quote:
Originally Posted by miked
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About 20lbs or so worth of boards. I have not pulled the backplanes off of the board cabinet yet, but they are good size. The HD platters are around 14" diameter and theres 4. HD assembly weighs about 30-40lbs 3 solid transformers and a few small apple sized ones. Pulled the tags for you Bator also.
I think the boards would go as high telecom for scrap value. In the $6/lb range with all that bubble memory on them. The unit did have some damage inside from water it looked like, so this has turned into a e-scrap recovery operation. I messaged a few vintage computer sellers on ebay before I took anything apart and all said they were not interested in purchasing the unit whole. So Probably 40lbs or so of heavy wire, 150-200lbs of transformers, 50lbs aluminum, 20-30lbs of boards, few pounds brass and copper clean, and the rest steel. For it being free and $10 in diesel, I wont complain about this pick up.
I did put in a bunch of the bubble memory chip part numbers into octopart and nothing came up. It might be way too old for their system.
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The 5360 backplanes are up top. The 5291 2 unit board is full telecom. Thats the keyboard board.
It may be worth auctioning off that keyboard board. I bet it would get a lot of interest on ebay.