General Information

Serial #

1ACEG

Part Number

1

Total Parts

4

AKA

N/A

Patents

N/A

General Description

Synthetic casing, controls, disk drive casing, electrical cord covering/ Metal casing back and parts

Dimensions

Note: These reflect the general size for storage and are not necessarily representative of the object's true dimensions.

Length

43.7 cm

Width

20.8 cm

Height

44.5 cm

Thickness

N/A

Weight

N/A

Diameter

N/A

Volume

N/A

Lexicon

Group

Computing Technology

Category

Digital computing devices

Sub-Category

N/A

Manufacturer

AKA

Dell

Country

United States of America

State/Province

Unknown

City

Unknown

Context

Country

Canada

State/Province

Ontario

Period

2000+

Canada

A piece of equipment used at the David Dunlap Observatory at the University of Toronto, one of Canada's most important astronomical observatories. The David Dunlap Observatory opened in 1935 as the result of a bequest from the wife of David Dunlap. The telescope was a 74 inch (188 cm) reflector built by Grubb Parsons of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England. The 74 inch was then the largest telescope in Canada (surpassing the 72 inch telescope of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria) and became the second largest in the world after the 100 inch Hooker Telescope of the Mt. Wilson Observatory outside Los Angeles. DDO's reputation grew and following WWII, it began to graduate most of the astronomers produced in Canada with University of Western Ontario far behind. Beginning in the 1960s a number of other astronomy departments were created but UofT/DDO held its place, a position it probably still holds. The DDO had a good technical staff which gave them an advantage and, with most of the 1940s to early 1970s top astronomers coming from UofT, grants from NRC and then ENSERC were almost guaranteed and allowed UofT's top astronomers -- Hogg, van den Berg, Fernie, Bolton, Kamper, Martin, etc. to acquire or build some of the best equipment available in university observatories. For optical observatories, only the DAO had technical staff and budgets that surpassed those of DDO. In 2007, citing increasing light pollution, the University of Toronto announced plans to sell the Observatory property. In June 2008, it was sold to Corsica Development Inc., a subsidiary of Metrus Development Inc. and the Observatory was closed. In 2009 the Observatory buildings and 80% of the site were designated a cultural heritage landscape. Also in 2009 Corsica and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Toronto Centre announced an agreement allowing the RASC to provide public education and outreach programs at the observatory, and to operate the 188 cm telescope.

Function

A programmable machine that accepts and processes data, this one used in an astronomical observatory in the operation of a measuring engine.

Technical

A computer made in 2000 and probably used with an astronomical measuring engine, the Perkin-Elmer PDS machine. This was a device for digitally measuring photographs, used to measure both stellar and galactic spectra as well as direct images of the sky taken with the DDOs 74 inch telescope and plates acquired by Sidney Van de Burgh at the 48 inch Mt. Palomar Schmidt telescope. An example of a desktop computer sold by the American company Dell, circa 2000. The Dell Optiplex was a line of office desktop computers. The OptiPlex GX1p midsize Managed PC system was a high-speed, expandable personal computer designed around the Intel Pentium II and Pentium III microprocessors. Each computer system used a high-performance Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) design that allowed the user to configure the computer system to their initial requirements and then add Dell-supported upgrades as necessary. Features of the GX1p included: Chip set - Intel 440BX PIIX4; CPU - Pentium II 400, 450 or Pentium III 450-600; FSB – 100 MHz; RAM type SDRAM, 3; RAM speed: PC100. Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest technological corporations in the world, employing more than 103,300 people worldwide. Dell is listed at number 41 in the Fortune 500 list.

Area Notes

Unknown

Details

Markings

Silver and blue plate on front reads 'DELL/ Optiplex GX1p'/ Labels on back read: 'DELL COMPUTER CORPORATION/ Serial No.: 1ACEG/ Model No.: MMP/ Mfg Date: 040400/ Volts: 115/230 V/ Amps: 6.0/3.0 A/ Hz: 50/60 and 'Tested to Comply/ With FC Standards/ FOR HOME OR OFFICE USE' and 'Serial 1ACEG DELL COMPUTER CORPORATION/ www.DELL.COM/ Made in U.S.A.'/ Bar code label on back reads '1ACEG'/ Plates on front read 'Designed for/ [logo] ®/ Microsoft ®/ Windows NT ®/ Windows ® 98' and 'intel/ inside/ pentium ® III'

Missing

Appears complete

Finish

Textured buff coloured casing/ Grey casing back/ Plated and metallic parts/ Black electrical cord

Decoration

N/A