Machines at unusual places

[johnnym]

Back in 2015 I had an inspiration for a sort of art project related to my love for vintage machines and nature. I took a Cobalt Networks Qube 2 - not only for its beauty, but also for its size - to a vacation trip through Norway and really found what I had imagined earlier during planning for the trip:

A machine at various unusual places.

Here are two excerpts from the 2015 series:

Already planned from the start, I continued this series with machines from Sun and also from SGI at places throughout Germany for about two years, also extending the settings to interesting places in general and resulting in pictures like these:

...but somehow after 2017 this effort stopped. No time, no mood, etc..

Finally in 2021 I rebooted this project and took pictures - a lot actually - throughout Sweden, featuring a - then already - Sun Cobalt Qube 3 to adequately celebrate that restart and as homage to the very first series' actor. Yeah ok, size again played a role. There are not that many small machines in my collection.

Here are some pictures from the 2021 series:

For this year's series I for the first time had to procure a machine: a lovely Sun Ray 1 with intact stand. I would have liked to have a Sun JavaStation Krups for this year's series, but didn't find one for a reasonable price or at all actually back when I made my plans. But I find the Ray 1 more than adequate and am looking forward to this year's pictures.

Find the complete machines at unusual places effort and some additional information about the places at:

MDwiki

pub.machine-hall.org

 

[johnnym]

Thanks guys!

I was travelling north and today finally reached my country of destination, so photographing can take place in the days to come.

 

[johnnym]

So, vacation is unfortunately over and I'm back home since a while. But I still need to post-process much of my pictures. I took a lot this time and hope I can use many of them.

 

[johnnym]

I just leave that here:

 

[pauliedweasel]

The Qube does tend to draw one in with its look doesn’t it? I bought some about 18 years ago to fiddle around with but after a job change they went into storage. Now that I’m retired I want to get the Qubes and my SGI stuff out and do something with them again.

 

[johnnym]

The Qube does tend to draw one in with its look doesn’t it?

Absolutely. Apart from SGI machines I haven't seen that many machines that have such an iconic attention drawing look than the Cobalt Qubes. While I in the past always found that the RaQs look like toys, compared to that the Qubes look like an art peformance. The combination of that gorgeous blue and green is an eye-catcher extraordinaire.

I bought some about 18 years ago to fiddle around with but after a job change they went into storage. Now that I’m retired I want to get the Qubes and my SGI stuff out and do something with them again.

Sounds great! Since then NetBSD is an option for the Qubes and it and OpenBSD became one for some SGI machines (and the latter still is, see https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php?threads/openbsd-sgi.928/). And of course all the original software should also be there.