On behalf of myself and John, I'd just like to thank everyone who
responded to the plea for help for black spares.  After much remediation
work (largely by John: I was cunningly on holiday!), I've got all the
machines bar one back up and running.  We do also have a couple of iffy
keyboards and one poor colour monitor (though that wasn't brilliant
anyway), but the good news is that we should be able to survive one last
academic year (touch wood).

lawrence casserley spoke thus at 22:39:59 on Tue, 21 Aug 2001:

} I have a spare cube and monitor knocking around - can't remember the
} spec - but if you are still needy you could have it. Last i remember it
} had some odd problem (wouldn't boot properly), but i expect that is
} easily fixable by someone like yourself.

Thanks for that and also to Stephen Brandon (and probably others I've
forgotten/not aware of) who made kind offers.  However, given the current
status and the superb help of Pete French and P&L I don't think we'll be
needing any more spares in the immediate future.  That said, there's
always the disturbing possibility of failures a few months down the road
due to slow-acting damage caused by nasties in what was very unpleasant
water.

  best wishes,
        charles