[no subject]

When they called me saying the stuff could be returned on the condition the
software will not be, everything was in Washington D.C. My options were 1)
they would MAIL the stuff to me from D.C. (yes, mail as in USPS) or 2) have
the stuff shipped to the Chicago office and make arrangements with them to
pick it up. Naturally I opted for #2.

When the stuff arrived in Chicago the guy there told me it would be another
week or two because they wanted to zap the hard drives and check for any
other things they thought shouldn't be returned. The morning I went to pick
it up, he had the mac ci running on the desk putting the hd images in the
trash. He even commented that I could probably recover the software because
"he wasn't famliar with apple".

The Mac ][ was totally untouched. That one booted right up after tapping the
hard drive a few times. And as far as I could tell, the Apple //e was never
opened since 5/27/90, the box it was in still had the evidence tape around
it.

Now it's possible the //e hard drive was bulk erased, put in a microwave or
something but I've always doubted it. Once they figured out the whole mess
wasn't going anywhere, they did what they could to save face and run through
the motions. 

I really think it's a question of if a hard drive that sat around for 14+
years since the last power up is going to work even if the original
enviorment is re-recreated.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com