Conference 7.286::digital

I have a similar request. My son's preschool is looking for a working Apple II
computer. Any info would be appreciated.

Chris deHahn
buell::dehahn
 
or 
 
<< Chris deHahn....CdH....Digital Equipment Corporation Shrewsbury MA USA >>
<< Storage Engineering  [email protected]  508.841.3451 '91 Buell RS1200 >>

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				Steve

    You ought to be able to find an Apple II e used fairly cheaply - I
    bought one from the Want Ad (local East Mass. publication that lists
    items people are selling) for $200 a few months ago - the special board
    I wanted to use is only made for that particular machine (Mac version
    hasn't come out yet even now).
    
    /Charlotte

    If anyone has any strange ideas about donating equipment...good luck. 
    We've got a pile of broken VT340s, two VaxMates (complete with
    documentation), RK07s, a pile of crummy printers, and a wall of broken
    X-Window 1200 terminals.  I've been told it's easier to donate Nancy
    Reagan to the Rolling Stone's groupies than it is to donate equipment
    to a school.

>>    X-Window 1200 terminals.  I've been told it's easier to donate Nancy
>>    Reagan to the Rolling Stone's groupies than it is to donate equipment
>>    to a school.

Well - not really.  I have donated a MVII/GPX and am about to do the same for
a DS3100.  The amount of 'other people' that need to get invovled on a piece of
scrap metal is incredible.

Before you start the steps below - make sure the place you are sending it to
WANTS it!

1 - find out what CC owns the equipment and then the finance person that goes
    along with that CC.
2 - find out if the equipment has any value left on it - they have a tool they
    use to determine this. 
3 - Get CC manager approvial for the donation.  You will need a copy of this 
    with the final paperwork.  It can be as simple as a mail message from
    him/her saying "I approve of this donation".
4 - request a D.I.A.L waiver - the form is either in VTX or you have to request
    one - when I was doing it DIAL's VTX page was not available and someone 
    sent me one via e-mail.  You will need the DIAL waiver number and a copy 
    of the DIAL wavier for the final paperwork.
5 - Go into VTX WASTE and get the donation policy.  Somewhere in those VTX 
    pages is the person to contact in corperate to make the request.  
    There used to be a section on having to request exceptions - which implied
    that not all things needed to be approved prior to the donation - but that
    has been removed.
6 - Send a request to the person you found in #5, listing all equipment and
    SN's you want to donate and to who.
7 - When corp approves the request, request finance person to do a 
    Capital Writeoff Form.
8 - Finish the form you got in step 5, put it together with Corp Donation 
    approvial message, the cap writeoff form (step 2), CC manager approval 
    (step  3), DIAL waiver form (step 4) and get:
	a) rep from school to sign it
	b) CC manager to sign it
	c) finance manager to sign it
9 - Get the equipment and walk to security and have them check the SNs and 
    take it to the college. (I thought this part was going to be the 
    hardest).

(please excuse the spelling errors - I have yet to get DECspell working on AXP)

Brian J.

    This type of falgacarp is very frustrating....here we've got equipement
    being scapped by the dumpster load and it takes a small miracle to 
    get it transfered either internally or donated.
    
    As with most of our problems it is the process that is at fault.
    Internal transfers should be a no brainer.
    Donations should be part of business.
    
    
    Brian V
    

    
    Brian,
    
     I couldn't agree more.  The process should be simple and quick.
    There is too much red tape, and too many folks who have to approve
    the donantion.  The process is at fault.  We have done donations
    in the past to universities.  It took acts of God to get these
    approved.
    
     B.T.W. I work in Finance and avoid the process at all cost.  
    
    Mark  

    re -.1
    
    The multiple layers of beauracracy are the result of someone, years
    ago, declaring equipment "scrap" and selling it for pennies a
    pound...only it *wasn't* scrap.  Thus, the rest of us (donors and
    intended recipients) have been made to suffer.  (Can't remember the
    exact incidence anymore...it's in this notesfile somewhere).  I hate to
    say it, I *still* wouldn't go through all that to dump the junkpile
    we've got.
    
    I think the Infernal Revenuer Service also has some restrictions on
    equipment that was once in use for the business being donated.  I've
    also heard that our Legal Eagles say we might be liable if someone
    plays a residual Space Invaders game on one of our donated VaxMates and
    starts takin' potshots at the White House.
    
    All wonderful reasons *not* to give an educational institution a
    valuable Rainbow, VT340, RK07, etc., I'm sure.  How is it Apple can 
    hand out their stuff to schools like candy?  Today's student working on
    a Digital platform may be tomorrow's CIO making purchase decisions...
    
    re -.3 (I think)
    
    Thanks tons for listing those steps!  I don't think there's a prayer
    that the average Digit could have waded through that mess without a
    guide!  Your daddy an Indian scout or somethin'?  :^]  Someone now
    might get a piece of equipment they otherwise wouldn't have received.
    
    							Tex

>>     -< I agree, too.  The process is worse than buying office supplies! >-

I don't have to buy office supplies - I guess I lucky !

>>    Thanks tons for listing those steps!  I don't think there's a prayer
>>    that the average Digit could have waded through that mess without a
>>    guide!  

I hope they work for everyone.  They have worked for me.  In both cases, I have
VMS mail folders with 50+ messages documenting every electronic request I made
about getting the donation completed.  It had been about 4 months since I
completed the first donation and I had to start all over again because several
of the contacts that I had had 'moved on' and could not be found in ELF
anymore.

The person in Corp Donations I talked to thought the process was 'real easy'.  I
explained to them, for a software engineer who NEVER has to deal with finance
or DIAL EVER, it has was a pain.  Of course that person is one of the people
that I can't find in ELF anymore.

>> Your daddy an Indian scout or somethin'?  :^]  Someone now
>>    might get a piece of equipment they otherwise wouldn't have received.

Nope - he's in sales.  Hope it all works out.

bjm

    Thanks a lot for all the inputs and especially listing all the steps
    and the contact info I need to pursue. This will certainly help and get me
    started in the right direction. 
    
    Regards,
    
    ....dabir
    
    P.S. I will post the outcome of my endeavour in this notes conference
         for your enlightenment

Knowledgeable friends in academia have told me that Apple gives hardware
and capitalizes on software.

I also know of a small college that received a VAX 750 free from Digital,
with the hook that they had to purchase a service agreement for
$44k/year.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Art

    when someone tried to do it before to inner city schools they were told
    DEC got more to write the stuff off than to write it off as a donation
    
    

Of the two items I donated the only one with any value was the DS3100 - and
that was a write off of about $170.00.

Maybe it just my cost center that is being nice.

bjm

>I also know of a small college that received a VAX 750 free from Digital,
>with the hook that they had to purchase a service agreement for $44k/year.

  What did they do? Did they buy the $44K contract, ask Digital to take back
the computer, or keep it in storage while dithering over what to do?

  Re surplus equipment: If you have enough space to store it, it may be easier
to let capital equipment age until it has zero value on the books than to do
the paperwork to write it off. Also, you can avoid the DIAL waiver (I think)
if you let it sit on DIAL for a certain length of time (3 months?).

>>Also, you can avoid the DIAL waiver (I think)
>>if you let it sit on DIAL for a certain length of time (3 months?).

This is correct.  I'm not sure how you prove that it has been listed for three
months though.

bjm

    I'm trying to donate a ds3100 and I got stalled after submitting
    a dial waiver.  I guess I've got to go back and execute the step again.
    
    It's really hard to do and this equipment is just sitting there and
    nobody wants it except the non-profit - who just got a brand
    spanking new Sparcstation donated to them!
    
    ken b.
    frustrated in seattle
    

>>    I'm trying to donate a ds3100 and I got stalled after submitting
>>    a dial waiver.  I guess I've got to go back and execute the step again.

I got mine back the same day I submitted it.

>>    It's really hard to do and this equipment is just sitting there and
>>    nobody wants it except the non-profit - who just got a brand
>>    spanking new Sparcstation donated to them!

Yes, my college got a really big break on the price of an IBM mainframe so that
is what they went to from the 11/750 that they had been using since I was
there.  Even Digital's "deals" to colleges were no match for many other
companies out there.  Including their service contracts.   As I recall the
college dropped Digital's service contract on the room full of VT100's and went
with a company called DataTerm - I think they were/are based in Woburn MA.  The 
price was about 1/4 of what Digital wanted for the same level of service.

Maybe they just don't (maybe I should say didn't?) care about the little (under
1000 total enrollment) schools.

bjm

>    when someone tried to do it before to inner city schools they were told
>    DEC got more to write the stuff off than to write it off as a donation
 
With all the overhead, it's no wonder :-)

								_Mike   
    

    I donated a lot of stuff to a school and church from the pile
    that had 0 asset value.   When we moved buildings we filled
    no fewer that 8 of those big 5X5' containers with equipment...I lost
    count of the number of Vaxen, printers etc.  
    
    I finally got tired of being told no by a finance guy who didn't have
    anything better to do than watch the process and talked to a 
    completely different group who realized that having me fill
    out the salvage form on VTX and provide the documentation for
    Digital as well as the transportation for stuff out and off
    campus was a lot cheaper than moving it to Contacook where it
    might or might not ever amount to anything but scrap that we
    had then paid trasportation on twice as well as a disposal fee.
    
    Can't tell you the glee this brought the recipients. In one
    instance the last printer they had procurred(read could afford)
    was an LA-50...all the rest were clones that you or I never
    heard of.
    
    Jim

    Same idea, different players...
    
    I see *mountains* of old stuff being carted out of <insert large
    AeroSpace Company name here> every day, and tried to get them to donate
    some to an area college, to no avail. So I found out who bought the
    stuff (a few dollars a ton) and bought an LP29-VA for $27, and donated
    it myself. A winning situation for all involved, the scrap guy didn't
    have move it/deal with it, SUNY Oswego got a real nice printer that
    beats the crap out of it's LP37's, DEC gets more maintenaince dollars,
    and I get a major league tax write off. 
    
    The <large aerospace company> has forbidden any disposal of stuff
    except thru it's approved scrap dealer(s), no employees, no donations.
    
    .mike.

>                                          So I found out who bought the
>    stuff (a few dollars a ton) and bought an LP29-VA for $27, and donated
>    it myself... 
>    and I get a major league tax write off. 

You get to deduct $27 as a charitable contribution.

>You get to deduct $27 as a charitable contribution.

What of the market value is more than that?

Dave

    Market value, schmarket value....
    
    You only get to write off what you paid, i.e., what you have a receipt
    for.  That's why Goodwill essentially lets you write your own receipt. 
    Of course, if you donated a barbie doll and claimed on your 1040 a $5K
    deduction, the market value could come in to play.
    
    Just mine (I got audited once)....
    
    Toodles.....JP

>>    You only get to write off what you paid, i.e., what you have a receipt
>>    for.  That's why Goodwill essentially lets you write your own receipt. 
>>    Of course, if you donated a barbie doll and claimed on your 1040 a $5K
>>    deduction, the market value could come in to play.
    
RE: -1

Only the government has decided to get in the act and requires special forms
from the donation giver and the receiver, depending on the value of the item.
A simple receipt from Goodwill won't work for a $5K donation....   ;-)

    
    
    
    Just make sure you deduct $3 a pair for your old undies.
    
    
    

Bill Clinton's undies are collectors' items.

    Will someone please mail me a DIAL waiver form.  I cannot seem to
    locate one anywhere.  A pointer would be fine also, if that's easier. 
    I couldn't find anything in VTX DIAL.
    
    cheryl hamm
    NYFS05::CHERYL
    

>>    I couldn't find anything in VTX DIAL.

I belive I got frustrated with this (but it might have been because it was off
line at the time) but they are in there somewhere!

Brian J.

    Thanks to those who sent me a copy of the DIAL waiver.  Unfortunately,
    while I was working tis all out, the equipment got sent to the scrap
    pile up north....  At least I have the forms for next time.
    
    thanks all,
    cheryl
    

    I highly suggest anyone thinking of donating equipment pick out a good
    Alpha system and a recipient as soon as possible.  The
    beauracracy involved will have rendered it as valuable as a VaxMate by
    the date you've completed the process. :^]
    
    								Tex