Want to Buy a Decommissioned Supercomputer? Here’s Your Chance

[NomDeBoom]

Was a time I did bid on a (MUCH older) Cray... Then realize I had no chance of even finding a place to store it. Fortunately others outbid me.

Yeah, some of this stuff requires 'Museum connections'- as, I'm guessing, it was a rather large unit.
Maybe not 'a lot' of people- but a small cadre of electronics Historians- collect & restore older (insert thingamajigs here). Not my forte, (as it's outside my sphere of knowledge) but I do have a small stash of vintage radios/portable TVs, old phones & the like. Even a few nice cameras.
I prefer less 'Mysterious' objects to preserve; old lamps, leather, wood/furniture, musical instruments (guitars), metal items of all description (mostly cast iron/copper/brass). Also, things w/ levers, screws, & springs....like old fishin' reels.
Plus, of course; the things that we ALL love.
This short list excludes 'Life, in general'.
The problem with 'experts' is that there is so much to know & discover about almost any given subject- they are, at best, 'one trick ponies'. You could probably spend a Lifetime learning all there is to know about the past, present, & future of cotton balls, ash trays, or ball point pens.
If anyone on this planet claims to be 'bored', it's them that's boring.
To me, 'boredom' is an alien concept.
Welp, gotta go restore & research some more 'stuff' I just acquired.
....It'll only stop when I do.

 

[BillM]

Yeah, some of this stuff requires 'Museum connections'- as, I'm guessing, it was a rather large unit.
Maybe not 'a lot' of people- but a small cadre of electronics Historians- collect & restore older (insert thingamajigs here). Not my forte, (as it's outside my sphere of knowledge) but I do have a small stash of vintage radios/portable TVs, old phones & the like. Even a few nice cameras.
I prefer less 'Mysterious' objects to preserve; old lamps, leather, wood/furniture, musical instruments (guitars), metal items of all description (mostly cast iron/copper/brass). Also, things w/ levers, screws, & springs....like old fishin' reels.
Plus, of course; the things that we ALL love.
This short list excludes 'Life, in general'.
The problem with 'experts' is that there is so much to know & discover about almost any given subject- they are, at best, 'one trick ponies'. You could probably spend a Lifetime learning all there is to know about the past, present, & future of cotton balls, ash trays, or ball point pens.
If anyone on this planet claims to be 'bored', it's them that's boring.
To me, 'boredom' is an alien concept.
Welp, gotta go restore & research some more 'stuff' I just acquired.
....It'll only stop when I do.

Once upon a time I had aspirations to become a wizard computer programmer. Unfortunately. I'm also dain brammaged. I could write subprograms, hack someone else's program to do some thing the way I wanted them done, but never succeeded in writing a complete program. Attention Deficit Disorder has my photo next to it In the dictionary. Couldn't maintain focus long enough to write a complex program, nor a bunch of coordinated subroutines that accomplished the necessary tasks.

Finally gave that up, and now in my spare time I ceaslessly clean my house trying to assemble a workshop so I can work on restoring the machine tools I've been acquiring over the past 26 years. Partially so I can make guns I can't afford, and fix the broken ones I can afford. Also other things, like tools, once upon a time, cameras, et cetera.

 

[Shadowrider]

I'd mine me some bitcoin with that puppy...

 

[BillM]

I'd mine me some bitcoin with that puppy...

From what they say the power requirements are, I believe that would be a losing proposition.

 

[SoonerP226]

From what they say the power requirements are, I believe that would be a losing proposition.

Most likely. I saw one video where they talked about what it would take to run it, and they said if they added up the electricity inputs for all of their facilities (two large commercial buildings), they wouldn’t have enough electrical capacity to turn it on, let alone run it.

And then you’d have to have the chilled water system to cool it. I’m thinking there aren’t enough bitcoins left to mine to hit the break even on that sucker.

 

[Shadowrider]

From what they say the power requirements are, I believe that would be a losing proposition.

Probably so but my thinking is that if you could put ALL those cpu cores on it, it wouldn't take long. I'm probably wrong, but they have built some quite large computing facilities just for mining crypto with huge footprints. This thing would probably compete. I may be wrong on that too!