if this thread is somewhere else, plz bttt it for me, i can't find it. just curious about what kind of crap other people have lying around.

i've always kept my old old computers... but in 2009 i've been volunteering at [a place people donate crap to get tax writeoffs] and i've had the opportunity to buy huge lots of stuff that was gonna be sold for scrap

the three main cool ones that i've had were a radioshack microcolor computer (trs80/mc10), a PCjr/ibm4860, and an xt/ibm5180. recently ive picked up a bunch of old sparcservers, all kinds of old mega tapedrive storage servers, old rackmounted crap, cable descramblers, satellite receivers, all sorts of fun stuff. to the untrained eye, my storage room looks like it is full of valuable electronic equipment (but its really worth like 2 bucks total haha)

lately with the stuff i got access to, i've been trying to upgrade my DOPE aptiva2144 to play music and sierra games.

just to give an idea, the distribution center scraps about 600lbs of 1-16mb ram, thousands of tiny hard drives, hundreds of cases, and tons of ISA and PCI cards per month. basically anything under 2.0ghz is sold as scrap... but the old stuff is the most fun really

just wondering, thought it would be fun to talk about

4/24/2009 11:10:13 AM

i used to collect older computer stuff, but now i've realized that it just takes up too much space compared to the value i get out of it.

I've got old sparcstations, sun SS670MP server, complete copy of netware 3.x, os/2 warp boxed copies, etc

4/24/2009 11:26:24 AM

I used to have some older SUN hardware...sparcstation 1, sparc5, sparcserver 4/470 tower and matching hard drive tower. But I wasn't doing anything with it and it was too much of a pain to move...ended up tossing the 1 and the innards/drivers of the two towers. The shells are currently furniture, one is my printer stand and one is my nightstand.

4/24/2009 1:57:38 PM

I've had some Timex's, a TRS-80, a few IBM servers from the 80's. My personal favorite was a briefcase computer from the 80's. Basically a 386 with a miniature AT power supply, a monochrome LCD built in the side and a keyboard that snaps on the side for carrying. I used that computer well into 2005. In fact, I typed many papers in the library with it.

4/24/2009 8:33:10 PM

My sole vintage computer-ish device is a TI-99/4A
Imagine an Atari crossed with a typewriter.

4/25/2009 2:22:53 AM

The stuff is really awesome when it works. I bought a new (sealed, still in box) Apple Laser 128 for $30 from a dude at my office. He had about 30 of them.

4/25/2009 3:38:05 AM

I have an 8086 and a 8088 processor on a key chain
I used the machines back when they were running, and once they died, i made them into a key chain hanger
chips are undamaged, its just a pcb scrap with an appropriate socket on it

I had a decent Apple IIe setup, tons of software and extras, even had the 'upgraded' education package with extra memory, traded it for some games for classic pc.

4/25/2009 10:59:23 PM