On Sunday, the 21st, it was the day of the main event. The MIT Swapfest. The Swapfest is held on the third Sunday of the month during the summer months. It was originally for HAM radio equipment buy/sell but now its a lot of stuff, some garbage, some good. I’ve seen vacuum tubes, antennas, LED flashlights, software, hardware, radios, all sorts of stuff.

We looked around, I tried to sell the T1 channel bank that I brought with me from home, but couldn’t find anyone to buy it. We went through the place about 4 times. Rory didn’t find the SUN that he wanted, but did find a DEC Alpha based computer. On the second time through, I also found a different channel bank - one that actually did what I wanted, for $25. After we got our items, we brought them back to the hotel. We found that Rory needed a SCSI card (hard disk controller), and a network card. So we went back to the swapfest for one last pass to see if we could find either item. When we got there, they were starting to pack up really early, like 1 PM. Unfortunately we didn’t find what we were looking for. On the last pass we didn’t find much else of interest. We then headed back to the hotel, and had lunch there. The food was good, but a little expensive.

After lunch, we headed to the MIT Museum. That place was pretty cool. Had all sorts of old computing machinary, robots, gadgets, 3D stuff, holograms, etc. Had a pretty good time, and it just happened to be free, which is always a plus. I have some pictures I will put up sometime this year (ie, before the end of December. I hope to get Centrallia up too (forgot about that one didn’t you?)).

That night went to the MIT dorm…Had an OK time. Watched the series premiere of Dead Like Me with some people in the dorm. Wasn’t quite the same from the last time we were there. It’s one of those things that you remember something as positive, and then go back and are completely disappointed. The records were no longer stuck in the ceiling tiles, the murals were still on the wall though. The people there seemed much more stuck up then I remember. One cool thing was a guy who melted pennies using electricity (resonance frequencies I think).