My Personal Workshop

Druid6900 · Jul 4, 2018

I just thought, after all these years, that I would post a couple of pictures of where I go when I don't want to deal with phone calls and paperwork at the regular shop.

It is uncommonly clean and organized because I am losing it to a storage area for a collection of Vintage computers that we acquired recently and should be arriving by the end of the month (finally).

Fortunately, I have a couple of workshop areas at home too, but this was the place I could get away from everything and everyone and just repair and test stuff.

MikeS should recognize a number of items that he gave (read: unloaded on) me over the years.

Druid

jltursan · Jul 5, 2018

That Lisa seems so lonely!, and all of these Tandy aligned, oooh

Thanks for sharing!

VERAULT · Jul 5, 2018

very well organized. Is it a garage or small building/shed? Any reason you don't have a dehumidifier?

PeterNC · Jul 5, 2018

Nice!

Druid6900 · Jul 6, 2018

Yes, it's a garage I rent and it's about 650 square feet and it has an air conditioner, so, no separate dehumidifier is needed.

In the winter, it's heated with oil-filled portable radiators, so a humidifier is used.

I know, they all look lonely, but, a lot of the machines and monitors have been repaired over the years and I really should get some of them on the site. The Tandy business machines are a long overdue project to be tested, repaired and parted out. Some people have been waiting for them, especially the cases.

I don't get a lot of time to work at that shop as I would like, but, with the new stuff coming in, I'll probably be there more to run the initial tests before having them hauled to the main shop.

8008guy · Jul 7, 2018

Really clean and easy orginized! Tottally the oppisite of mine...

Druid6900 · Jul 11, 2018

You should have seen it 2 days before I took the pictures LOL.

Wait until you see it after we shoehorn in 800 cubic feet of equipment on 10 4 x 4 skids piled 5 feet high ad weighing 5,000 pounds in a week or so.....

MikeS · Jul 11, 2018

Druid6900 said:
You should have seen it 2 days before I took the pictures LOL.

Wait until you see it after we shoehorn in 800 cubic feet of equipment on 10 4 x 4 skids piled 5 feet high ad weighing 5,000 pounds in a week or so.....

Wow! Sure doesn't look like mine either ;-)

Yeah, I think I see some familiar faces in there, but where are those huge IBM NAS units I generously gave you? A separate building? ;-)

It'll be interesting to see what actually arrives from out west. More pics needed then.

Trixter · Jul 11, 2018

I've never heard of someone renting out a garage before. If you don't mind the questions:

How close to you was the garage?
How much did you pay per month or year in rent?
Did the owner have to open it for you every time you wanted to visit?
Did you pay for the electricity for the AC, or did the owner absorb that cost?
How did you learn of the garage for rent?

Druid6900 · Jul 12, 2018

MikeS said:
Wow! Sure doesn't look like mine either ;-)

Yeah, I think I see some familiar faces in there, but where are those huge IBM NAS units I generously gave you? A separate building? ;-)

It'll be interesting to see what actually arrives from out west. More pics needed then.

You mean my future end tables? You see the end of the work bench with the two Tandy business machines, they are stacked up on top of each other, pushed against the wall with some boxes of motherboards piled on them.

Well, I have 5 walk-through videos and just over 200 pictures of what there is. There is even more stuff than on the inventory list.

Druid6900 · Jul 12, 2018

Trixter said:
I've never heard of someone renting out a garage before. If you don't mind the questions:

How close to you was the garage?

How much did you pay per month or year in rent?

Did the owner have to open it for you every time you wanted to visit?

Did you pay for the electricity for the AC, or did the owner absorb that cost?

How did you learn of the garage for rent?

No, I don't mind at all.

The garage is about a 40 minute bus ride (including waiting for the buses) or a 10 minute drive. Since I don't drive anymore, it's about 40 minutes

There were some other garages for rent closer, but, if I took one of them, I'd be there all the time. I wanted a "Nah, I don't feel like going all the way down there today" situation.

The cost is $300 per month. What I get fixed and/or tested there, when sold, very easily covers all my expenses and I don't have to deal with all the paperwork and questions that are generated at the other shop. I invested in a steel man-door, upgrading the electrical, having cable internet run to it and put in an alarm system, but that was covered in the first couple of months, several years ago.

No, I have the keys and he doesn't have a passcode to the alarm system. He said he didn't want to go in if I wasn't there because he, somehow, got the impression that I had cannisters of VX hooked up to the alarm system LOL.

We split the hydro cost now, since, about a year ago he upped the rent from $225. He knows that, if I leave, he's on the hook for all the lease-hold improvements I did. He should really read his own leases, but he just got it off the internet.

I went on Kijiji and searched "garages for rent". He was happier to rent it to me because, as I explained, with the stuff that drips out of cars, since they are listed as hazardous waste, the'd, eventually have to tear up parts of the floor and dispose of them. He bought that...

Druid6900 · Aug 3, 2018

Workshop Update

Workshop Update

This is just to update this with more pictures.

The first thing you will notice is 10 skids of Vintage computers.

This is Micom2000's complete collection, 7300 pounds (excluding pallets and packing) of hardware, software, peripherals, magazines etc. etc. which we acquired from his estate executor.

Don't worry, Lawrence didn't die, he's just unable to take care of himself or his residence any longer.

This collection has an extensive number of makes and model of 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit computers, including 4 PS/1 systems. If you do a search on here, you will find a couple of inventory lists he made up listing some of the stuff, but, there is much, much more than is listed there. Boxes of old ISA cards, I believe there are some VLB cards and motherboards, many early NEC multi-sync monitors, boxes of software in their original boxes, some boxed computers and all kinds of great stuff.

What used to be my personal workshop is now a triage area where we will break down the pallets, one at a time, and run operational tests on the equipment. The equipment that works will go to the main workshop to be tested more thoroughly with its peripherals, cleaned up and made available for purchase. The stuff that doesn't work will be repaired, thoroughly tested and made available for purchase.

The pictures aren't great because of the thickness of the shrink-wrapping and the overhead lights reflecting off it, but, there is a LOT of stuff.