PDP1 3521
Well...usually. After my PPOE ordered a 2361 LCS memory box, it was discovered that the freight elevator in the building (1940s? construction) was fractionally too small for the 2361 when it was in its shipping cradle (which provided mechanical shock isolation to protect the fragile cores). The cradle added significantly to the required clearances (IIRC perhaps an extra foot...but don't cite this figure as guaranteed).
There was actually a discussion of slinging the box *under* the elevator cab; I never found out who thought that one up.
Eventually IBM agreed that the 2361 could be removed from its cradle at the elevator doors on the freight dock level, and ever so carefully rolled into the elevator and then to the computer room.
And before someone asks: the freight elevator wasn't particularly small.
Provided the elevators were reasonably large. A lot larger than normal person-elevators. A famous early story was that of the installation of the first 360 in Norway; it...
At least we *had* elevator coverage of the two floors of interest while moving the 2361 into our center. The business school had an EAM lab in the basement of the building where the elevator didn't go; they got a 402 accounting machine there by skidding it down the (only) stairway, with (according to legend) a CE riding it to keep it on course. The box was still there when I left; I have no idea how it was removed, or if it was abandoned in place for lack of any cost-effective way to get it out.
Joe Morris
Alt Folklore Computers from Newsgroups