/3 In the early 1980's the #ColdWar was a felt reality for many of us. One day, as one researcher at the #UppsalaUniversity was sitting working on his terminal off-hours at the Physics Department (#fysikum), the departments #DEC VAX #MiniComputer, maybe it was their VAX 11/780 (or some of the smaller machines, such as some Micro VAXes), went offline. After staring at his terminal with its lost connection for a while, he went over to the server room just to find empty space where once the server or servers been standing.

Next morning, my dad and another colleague at the institution found a mysterious note on the pin board at the entrance of the building: "VAX minicomputer for sale, cheap" followed by a phone number in Stockholm. Somewhat agitated they called up the number and a voice with a Russian accent answer "Hello, Russian Embassy". They hung up, since it clearly was a student joke.

The machine likely found its way on a TIR-labelled truck eastwards. #USSR was constantly in search for computing power, not having enough on their own. Sweden and other open democracies were target rich environments for computer theft.

Image shows part of the network in use by the universities in Sweden in 1983 (from the computer association "stacken" magazine at #KTH) , probably around the time of the VAX theft.

#retrocomputer