Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Ral-Clan on December 04, 2006, 05:49:04 PM
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It looks like NASA is getting rid of - or has already gotten rid of (some of?) its Amiga hardware:
http://tinyurl.com/y9svmt
http://tinyurl.com/ygmk3q
If you look in the sellers "other auctions" there is some more Amiga stuff "from the Aerospace industry".
Here is a description of Amigas at NASA in 1999:
http://www.upchug.com/AEcastro.html
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One of the NASA A2000s for sale seems to have a GVP 68030+SCSI+RAM card in the CPU slot.
http://tinyurl.com/y8zwn6
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=177
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I'ver not seen one of these before:
ebay link (http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140059183720&ssPageName=MERC_VI_RSEE_Pr4_PcY_BID_Stores_IT&refitem=140059516351&itemcount=4&refwidgetloc=active_view_item&usedrule1=UpSell_LogicX&refwidgettype=cross_promot_widget)
(edited, soz)
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The Advanced Amiga Analyser is a fairly well known piece of hardware. It was advertised in the Amiga magazines in the early 1990s.
But I wish I could tell what kind of accelerator card is in that NASA A2500. It seems to have a daughterboard attached to it via two white pin connectors on the back of the CPU card.
http://tinyurl.com/yxhlhx
It might just be a stock A2630 by Commodore....chip layout is right. But did those have connectors on the back for a daughterboard (the BBOAH shows only the front side, where you can see solder points for those connectors)? EDIT: apparently it does have provision for a RAM daughterboard.
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ral-clan wrote:
The Advanced Amiga Analyser is a fairly well known piece of hardware. It was advertised in the Amiga magazines in the early 1990s.
Yes, I have one, it is essentially a port tester. And thanks for reminding me of it - I think I blew out the serial port on an A4000 at work, and if I can find my Advanced Amiga Analyser amongst my junk, I can test it! :)
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It is the A2630 with a DKB 2632 memory board. Quite rare memory card these days... (but what amiga hardware isn't?)
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how did that guy get a hold of so many....
and isn't it a tad bizaare that nasa would let _hard drives_ loose? i mean...surely something on them is of value to someone...
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sir_inferno wrote:
how did that guy get a hold of so many....
and isn't it a tad bizaare that nasa would let _hard drives_ loose? i mean...surely something on them is of value to someone...
Nothing unusual at all sir. NASA and other government agencies routinely sell off surplus or obsolete equipment at auction several times a year. I doubt any of this equipment has seen any use since the mid 1990s and was most likely locked up in some warehouse until some employee decided to investigate and clean out the room. Here in Huntsville AL where I live, Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has held several surplus auctions over the years. The most interesting item to me was a Gemini era auxillary power unit (APU)!!!! It was a real, serial numbered backup device that was stored for nearly 30 years before it was sold off as scrap!
With regards to the AMIGA hardware, it was likely part of the telemetry systems that were documented in an AMIGA article back in the late 1990s. There were a handful of AMIGA items at MSFC but they were dumped the day Commodore went under.
As for concerns about the hard drives, they are so old that no one cares or the data was wiped prior to placement in storage (pretty common practice).
Regards,
Ltstanfo
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WHAT!?!?!?!?
Real mil-spec hardware?!?!
:lol: :lol: :lol:
:-D
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DBAlex wrote:
WHAT!?!?!?!?
Real mil-spec hardware?!?!
:lol: :lol: :lol:
:-D
Hehe...good one Alex. :-D
At least it wasn't one of those infamous Doomy mil-spec AMIGAs. :lol:
Regards,
Ltstanfo
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@ALL
Well they probably brought an AmigaOne.. ;)
or they are running Amigaforever on an xp machine..lol
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@chris
Would you please edit your long link?
You don't have to use TinyURL (http://tinyurl.com). Simply use the BBcode tags:
[ url=http://www.../.../.. ] Text shown instead of long link [ /url ]
(remove the spaces after [ and before ])
More about BBcode tags:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBCode
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Well, whether or not there's Exciting Space Control Software (TM) on the drives, those boards with the ribbon cables sure look interesting...
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I worked at the Kennedy Space Flight Center in the SSPF in 2002 and they told me that the Amiga stuff was long idle.
As to the disks, one of my day-to-day jobs was erasing them - four passes with blanking software. I did it to everything from SGI SCSI HDs down to dinky little 3gb IDE drives.
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As to the disks, one of my day-to-day jobs was erasing them - four passes with blanking software. I did it to everything from SGI SCSI HDs down to dinky little 3gb IDE drives.
That sure doesn't sound like the glamorous NASA job that I envisionsed!
I'd rather give them four passes with a rocket assisted sledge hammer or a pocket particle accellerator. :flame:
Regards,
AmigaEd
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As for concerns about the hard drives, they are so old that no one cares or the data was wiped prior to placement in storage (pretty common practice).
Atleast one of the a2500 had a nasa sticker saying "2005", so i guess they havent been idle for that long..
http://i8.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/7b/85/c6b8_1_sbl.JPG (http://i8.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/7b/85/c6b8_1_sbl.JPG)
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Atleast one of the a2500 had a nasa sticker saying "2005", so i guess they havent been idle for that long..
Yeah, but notice those stickers say NASA 2005 INVENTORY. That was probably the last inventory they took of all the old stored gear in order to sell it as a lot to the surplus company (that's now selling it on Ebay).
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@sirinferno
How did you add that image as your sig sirinferno?
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AmigaEd wrote:
As to the disks, one of my day-to-day jobs was erasing them - four passes with blanking software. I did it to everything from SGI SCSI HDs down to dinky little 3gb IDE drives.
That sure doesn't sound like the glamorous NASA job that I envisionsed!
I'd rather give them four passes with a rocket assisted sledge hammer or a pocket particle accellerator. :flame:
Regards,
AmigaEd
Along with the other more, ahem, glamorous things I did PC gruntwork was part and parcel of the whole deal.
Besides they paid me $40.00/hr to do it so if they'd asked me to work in the cafeteria all day I'd have done so. :D
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_ThEcRoW wrote:
@sirinferno
How did you add that image as your sig sirinferno?
just bunged [ img ]http://monkey.com/roooostaaaa.jpg[ /img ] in the signature space
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sir_inferno wrote:
how did that guy get a hold of so many....
and isn't it a tad bizaare that nasa would let _hard drives_ loose? i mean...surely something on them is of value to someone...
A good friend in Florida bought several ex-NASA A2000s with GVP 030 cards, and hard drives that had only been quick formatted!!??
NASA must have bought a huge number of Amigas through the years.