itw01e-sw-ca105

Stephen Withers

State of the ark: a houseful of old computers

31 October 2000

The Age

Submitted for Best Feature category

Andrew Stewart is in love - not only with his wife Christine and newborn daughter Jessica, but with computers.

This is not a story of a man who disappears every evening to play games or go online. Stewart's mission is to save old computers from the scrap heap. He has been so successful that he bought a factory to house part of his collection. That's not to mention a second house crammed with technological bits and pieces. His late father, Jirn, an amateur radio enthusiast, collected radio parts. Christine remarks that the magpie gene may be passed on to Jessica.

Stewart was introduced to computers in 1973 as a student at Trinity Grammar. Unusually for that time, the school owned a computer - a paper-tape-based DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) PDP-8/L with teletype - upon which Stewart first learned to program in FOCAL FOrmula CALculation), a BASIC-like interpreted language. In the late 1970s, while studying computer science, maths and applied science at Swinbume Institute of Technology, he used an RSTS/E time-sharing system running on a PDP-11/40 with 5 Megabytes of disk storage, and the affair began. "I read the architecture manual end 1 fell in love with the PDP-1l," he says. The main attraction was the orthogonal architecture of this 16-bit minicomputer. "The golden rule is that if more than one addressing mode was available, all were available," he says. One of the eight general purpose registers doubled as the Program Counter, leading to clever tricks such as the one-instruction program that copies itself backwards through memory as fast as the PDP-11 can execute instructions normally, forwards through memory. Using someone else's computer wasn't enough: Stewart wanted his own.

The main obstacle was that in 1980, a modest PDP-11 with 64K of RAM and dual floppy disks cost about $10,000. By selectively buying a mix of new and used parts from local and overseas sources, rebuilding a memory card with higher capacity chips, and mounting the backplane on a chipboard base with a household fan to keep everything cool, he put together a complete system with two floppy drives for about $4000. At that time, a 1980 Z80-based business "microcomputer" cost anything up to $6000. After graduation, Stewart joined the State Electricity Commission's IT department, where he worked as an applications programmer on IBM mainframes but kept using his PDP-11 to remind himself what "real computing" was like.

The expertise he developed with Digital hardware paid off in 1986 when the commission decided to install an all-in-one office automation system and gave him the job of VMS system manager, even though it was running on a VAX (the PDP-11's successor). Stewart was also an active member of DECUS (the Digital Equipment Corporation Users Society), and once people knew he was interested in old equipment, items marked for the scrap heap came his way. But his collection really took off after he married Christine in 1990. He moved into her home in the eastern suburbs, leaving his Richmond semi-detached house empty. As the various pieces of furniture were given away to friends and family, their place was taken by computer parts, systems and manuals. Eventually, there was only a narrow track down the hall, and in some rooms you could only get a few feet past the door.

With the mid-1990s surge in inner-Melbourne real estate prices, Stewart realised that using the house for storage space was a waste of money. But what was to be done with the collection? Stewart's answer was to buy a small factory in Dandenong. In 1997, a little more than $50,000 bought him about 110 square metres of floor space. Another $5000 or so went on 12 bays of four-metre-high pallet racking, and $500 worth of timber. With the help of friends, Stewart also added a mezzanine floor. Most of the fluorescent lights were scavenged from a bin outside a CBD building refurbishment, and the shelves were made from recycled pallets and scrap chipboard. If anybody questions the way he's chosen to spend his money, his response is: "If 1 spent $70,000 on a car and a few thousand on a computer, nobody would consider me strange. I've just done it the other way round. Unlike a car, my factory is not depreciating. Anyway, collecting old computers is a lot better than other vices." But his wife sometimes wishes he would take up something else. The self-described "mad hobbyist and DECaholic" hasn't catalogued his collection, but thinks he can assemble between 20 and 40 working systems from it, depending on what is in working condition. The biggest computers are a VAX- 11/ 780 and a VAX-11/785, each "as big as three, family-sized fridges". He's unlikely to use the VAXen, as they need three-phase power, but nevertheless he wants to "preserve the big stuff, the stuff that gets thrown away. I've got several disk drives each the size of a small washing machine". Smaller systems include various PDP-11s (some made locally by Computer Plus Engineering or Webster Computer Corporation), VAXstations (workstations based on the VAX architecture), AlphaStations (based on Digital's RISC processor), and the early-80s desktop systems: Professional 350s and 380s (personal PDP-1ls), DECmate IIs and IIIs (dedicated word processors) and Rainbows (the company's response to the IBM PC). The strangest is an ultrasound machine with an LSI-11 processor and 32K of ROM.

Although Stewart collects Digital products, he's happy to hold on to anything until he finds it a good home. The smallest computer, on his shelves is a diminutive Tandy Color Computer that he found on a scrap heap, while an original Compaq portable came from a similar source. There's even an IBM electric clock: "That's the only IBM machine I'm going to get working," he jokes. He's already handed on a large quantity of old Sun SPARCstation 2s and a Hewlett-Packard 9845B to other specialist collectors, along with an array of Digital systems and components. "The fun is in collecting and refurbishing machines and helping people, rather than actually using the computers," he says. "I'm into 'state of the ark' computing and - like Noah - I want two of everything in the hope of being able to salvage at least one working system. If I don't grab them now, they will be gone forever." And help people he does.

Stewart's collection of obsolete parts has extended the life of various systems installed in businesses and public organisations around Melbourne. He played a minor part in tracking down a PDP-9 for Working Dog's new movie The Dish. And when PDP-11 users finally migrate to newer systems, Stewart's skills and hardware inventory enable the transfer of data even when commercial service providers say it can't be done. "My wife complains I do too much for other people," he says. "But when I do sell some gear I make sure the cheque's payable to her. That smoothes things over." But what of the house in Richmond? Stewart still owns it and it is still full of computers. One day, he reckons he will have time to cull his collection so it all fits into the factory, but you can understand why Christine calls him 'Steptoe.'

"My collection will be worth nothing during my lifetime, but what fun I'll have in my retirement," he says.