After buying five desktop PCs, along the last 28 years, wondering how I managed to collect so much junk...

In the right stack, the three in the bottom were given to me by only God knows who.

Few more still wandering around.

 

After buying five desktop PCs, along the last 28 years, wondering how I managed to collect so much junk...

In the right stack, the three in the bottom were given to me by only God knows who.

Few more still wandering around.

View attachment 177404

This is one closet. I've got three more like it, and a garage and an attic.

I hate throwing perfectly good PCs away -- regardless of age. Sometimes I need to build a router or something.

 

..........Jeeez, and SWMBO thinks I'm Bad!!
Max.

 

I am sure Max, @nsaspook and I could have a competition for 1st place!

 

I see to have a stack of laptops that I was going to use for animatronics. Then, I discovered microcontrollers. Now all I salvaged were their disk drives. A divorce forced me to get rid of a lot of my junk. Just can’t fit a roomful if desktops and laptops in a one bedroom apartment.

 

I'm proud to say that I've almost completely cleaned out my "museum" by selling it off on eBay and craigslist. I even got rid of most of my old floppies. There are still a couple CRTs and too many cables and such that need to go away, but that may all be un-sellable trash. I saved one CPU for my workbench. It takes up too much room so I may sell that too. Gosh I worked hard to accumulate that stuff and maybe harder to get rid of it.

 

After buying five desktop PCs, along the last 28 years, wondering how I managed to collect so much junk...

A piece here, a piece there, pretty soon you got a pile of pieces.

This has been an issue for me. What are you going to do? eBay, trash, donate...or hide it in some corner?

 

Hey, throw in a few scrap scanners, and you can build a Floppotron:

or

 

A piece here, a piece there, pretty soon you got a pile of pieces.

This has been an issue for me. What are you going to do? eBay, trash, donate...or hide it in some corner?

Disassemble one or two (planning to design a BLDC driver with the PIC 18F4431) and maybe selling the rest for a handful of peanuts.

 

Salvage the rare-earth magnets from the hard drives. They make great "fridge" magnets for hanging things off metal cabinets and shelving.

 

One of my favourites (Floppotron)...

He has quite a few... Talented hardware fellow....

 

You know yall could build a working computer and give it to needy kids with all that.
I also have a pile of old computers & parts but I use them to build arcade machines. I have collected about 5000 Roms over my life! Asteroids to Zelda and everything in between. I did say I know about electronics and putting things together but not how to make them from scratch with components and everything.

 

You know yall could build a working computer and give it to needy kids with all that.

I don't think they want them. They use more electricity, are hard to keep running and get help with, and just aren't all that interesting. Every electronics recycling center has dozens of CPUs and everything else. Most probably work as well as they did brand new. Nobody wants them. I was able to sell a Windows 98 machine to a guy because he wanted it to play specific games he remembers from long ago. I would have given it to a kid if I could have found one that wanted it.

 

After buying five desktop PCs, along the last 28 years, wondering how I managed to collect so much junk...

In the right stack, the three in the bottom were given to me by only God knows who.

Few more still wandering around.

View attachment 177404

We moved at the end of last year. I shed a few tears, but I did clean house.

 

After buying five desktop PCs, along the last 28 years, wondering how I managed to collect so much junk...

It's a man thing. The guy who dies with the most stuff wins.

I have enough parts to build a couple dozen computers. My plan was to build them and give them to needy families who had minimal needs. Then Microsoft got rid of XP (most of the computers had legal keys). Putting Linux on them was a non-starter because it'd be too difficult for typical users because schools were using Microsoft OS and utilities.

 

To you its your 'Stuff' to anyone else it is your 'Junk'!

Max.

 

Putting Linux on them was a non-starter because it'd be too difficult for typical users because schools were using Microsoft OS and utilities.

Interesting. For years, I've been building Ubuntu boxes for the grandpeople in my life. They've never had a problem with them -- and, ultimately, preferred Linux to Windows (far fewer hassles, and they need not be concerned with what they click on).

Granted, they pretty much only use web and email. One of them uses Shotwell to keep her photo collection catagorized.

Me: as I said before, I am lost trying to do anything complicated on Windows > XP these days.

 

Interesting. For years, I've been building Ubuntu boxes for the grandpeople in my life. They've never had a problem with them -- and, ultimately, preferred Linux to Windows (far fewer hassles, and they need not be concerned with what they click on).

Granted, they pretty much only use web and email. One of them uses Shotwell to keep her photo collection catagorized.

Me: as I said before, I am lost trying to do anything complicated on Windows > XP these days.

Linux has become much easier, short of configs, as long as software is designed for Linux I'd say it runs pretty well.

kv

 

Linux has become much easier, short of configs, as long as software is designed for Linux I'd say it runs pretty well.

When schools are using Microsoft products, using Linux and Office workalikes adds unnecessary complication. The converters for LibreOffice and OpenOffice aren't 100%.

Personally, I still prefer the look and feel of Office to the workalikes. Until I had some problems with OpenOffice not reading some Microsoft Office files correctly, I didn't know that they reverse engineered the Microsoft formats and that they didn't guarantee 100% compatibility. That's when I stopped using OpenOffice.

 

When schools are using Microsoft products, using Linux and Office workalikes adds unnecessary complication. The converters for LibreOffice and OpenOffice aren't 100%.

Personally, I still prefer the look and feel of Office to the workalikes. Until I had some problems with OpenOffice not reading some Microsoft Office files correctly, I didn't know that they reverse engineered the Microsoft formats and that they didn't guarantee 100% compatibility. That's when I stopped using OpenOffice.

My daughter is assigned a laptop for school. It is a Chromebook.

They use Google docs, and collaborate via the web on their projects.

She uses Ubuntu at home. She has no problem using either system.

The problem with Microsoft products is they are incompatible with, not only everything else, but even themselves over various versions of the programs.

When my vendors/customers send me Microsoft docs that are incompatible with LibreOffice, I tell them to resend in .pdf. I won't pay for broken software.

Edit: and I refuse to get locked into any vendor's proprietary file format -- if I can help it.