I worked for 7 years in a warehouse that delt primarily with MainFrame reconditioning. These bad boys are big, hot running, electricity sucking beasts. I love 'em. Not the fact that they are resource devouring monsters, but the fact that they are indestructable. IBM used to produce a controller/disk array that consisted of 4 frames per string. Frame 1 was the controller(3880), and the Frames 2 thru 4 were the drives(3380). There were several models of the drives(A thru K) and varied from (if I remember right) 5 GB to 25 GB. They were huge. Each frame had a measurement of roughly 3.5 X 2.5 X 6 foot. When a tractor trailor rolled up and dropped 40 of them at our warehouse you knew you'd be running them about 20 feet up the floor at high speed to build up momentum so you could hop on the frame and ride that mutha for the remaining 1000 feet across the 'house. If you crashed into other frames in the process, even better. These things were indestructible. We had a full reburbishing center for reconditioning them(paint guns, laquer paint, body shop for doors, texture paint, welding facility, etc.), so if you busted them up, it was no big deal. The most fun was setting up the 6 foot by 1.75 foot doors out in the woods as deflectors for paintball wars(some had 1 foot by 1 foot openings for control panels that worked well for viewing the "enemy"), or laying the 6 foot panel on the floor, standing at the 2 foot from the end point and bending the rest of the door at a 45 degree angle to create a bitchion toboggan. These doors were ultra smooth and created a comfortable ride, very fast moving, but we never developed a steering mechanism. Sort of like the saucers but rectangular. Back to the point...when trucks would arrive, sometimes the driver would inform us that they took a turn too fast and all of the frames had tipped over in the back of his vehicle. We always expressed concern for insurance purposes, but we'd just put them back on their feet with the forklift after the driver left, fire them up, and 90 percent of the time they'd diag with no problem. Now that I've been working with P.C.'s for who knows how many years, I've found that if you do something as simple as knock over a socket 1 machine, the processor pops out or dislodges.
If anyone has connections with a refurb center(I do but I'm not here to advertise), price an old IBM 3090 system with 3 to 6 strings of 3880/3380 drive arrays(probably get the whole setup for under 3 thou.). The processor(3090) is water cooled, and has some fantastic high test rubber hoses for the whole anti-freeze/cooling setup. If you can get extras, they make great garden hoses by adding male and female ends from your local hardware store. Otherwise, you'll need about a thousand square feet to set up a full working mondo.
Slashdot Mirror
I worked for 7 years in a warehouse that delt primarily with MainFrame reconditioning. These bad boys are big, hot running, electricity sucking beasts. I love 'em. Not the fact that they are resource devouring monsters, but the fact that they are indestructable. IBM used to produce a controller/disk array that consisted of 4 frames per string. Frame 1 was the controller(3880), and the Frames 2 thru 4 were the drives(3380). There were several models of the drives(A thru K) and varied from (if I remember right) 5 GB to 25 GB. They were huge. Each frame had a measurement of roughly 3.5 X 2.5 X 6 foot. When a tractor trailor rolled up and dropped 40 of them at our warehouse you knew you'd be running them about 20 feet up the floor at high speed to build up momentum so you could hop on the frame and ride that mutha for the remaining 1000 feet across the 'house. If you crashed into other frames in the process, even better. These things were indestructible. We had a full reburbishing center for reconditioning them(paint guns, laquer paint, body shop for doors, texture paint, welding facility, etc.), so if you busted them up, it was no big deal. The most fun was setting up the 6 foot by 1.75 foot doors out in the woods as deflectors for paintball wars(some had 1 foot by 1 foot openings for control panels that worked well for viewing the "enemy"), or laying the 6 foot panel on the floor, standing at the 2 foot from the end point and bending the rest of the door at a 45 degree angle to create a bitchion toboggan. These doors were ultra smooth and created a comfortable ride, very fast moving, but we never developed a steering mechanism. Sort of like the saucers but rectangular. Back to the point...when trucks would arrive, sometimes the driver would inform us that they took a turn too fast and all of the frames had tipped over in the back of his vehicle. We always expressed concern for insurance purposes, but we'd just put them back on their feet with the forklift after the driver left, fire them up, and 90 percent of the time they'd diag with no problem. Now that I've been working with P.C.'s for who knows how many years, I've found that if you do something as simple as knock over a socket 1 machine, the processor pops out or dislodges.
If anyone has connections with a refurb center(I do but I'm not here to advertise), price an old IBM 3090 system with 3 to 6 strings of 3880/3380 drive arrays(probably get the whole setup for under 3 thou.). The processor(3090) is water cooled, and has some fantastic high test rubber hoses for the whole anti-freeze/cooling setup. If you can get extras, they make great garden hoses by adding male and female ends from your local hardware store. Otherwise, you'll need about a thousand square feet to set up a full working mondo.
Good Luck.