Today Sir Robert McAlpine (Builders) started closing the net on the Claremont Complex (Tower, Bridge and Daysh): all entrances/exits are gradually being closed for access, and the complex is now officially a building site.

The lifts are now unavailable (from 1700 today), and just in time we managed to move a pile of “stuff” from Bridge Floor 3 to the Sub-Basement refuge; this pile included the two back walls from the famous “Perspex Display Cabinets”, and three boxes of miscellaneous bits (now known as artefacts) which Adèle has fielded from the crowd leaving the Bridge next week, as NUIT move into Black Horse House. Kevin Dixon (Infrastructure Support Group) helped me move the great unwieldy back walls to the SB: our thanks to him, and we’ve noted him down as a strong lad, for future reference 🙂

Our storage space is now crammed out with moved items, and new items: my own task in the next few weeks (if I get into the SB), will be to tidy up and organise all these things, and hopefully retrieve some space.

On that topic, certain members of NUIT staff will have to be granted access (under very strict conditions) to the SB, and we are hoping that one or two others may be permitted on to that list (including me). There will now be a couple of weeks of uncertainty while handover is completed: the operation for Sir Robert McAlpine is very much complicated by having to allow access to non-employees through their site.

Below, you can see the tidying-up task now required in SB6…

The back walls, crammed into SB6; they are facing another prize: the mural which was part of Claremont Tower Lobby for 40 years or more.

Here on the floor you see the Silicon Graphics workstation that Adèle received from ICAMB (Med School) two weeks ago. It weighs a ton (not quite).

A box of “stuff” rescued from the WEEE recycling; includes tools used by networking engineers, as well as computing electronica.

Foreground: another box, ditto. Background: two shelves-worth of “The Wendy Bond Donation”, which comprises an eMac, and a Macintosh Performa 600, with Stylewriter.

A few more of the items that have come out of the woodwork during the big tidy-up of Claremont Complex as per previous post. Not sure if we will want to keep everything but all are up for consideration for inclusion in the Collection or displays. Then comes the job of cataloguing them all….

Iomega Zip Drive – unfortunately no drive – just empty case – donated by Gavin Younger

WACOM drawing pad – rescued from WEEE by AMD

Avometer DA116 – rescued from WEEE by AMD – front view

Avometer DA116 – rescued from WEEE by AMD – rear view

HP laptop dock – rescued from WEEE by AMD

Courier Dual Standard modem – donated by Michael Lancastle (Network Team) with power supplies, cables, etc.

Apple PowerBook G4 (minus memory) – donated by Mark Agar

Toshiba USB external floppy drive – donated by Infrastructure Systems Team via AMD

IBM – floppy disc – can’t remember who gave me that ! Maybe Karen Wilson

Digital Counter – TSA 6636 – rescued from WEEE by AMD

RM NIC – donated by Jeff Craig (Network Team) – has been in his desk drawers for years he says…

A bit of an odd one… but we just don’t get this kind of quality from our suppliers any more ! Great little folder, pad and gel pen. Probably not that old. We can use it in SB6 for writing notes 🙂 – rescued by AMD from one of the recycle bins!!

After many decades working in Claremont Tower and Bridge, Newcastle University’s central IT team are to move to new accommodation on Monday, 8th October. We’ve all been encouraged to clean out our ‘junk’ before the move. A few weeks ago, I reminded staff to be careful with throwing out ‘junk’ in case any of it was a potential artefact that could be included in the Collection. Here’s what came out of the woodwork…. (I’ve split this into 2 posts because there are so many images and things were getting unwieldy whilst I was trying to upload them)…

MC102XL Fast Ethernet Media Converter – rescued from WEEE by AMD

HP ProCurve switch 2524 – rescued by AMD from WEEE pile

MC101 Fast Ethernet Media Converter – rescued by AMD from WEEE pile

ProCurve Switch 2610-24 –  rescued by AMD from WEEE pile

Ethernet 803.3 10 BASE-T Hub – rescued from WEEE by AMD

Micronet SP260 10BASE-T Etherhub – rescued from WEEE by AMD

Digi AnywhereUSB – 5 port network USB hub – donated by Infrastructure Team (via AMD)

Belkin 2-port network USB hub – donated by Infrastructure Systems Team – via AMD

Belkin 2-port network USB hub – rear view

IPad – rescued from WEEE by AMD (front view) – model A1474

IPad – rescued from WEEE by AMD – back view

Today I completed the moving of the two perspex display cabinets from Bridge Floor 3, down to storage in the Sub Basement, SB17.  This “room” used to be a broom cupboard under the stairs: we occupied it a few weeks ago, thinking it might come in useful, and it has.

The two cabinets (which are spectacularly good, for displays) were bought by the School some years ago, and used to be on Floor 6 of the Bridge, displaying historical hardware  for the benefit of Computing students.

They were moved to Floor 3 (NUIT) when the School moved last year to USB — thanks to Adèle for the idea, and to Michelle for organising the wonderful porters who moved them bodily – assembled – down to Floor 3 (see below); this was NOT, repeat, NOT, an easy operation: the cabinets are extremely heavy, yet every part is very delicate, being polished perspex.

They have provided a slightly up-graded display for NUIT staff for almost a year, but now NUIT are moving out, and so we had to rescue them before Estates move in with their contractors, builders, and waste disposal people.

NUIT staff have effected this rescue: Adèle is ‘Project Manager’, but Paul Kobasa has been the major helper in doing the work., which has taken many person hours. The cabinets had to be dismantled, wrapped in heavy duty clingfilm, and otherwise protected, and finally moved to a “safe place” (we hope).

The two back walls remain on Floor 3 (too big for me to move alone) but we hope to have them out of there next week.

Christian and Phil, the porters who engineered the move, 13 Oct 2017. Christian is just over 6′ tall; each cabinet weighs more than he does.

Each cabinet has 11 pieces; they have been laid flat, on top of pallets (in case of flood!), and with a layer of 25mm polystyrene between each piece. The doors (on left) were just too wide to be laid flat. There remain the two back walls (6′ x 4′) .. a 3-man lift (two to lift one to open doors). Adèle has carefully labelled every piece, to maximise possibility of successful re-assembly.

One cabinet has had “corner protection” (cardboard bits) added; there was no time to do this on the other cabinet.

Finally, the two pedestals have been snugged in, standing on their own “flood protection” (will an inch or two be enough?).

There are a few “big units” in the Broughton Collection. These have been stored in the Loading Bay for decades, unmoved since they were decommissioned in 1992. Although inside a solid, underground, concrete shelter, they have put up with freezing cold, the dark (poor creatures!), and occasional weather penetrations through the Loading Bay roof.
They had to be moved out, because of an impending delivery of new A/C equipment. Many thanks indeed to Matt, Rob and Kieran of the Insfrastructure support team (who look after the Data Centre, aka the Computer Room).

To my surprise, the units all “rolled” easily out to their new temporary home, though they took some shoving (see weights in the pictures) (we let the lads do the shoving).

We have festooned them with notices (but could not find enough tape!), and some rudimentary information for the curious. Few people will pass by this location, but those who do need to be dissuaded from fiddling: we won’t get any more of any of these items!

Big Units in new location

Memorex disk from Amdahl Ops Console, and a Xerox Trident T200 disk unit

A little presumptuous, as regards “destined”, but no harm in dropping a big fat hint.

Here, and below, an idea of the filth on parts of these units. This is the tape drive.

Composite of the “rudimentary info”, gleaned mainly from Roger’s website. His pages for these units are fantastic (like so many others).