What do you do with excess kit?

[Tony1044]

Just posting about SSD's and that I'd popped one into a laptop I had lying around got me to wondering what everyone here does with their unused/upgraded kit?

On the whole I do not sell it except occasionally the odd few bits here and there on eBay.

Experience has taught me that when you sell something to someone you know, however much you emphasise the point that you aren't going to be technical support on it, that message gets lost in translation/ignored.

To that end, I've tended to give it away to friends and (mostly) family because I found if there is no money involved, there is no implicit assumption you will support it and people are actually more amenable when you tell them no.

And yet I still seem to have stuff coming out of my ears and I am not much of a hoarder by any measure.

But I am idly curious on what everyone else does.

 

[Oussebon]

I'm starting to ask myself this too.

Generally I redistribute systems among relatives. One got shipped off to an aid programme. I keep my giant laptop from undergrad for sentimental reasons and out of amazement it still works.

When I finally upgrade this PC, I'll combine it with other spare parts to make a sort of NAS/ media server system which can host my (rather loud :/ ) 8TB drives. In a different room.

But I'm getting to the point of not being able to recycle. I have a 2.5" 1TB 5400rpm HDD from 2000-whatever that still works fine but is basically useless as it's too small for me to make use of, would play no role in any future system, and no relatives need it. It's currently sat on a stack of blurays, under a tie, while I scratch my head about it... still screwed into its HDD tray. My 1TB WD Black I got with this system is in a similar position (figuratively, it's not sat on blurays).

 

[jerpers]

My main PC always then goes down to the kids room and there one usually ends up in my school where I use it for teaching the components and run a PC building club.

Phones always get passed down through the kids, but some of my proper old tech I keep in the loft and bring down when feeling sentimental - I have a BBC Micro, Master System, Various gameboys etc.

 

[Tony1044]

I'm starting to ask myself this too.

Generally I redistribute systems among relatives. One got shipped off to an aid programme. I keep my giant laptop from undergrad for sentimental reasons and out of amazement it still works.

When I finally upgrade this PC, I'll combine it with other spare parts to make a sort of NAS/ media server system which can host my (rather loud :/ ) 8TB drives. In a different room.

But I'm getting to the point of not being able to recycle. I have a 2.5" 1TB 5400rpm HDD from 2000-whatever that still works fine but is basically useless as it's too small for me to make use of, would play no role in any future system, and no relatives need it. It's currently sat on a stack of blurays, under a tie, while I scratch my head about it... still screwed into its HDD tray. My 1TB WD Black I got with this system is in a similar position (figuratively, it's not sat on blurays).

Those 1TB 2.5" drives make good external USB disks though. Small enough to chuck in a laptop bag with a useful capacity.

For your NAS - I'd suggest looking at FreeNAS. It's a fantastic piece of software. Be warned though, that if you want any kind of semi-decent performance, you need a decent CPU and quite a bit of RAM.

My main PC always then goes down to the kids room and there one usually ends up in my school where I use it for teaching the components and run a PC building club.

Phones always get passed down through the kids, but some of my proper old tech I keep in the loft and bring down when feeling sentimental - I have a BBC Micro, Master System, Various gameboys etc.

I cut my teeth on first an Acorn Electron and then a BBC B.

Learned a lot from that beeb including teaching myself machine code programming in 6502 assembly but I always had a bias towards the hardware - I could tell you what each and every chip did and played with mods on it myself all day.

 

[RetroComputing]

Either sell it, or keep it - do not throw it away! I wish I had kept all my old PCs that became worthless so I just replaced them with newer models and threw them away. As you may gather from my username I am in to Retro/Vintage computers and have started to amass a large amount of Compaq laptops that are 20+ years old. Some I plan to keep, others I plan to fix up and sell on for a profit. Working in the IT Services industry makes it even worst as I can remember chucking out (WEEE recycling) loads of things that I would love to own now from some fantastic Compaq ML360 servers to Operating Systems on CD and even Floppy Disks that are like rocking horse dung now.

Any old kit you dont want, box up and put in to storage as 20 years will soon fly by!

 

[Tony1044]

Either sell it, or keep it - do not throw it away! I wish I had kept all my old PCs that became worthless so I just replaced them with newer models and threw them away. As you may gather from my username I am in to Retro/Vintage computers and have started to amass a large amount of Compaq laptops that are 20+ years old. Some I plan to keep, others I plan to fix up and sell on for a profit. Working in the IT Services industry makes it even worst as I can remember chucking out (WEEE recycling) loads of things that I would love to own now from some fantastic Compaq ML360 servers to Operating Systems on CD and even Floppy Disks that are like rocking horse dung now.

Any old kit you dont want, box up and put in to storage as 20 years will soon fly by!

Pfft...honestly I don't get this. This is not a personal attack on you or anyone who likes to collect or work with retro kit but I see it differently - older kit tends to be bulkier, far less performant and much more wasteful of power.

I still love old games and the like but I have emulators for scratching that itch.

I know...I know...I am a philistine

Edit: I just remembered that somewhere at home I have a 3.5" SCSI HDD. It's the size of a housebrick in terms of height and weight.

I do have a card for it somewhere as well.

But what're the chances I could find drivers for it? If I recall, it has either Windows NT 4.0 or 2000 on it.

 

[RetroComputing]

But what're the chances I could find drivers for it? If I recall, it has either Windows NT 4.0 or 2000 on it.

archive.org has most things on it!

Pfft...honestly I don't get this. This is not a personal attack on you or anyone who likes to collect or work with retro kit but I see it differently - older kit tends to be bulkier, far less performant and much more wasteful of power.

I still love old games and the like but I have emulators for scratching that itch.

I know...I know...I am a philistine

By that logic everyone would be driving around in brand new cars, buying new houses every 5 years and drinking wine/whisky that is just a few months old!!!

 

[Tony1044]

archive.org has most things on it!



By that logic everyone would be driving around in brand new cars, buying new houses every 5 years and drinking wine/whisky that is just a few months old!!!

That is flawed logic - computers aren't in the same league of costs for the average person as a house or car. Nor do people tend to choose a computer because it's near a nice school or jobs or... you get the idea.

Likewise, imagine suggesting to someone that they should buy a computer that costs as much as a house and then they have 25 years to pay for it.

You're comparing apples with oranges.

Yes, older kit was easier to work on and required far less specialist equipment - had more room, wasn't glued or made purposefully such that it was throwaway etc etc and I have some very fond memories of when I worked as an electronics engineer being able to repair my own electronics equipment at home, but time moves on - I've said here before that when I studied electrical and electronic engineering, the idea of running electronics at less than 1V was unimaginable - that would be firmly off, or binary 0.

But was it any better, really? Was MS-DOS really that much better than Windows? I mean you could get IP stacks for them in the very early 90's so we could have internet connectivity.

I remember the very first colour LCD PC's - they were the size of a large briefcase and needed mains to work. Luggables, not portables.

I remember the very first active matrix LCD's - now they really were something else but again, they needed mains to work and were still the size of a not-quite-so-large briefcase.

Anyway I digress. Houses and cars aren't the same as computers or electronics. As for whisky - actually the vast majority of people in the UK drink whatever pee is in the pumps or supermarkets anyway and couldn't tell antifreeze from vodka.

 

[Oussebon]

antifreeze from vodka.

Gentlemen prefer lighter fluid

For me, the whiskey is the real comparison that doesn't work. Cars eventually will fail to start. PCs will eventually fail to turn on. But you can still pour old booze.

But I think they were jesting though

 

[SpyderTracks]

Gentlemen prefer lighter fluid

For me, the whiskey is the real comparison that doesn't work. Cars eventually will fail to start. PCs will eventually fail to turn on. But you can still pour old booze.

But I think they were jesting though

Petrol for me... in large quantities!

I must admit, I’ve started saving some devices that I’ve found particularly impressive.

My first proper smartphone, the HTC universal I’ve saved as I really believe it was lightyears ahead of its time. Even if not, I absolutely adored it, it was the first phone I could actually watch movies on and store a decent amount of music.

I’ve got a 2010 MBP which I’ll probably keep too, one of the earlyish unibody ones that were still user changeable. That’s not really worth anything, but it’s been superb for me.

Also have the Sony Xperia Z Ultra which was considered bonkers when released but is more the norm now. I know the original note is probably more the breakthrough device, but there’s something about the Xperia in all its bugginess that attracted me more.

 

[ubuysa]

If I can give old and working laptops and PCs away I will, as it happens my old Compaq laptop is going to a good home in a week or so (for free). I don't save old bits and parts because it's just not worth it IMO. Who wants an 80GB HDD these days? Old RAM sticks will never find a use either. Everything in an old PC/laptop is scrap IMO. If I recovered anything that used a current interface or was likely to find a home I would keep it (or give it away) but I generally keep my kit for so long that never happens!

You have to weigh up whether it's worth keeping old kit for their 'antique' value too. When you factor in the cost of the storage space they occupy and the number of years you'd have to keep stuff it's just not worth it IMO. It's your children's children who will (might) see any value in stuff you scrap now, and the chances of stuff surviving that long is low.

I do have a Toshiba Libretto 50CT that I've had since the turn of the century - it's not mint and it's not boxed, though it does work perfectly. Last time I looked it was worth less than £200, yet it (and the external disk drive and a box of 3.4" stiffies) has been occupying storage space that would otherwise have probably held something more useful. It's so awful (and it was from the day I was given it) that I keep it out of pity more than anything else.

All that said, when I left school I worked for the GPO (as BT was back then) in a large trunk exchange in Birmingham. Several racks of the actual equipment that I used to maintain is now in the Birmingham Science Museum (and has been for a couple of decades). That's how fast technology moves these days.....

 

[Tony1044]

If I can give old and working laptops and PCs away I will, as it happens my old Compaq laptop is going to a good home in a week or so (for free). I don't save old bits and parts because it's just not worth it IMO. Who wants an 80GB HDD these days? Old RAM sticks will never find a use either. Everything in an old PC/laptop is scrap IMO. If I recovered anything that used a current interface or was likely to find a home I would keep it (or give it away) but I generally keep my kit for so long that never happens!

You have to weigh up whether it's worth keeping old kit for their 'antique' value too. When you factor in the cost of the storage space they occupy and the number of years you'd have to keep stuff it's just not worth it IMO. It's your children's children who will (might) see any value in stuff you scrap now, and the chances of stuff surviving that long is low.

I do have a Toshiba Libretto 50CT that I've had since the turn of the century - it's not mint and it's not boxed, though it does work perfectly. Last time I looked it was worth less than £200, yet it (and the external disk drive and a box of 3.4" stiffies) has been occupying storage space that would otherwise have probably held something more useful. It's so awful (and it was from the day I was given it) that I keep it out of pity more than anything else.

All that said, when I left school I worked for the GPO (as BT was back then) in a large trunk exchange in Birmingham. Several racks of the actual equipment that I used to maintain is now in the Birmingham Science Museum (and has been for a couple of decades). That's how fast technology moves these days.....

I LOVED the Libretto 50CT. I mean back in the day, a fully functional laptop that you could put in the inside pocket of a coat! (granted, a large pocket!)

They were also a dream to work on.

If I recall, they had a 1" HDD

 

[ubuysa]

I LOVED the Libretto 50CT. I mean back in the day, a fully functional laptop that you could put in the inside pocket of a coat! (granted, a large pocket!)

They were also a dream to work on.

If I recall, they had a 1" HDD

If you fancy a trip to Crete you can take it back with you then!

 

[Tony1044]

If you fancy a trip to Crete you can take it back with you then!

Ah man that's actually quite a tempting offer, but I think I'd prefer to keep the memory alive. I have a feeling that some very rose-tinted spectacle action may be occurring with me.

That said I used to love Toshiba kit. From an engineering perspective, they were incredibly well made and put together.

Pre-internet days, Toshiba would send their qualified engineers technical bulletins - a pack of A5 pages that had information aboit fixes etc.

I still remember (and even have somewhere in a box) the April fool one they sent about their new left handed laptop range.

The picture was just reversed and when you looked closely, the keyboard was backwards.

And yet they apparently got swamped with requests for more details.