>> 8650 is ECL: my catalog says 22,000 BTU/hr...

> Actually I was thinking about how this could be made to fit in a
> home.  Especially if you have a total electric home.  [...maybe
> replace furnace with VAX...]

> I am not sure how an electrical furnace would compare with a VAX 8650
> in terms of heat (1) production, (2) efficiancy, and (3) total power
> uptake, and (4) plower air throughput.

Efficiency is a non-issue.  You suck a kilowatt of power, sooner or
later you get a kilowatt of heat.  Whether this happens in a long thin
piece of nichrome or complicated patterns of doped silicon and metal is
not particularly relevant.  If you heat with electricity, then the
electricity to run your computers is free, except (a) when the house
needs less heating than the computers provide (eg, summer, in many
places) and (b) that the heat generated may be difficult to distribute
well; replacing a central furnace with the VAX addresses this latter
issue trivially.

Of course, there's the difference between VA and W, since your VAX
probably is not a perfectly resistive load and an electric furnace
probably is (or at least is much closer).  However, I _think_
electricity meters are pretty good about measuring real power rather
than RMS volts times RMS amps; anyone here know for sure?

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