[CLUE-Talk] Sweet deal

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

Hi all,

Thought I might share this with the folks who aren't already aware of
it... near I-25 and Yale there's a computer shop called Action
Computers, every Saturday they have a bargain-type sale next to the main
shop. 

It's definitely a buyer-beware situation, but I got one majorly sweet
deal this weekend -- I picked up an old Dell PowerEdge 6100 server for
$30 (plus tax). The 6100 is a quad Pentium Pro 200 box -- which is
pretty puny from a MHz standpoint, but kind of interesting in that it's
probably the only quad-processor box I'll be able to afford, or at least
justify. Looking for docs on the machine, I found a site that is selling
one for about $4K. 

They open the doors at 10AM -- you definitely want to get there early.
Roy Johnson managed to get there before me and snag the item I was
really hoping to get -- a full-height rack box for $150. 

They don't let you really check out the equipment, and there's no
warranty or refunds, but you might just pick up something particularly
nice for very little cash. Or you might pick up a box that's only good
as a door-stop... you pays your money, you takes your chances...

Definitely something to check out if you are looking for spare parts,
though.

Happily, the quad box actually boots and I think it's going to make a
fine test-box for SMP stuff on Linux. The only problems I've noted so
far are that it has one bad drive and a BIOS password, but the password
problem should be easily bypassed. 

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net