Gutting VAxen... Or should I?
 

Hey people. Every year here in Albury there's a period of about a week where everyone dumps their heavy trash out on the streets for the council to collect, but it's not exactly 'legal' to get caught taking what you like. Anyway, with the help of a mate with a station wagon we've managed to grab a total of 5 old tvs - one of them HUGE (four working, but all ended up getting shot with golfballs), 4 computer monitors, all working, including an 18 inch mac monitor (flickers a bit) and an old *20* inch monochrome, plus other misc electronic trash which shared the televisions' fate.

Anyway, what's this post got to do with computers? Well, during the indescriminate sort-of-theft ive managed to grab 4 old VAXstation VLC's, all working, only lacking monitors/keyboards/mice which there's no chance of me being able to get to easily, considering the unique connections.

For anyone who doesn't know what I speak of:

http://www.mcmanis.com/chuck/compute...x4000-vlc.html

I tend to have a habit of collecting obsolete computers for nothing more than ego inflation, and occasionally I'll gut them and do somthing usefull, which is the problem ive encountered here. I'm about to strip out all the VAX gear, bolt this stack together along with an old DECstation (same sized base), then cut out all the inerior frame with the angle grinder to house my fabled 'ghettocube' - but of course, from looking up this model on the internet I've found that certain types of people exist who would cry at such a thing, and that it would be some sort of hate-crime to kill a VAX.

So i'm asking you, the collector, what do you think I should do? Does anyone still see any value (emotional I assume) in working VAX bits, or is it strictly a nostalga thing where they should all be left intact?

So yes, please reply. Lives.. of sorts.. are in your hands.

Actually, you could try e-bay or other auction/second hand sights for the accesspories for the VAX.
As for saving them...why bother? What possibly useful purpouse could it ever fulfill, other than the ego trip of having one? Saving it is only going to take up space, something someone else realized when those boxen were kicked to the curb.

Find those people. Sell the VAX machines to them. End of problem :)

Seriously, try looking on Ebay, and hell.. maybe just list all 4 VAXs on there.

I am amazed there are TFP'ers that know what a VAX is. :)

That said, there's not much you can do with them these days. Maybe install NetBSD on it and run it as your fileserver? It'd be a big waste of electricity though... :)

eBay can help you find people who actually want to mess with VAXen, presumably for its interesting architectural characteristics.

Installing NetBSD on them is probably the ideal solution, as I'd most likely end up paying more to ship them than I would make by selling them on ebay. But still, the 'benefits' of running 4 VAXen just wouldn't justify the power they consume.