[Info-vax] VAX 6000 on Young Sheldon

[David Wade]

On 04/02/2023 03:30, gah4 wrote:
> On Friday, February 3, 2023 at 5:48:07 AM UTC-8, Neil Rieck wrote:
>> Don't know how many people here watch "Young Sheldon" which is a spinoff of "The Big Bang Theory". Anyway, last night we see Sheldon Cooper take delivery of a main frame in his dorm. What got rolled in was a VAX-6000-420 with three racks of disk storage.
> 
> I don't think a 370/168 fit in many dorm rooms.


No but someone in New Zealand rented an office and kept a 360/30 in it...

http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360/

https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/historydisplays/FourthFloor/MainFrameComputers/System360Model30.php

> 
> I do remember stories from around 2000 of running big Sun systems, or other
> big floor standing processors, in dorm rooms.  It seems that heaters are not allowed
> in dorms, but inefficient computer are.  They kept the room warm!
> 
> Anyway, I like "Young Sheldon" much more than Big Bang.  For actual nerds,
> many of the Big Bang jokes aren't quite as funny.  (Not that I watch it all that
> often, though.)
> 
> But okay, Sheldon was supposed to be in high school in the late 1980's, and college
> in the early 1990s.   By the 1990's, VAX 11/780 and 11/750 were still around, but
> also the early floor standing MicroVAX, and desktop MicroVAX.  The 11/730 is
> probably dorm sized, with one disk drive.  Though little SCSI drives were around
> by then, and would be nice for a VAX.

Dave