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
