"salvaging"

[JDT]

A friend and myself are going "salvaging" this afternoon. There is a bring-your-old-computer-to-be-recycled event and my friend's friend is running it. I will be armed with a DeWalt 12v electric drive w/ bits & my leatherman.

Anyone else do these kind of things? I have read from some people here that where they live there is almost nothing to do in regards to our hobby. I must just be very lucky. Where I live, there are 3 computer shops that I know of that sell old "junk", cheap. 1 Computer & electronic recycling facilty which I'd like to visit more often... 20k sq feet of stuff to go through with a constantly rotating stock... soon they will be open on saturdays again and I'll be able to go more (hard to justify leaving work early during the week to go salvaging).

Two weeks ago, a co-worker of mine said he had been paid to clean out this forclosed house, he said there were about 20 older machines left in the basement, so that night I came home with the back of my car filled with procs, ram, drives of varying size and interface and cables galore. Various cards from 8-bit all the way to agp.. all those computers, left there because the house previous owner didnt have room for them.

As per the old addage: One man's trash is another man's treasure.


Anyone else make "salvage" runs?

[Unknown_K]

You can snag older machines on freecycle.

I don't mind snagging HDs, cards, and RAM for machines that are only going to be recycled but you have to be carefull you don't trash something rare in the process.

I collect old 68K Macs and have heard about people gutting a working machine or video capture cards or rare accelerators only to leave the cables, dongles, and software to be recycled making the cards worthless.

Some machines should be kept intact and maybe passed on to somebody who could use it (if they work).

[JDT]

You can snag older machines on freecycle.

I don't mind snagging HDs, cards, and RAM for machines that are only going to be recycled but you have to be carefull you don't trash something rare in the process.

I collect old 68K Macs and have heard about people gutting a working machine or video capture cards or rare accelerators only to leave the cables, dongles, and software to be recycled making the cards worthless.

Some machines should be kept intact and maybe passed on to somebody who could use it (if they work).

I would like to think I would recognize special or rare... and I have on occasion not dismanteled a machine because of a certain "cool" factor. Anyway, Im drunk and going to bed....

[nige the hippy]

I've done quite well at the local dump recently, after the Vtech pre-computer (which still even had good batteries in!) and the amstrad pc with hard card, I pulled out a pioneer PX-7 (no keyboard or laser disk player sadly, I went back and checked) I just got a victor v286c pc with 40MB hdd & 287 co-pro, and another small form-factor amstrad pc 5286.
It required the purchase of a high viz jacket, and the resurrection of my self-employed status to get authority to root about, but well worth it (and i needed a new winter work coat anyway)