House abandoned, TV left on...

[dr.ido]

The power coming in was probably patched around the disconnected meter by the last person living (squatting?) in the house.

I've been in a few abandoned buildings, but not recently. I don't think there's anything left around here that hasn't been destroyed by developers. I've found some odd stuff in some places.

At the old Melbourne power station the tube PA amps were still intact, but there was no way to get them out of there so I had to leave them behind. The ancient lifts were appeared to be running still, but there was no way I was getting in one.

At a Nubrik brick factory there were many Sanyo 12" B&W portables that had been modified for use as monitors as part of some process control system. Originally they had been mounted in a large control panel, but someone had removed them and scattered them throughout the factory. At the time parts of the site still had power so perhaps someone was watching them. I went back for a later visit when more of the site was accessable. By that time they had all been smashed, vandals love to break CRTs. They'd also destroyed some interesting old computers including a HP-150 touchscreen, a Panasonic JB-300 and a Honeywell Minicomputer.

At a Rocla pipe factory the PABX was tubed, along with some of the process control gear. Once again the vandals has beaten me to it.

At a Vline freight depot one section was full of boxes of clothing marked for some disaster relief effort that were never delivered. In one room someone had spent countless hours weaving packing material into a large mattress and then built a "fort" of printers around it. Whoever did this must have had some way to keep it secure as their area was untouched while the rest of the place was throroughly trashed.

At the VLF park football stadium there was a 3 rack PDP-11 based system that ran the big scoreboard. The terminals had been smashed, but the rest was intact. I removed it over the several days. Carrying down from the fifth floor in pieces wasn't exactly easy. I left a note behind, but no-one ever contacted me so it wasn't missed. I got part of it running again before giving to another collector. There was a single 14" late 70s Rank Arena portable in one room that had been converted into an NTSC monitor for reasons unknown. I was preoccupied with the computer and left it behind. I should have grabbed that one.