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Computer/Tech Flea Markets?
Spamlent Green asks: "The recent 'Cashing In On Antique Computers' thread, and the PBS Flea Market documentary made me all misty-eyed for the MIT Swap Fest. I moved from Cambridge to D.C. last year, and haven't been able to find anything like it down here, and I don't mean those bogus 'Comptuer Show and Sale and Monster Truck Rally' events advertised constantly on cheapo UHF stations. So I was curious -- do any DC-MD-No.VA-area Slashdot-ers know of events like this down here -- or anywhere else in the country for that matter? They must be out there ..."
There's something called First Saturday in Dallas, too, and a google search turned up a number of interesting possibilities. What recommendations can you make for the seeker of swap?
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There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
BPAI: Computer surplus buyers in Baltimore.
I bought a trunkfull of SparcStation LXs off these guys a while back for $35 each. Not too much intel hardware, but a ton of networking and workstation stuff. Gov't and corp surplus mostly. http://www.recycle.net/computer/
There's also a computer junkyard in Geln Burnie, MD on Sundays, but it's been too long since I've been there to remember the details. Another surplus buyer/seller is in a white warehouse in Fredericksburg, VA, in front of the fairgrounds. For new stuff, there's always Market Pro. These guys always haggle!
Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop
It's not in DC, but in Fort Lauderdale. It's a huge place, selling most anything on roughly 30 acres. Due to its sheer size, you'll probably find most anything you need, even though it does not specialize in computers or electronics.
Come on down and check it out. At least it's in a good vacation town!
99.9% of the computer stuff at flea markets is junk, much of it overpriced junk (try explaining to an old guy that nobody's going to pay $500 for his beat up Packard Hell 486). As with most stuff at flea markets, the good deals were sold before you got there.
Computer "shows" suck too, unless you're into stolen, broken, overpriced junk.
Somebody mentioned hamfests. These are generally guys who are collecting and using AM radios made about 50 years ago, and still refer to equipment made this side of the last century as "solid state." These folks bring all sorts of computer junk, too, but you ain't getting any deals here either. These guys will calmly ask $250 for a Tandy 286 'cause it's still good for RTTY (radio teletype for those born within the last 30 years and/or having a life).
If you're half-serious about picking up junk computers, watch around dumpsters in office parks and colleges. If you're really serious about collecting junk computers, buy a business phone and put an ad in the yellow pages offering to take away unwanted computers for free. But have your own dumpster handy (supplied by a company that collects demolition and/or doesn't look too close or ask too many questions), you'll need it.
AC's cheerfully ignored
There are two good swap meets I know of in or around Silicon Valley. The first is at Foothill College on the second Saturday of the month. It's impossible to miss, just show up early.
The other one is on the first Sunday of the month in Livermore at a college off of Airport Blvd (I forget the name).
Of the two, the Foothill College one is the biggest. There's a lot of trailing-edge technology there as well. I've seen all sorts of things there. The last time I saw some HUGE CCDs for astronomy. A couple of times I've even seen electron microscopes there.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
We have State Fair computer sales every so often in the twin cities.
Besides jacking up the admission price every year(8 bucks last time), they jack up the prices, or NEVER lower them down.
You know that one game a few years ago that was a hit being $40 when it just came out 5 years ago? You can buy that game there, for $40.
I saw some small-sized webcam dealy for $130, yet when they advertise it on tv the price is significantly cheaper.
Among the must amusing of sales: old AOL floppy disks.
Avoid Blue Star Marketing's state fair computer sales. Most of the vendors are vendors you never heard of(I din't see Tran Microcomputer, a local place that has GREAT deals), selling off-brand hardware at badly inflated prices.
What's up with this old junk fettish people have? Those things take a lot of space and serve no useful purpose.
Would these items serve a more useful purpose if they were in a landfill?
One word: Education.
You can learn quite a bit about how things work by (a) taking apart old stuff and then later (b) using the peices to build new things. You might even be able to parlay that learning into a vocation. Wouldn't be the first time.
Ive got about 800 metric tons of computer crap in there. But Im in the dc area, and i dont know of anything like this either.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
MarketPro, probably the one's you're seeing on tv, has shows across the country. Some venues are better than others. Maryland State Fairgrounds is pretty large. Of course if the vendors decide not to go to that particular one, you're out of luck. The one at Ramada Conference & Exhibition Center in New Carrollton, MD, was pretty good the last time I was there.
Yup. While many of the flea market dealers look and smell like carnies, it's the best deal in town.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
There is a largish swap meet that happens near the TRW building in the Manhattan Beach area on the last Saturday of every month. It's free admission, with effectively unlimited parking. It's located on the Northwest corner of Aviation and Marine.
It's frequented by a lot of amateur radio operators and hardcore electronics specialists, so don't expect to find helpful salesmen ready to sell you a system fresh off the boat from China. Expect vaccum tubes, used parts, legacy hard drive controllers and random electronic components you've never heard of.
More info at: http://www.csz.com/w6trw/swap.html
It's been a while since I've lived in Dayton,OH, but I still think they have the semiannual "Computerfest." One of them is normally in late August.
They also have "Hamvention" in Dayton which is similar but with a focus toward Ham radio.
Both events are usualy at Hara Arena.
The next Computerfest is scheduled for August 25-26, 2001.
Milalwi
When I lived near Dallas (Arlington) there were fair deals to be had just outside of the Infomart in Dallas, on the 1st Saturday of every month. There was a small movement to get the market going every week, but I don't know how successful it's been.
I went once or twice; some of what I found was wet from previous rainy 1st saturdays. I also bought a cyrix-200 & motherboard for about $130, when new ones would have cost ~$200. YMMV, of course. I just can't get excited about spending more than $200. on bare computer equipment that's served up outside.
You want to find a repository for all sorts of obscure electronic devices and computers? Ham fests are definitely the place for it. Sure it's focussed on radio, but how many radio geeks do you know that aren't also computer geeks? :)
I know this is redundant, but I haven't seen the ARRL link posted yet:
http://www.arrl.org/hamfests.html
If you can't find it at a hamfest, it may not be worth finding at all! I have seen the following at hamfests:
- piles of C-band satellite gear, $5 or so
- DSS receivers and dishes for next to nothing
- 286 and 386 desktop PC's, FREE! (sans monitor and keyboard)
- old computer/language manuals of all descriptions
Its not just radio stuff!
8 bit computing - It may be 2007 out there, but it's 1983 in here!!
hehe.. i think thats a persona for everyones girlfriend/wife :)
While the NASA surplus facility has tons of cool stuff (rocket fuel tank anyone?) only a small fraction of it is actually available. For some reason they have a trailer truck's worth of old keyboards and yet you can't get at them (feh).
Also, while there is cool stuff, it goes FAST. Make sure you're there before it even opens and get in line.
But they do take credit cards! (IIRC)
-- "I am disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see that I am serious!"
http://www.purchase.umd.edu/ttrader/
As a resident of the D/FW area and a regular at First Saturday I can attest to it's coolness on a first hand basis. It's been called "The largest open-air electronics sidewalk sale on the planet" and has had writeups in everything from local newspapers to the Wall Street Journal. Here's the scoop. On Friday night the vendors start to roll in, they sell all night and are gone by noon the next day. Mostly these are people who own computer shops throught the metroplex, but we get some of the larger vendors from further away too. Everyone pitches tents, sets up generators, cash registers, etc and sets tons, I mean TONS, of OEM and retail hardware on conference tables in the middle of a parking lot just west of the freeway. The prices are really amazing too. Every time I go to First Saturday I make it a point to go to Fry's the next day and browse for exactly the items I just bought off the street the night before. I've been stopped several times by people asking why I was laughing, and one time escorted from the store for laughing too hard at their prices. I've never paid more than half of what Fry's was asking for anything. Memory, motherboards, CPUs, CD burners, ANYTHING. Same brand names, same models, everything. I've never paid retail for any piece of hardware I've bought in any situation other than impulse buying. I've built three systems from parts purchased at First Saturday in the past four years and I intend to do it again as my current machine is over two years old. Cost me about 1200 bucks for the parts to build it at the time, and is just now starting to get a little behind the times. Think extreme bleeding edge two years ago for less than 1200 bucks.
I've introduced people in the office to First Saturday. The last time my co-workers went they all came back with factory refurbished 21" Sony Trinitron monitors for $325 the first time and the next month the price was $275. They got business cards and three year warranties from the companies. One of them had problems with it, took it back to the shop and they gave him another. They have 15" flat-panel HP monitors with integrated sound for about $300. I got my 120 watt, powered, shielded speakers for my workstation at the office for $6. That's not a typo. Six dollars. They sound good too.
I've also sold items there. My brother was a SA for a company who did a bunch of upgrades a while back and we hauled all the old desktop hardware out there and sold it out of the back of the company van. Good stuff, could have made some nice little BSD boxes, dirt cheap. Mix and match all the stuff you want. You want extra memory? Five bucks a stick for the simms you need.
That having been said, I am kind of disappointed with First Saturday recently. It's been going on for 30+ years now and originally you could get anything, I mean anything, electronic there. From single resistors to full computer sets. I saw military codebooks and collections of Magic cards there too. Now it's shifting from component-oriented to package oriented. They'll sell you bare-bones systems for $575 for a nice MB and Athlon based system, but without any of the toys like a DVD-ROM(bought mine there about a year ago for $85 for a 6X, damn fine price, and a major brand name too) You can still buy the component level stuff, but it's not the emphasis anymore. I guess it's just the world that has changed. The resistor is no longer a component, the board is a component. Sigh, I'm showing my age apparently.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Not everyone has an MIT swapshop nearby, so why automatically phase out those computer shows that you diss.
IF you actually KNOW your stuff about computers then you will get a better deal at a computer show because the vendors are there to make money and sell hardware. Build up relations with these vendors and they will get you anything you want at the best price and most likely support you better then anyone else.
Watch out for those shady "Pentiom Processor" dealers. And never buy a computer from the back of a monster truck. Ever.
Hi!
The University of Maryland runs Terrapin Trader. See http://www.purchase.umd.edu/ttrader/.
They had an old VAX for sale earlier this year. I was tempted to buy it, just to watch all the lights in my neighborhood dim when I turned it on.
- Tim
In North Carolina there is the Shelby Hamfest. When I used to go it was the largest in the country. Really fun to walk around and see all the old stuff for sale. I really miss that...
I know they still have it, maybe I should check it out again.
New Jersey has the Trenton Computer Festival every year. The outdoor flea market there has just about everything imaginable. The latest hi-tech gadgets on one table, Commodore-64's on the next.
The Greater Baltimore Hamboree and Computerfest, at the MD state fairgrounds is in April... Check here for details: http://www.gbhc.org/
-MattT *** Not speaking for my employer, or any other sentient beings ***
Actually the Hamfest in Dayton an awesome show (I didn't go this year) as was the Compufest, they were both held at the fairgrounds or something like that...
There is a *huge* HAMfest every year at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium (take the exit for Padonia Road off 695). Basically, three big buildings filled with HAM & old computer stuff, plus the parking lot is *filled* with people selling/trading their old equipment. I am a link to the website. The event is generally in April or May and costs $5 to get in. Check out the site for more info. I've gone a few years and picked up a lot of good equipment.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
./
Two hours north of you, the DuPont company is still dismantling itself. Their "excessed equipment" sales can be pretty great... although me and my buddies already picked through all the PC and mac stuff, you can still get old VAXen on occasion, and gigantic industrial robots.
The only problem is you never know what is going to be there until you get there.
And it's kind of disturbing how fast the more exotic animal-torturing equipment sells... I think the direct nerve stimulation devices lasted about 48 hours.
--Charlie
You're going to miss ComputerFest for some silly wedding. I'm sure your fiancee will understand your need to put off the wedding until another weekend.
"Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or dead." -Kurt Cobain
Twice a year there is a serious "computer show" at Timonium Fairgrounds in Baltimore county. It isn't like the monster truck rallies you mention(I can hear the cheesy MarketPro ads now "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Come to the computer show and sale... Full computer, super VGA, CD-ROM...")
They are not really swap-fests, but there is a whole lot of tailgating, plus the usual vendors, plus vendors selling electronic equipment, gadgets, and bizaare stuff. Often local computer groups or schools are there. Anybody else go to these things? Maybe we should turn them into something more like a swap-fest.
Being from the DC area, if you want inexpensive computer components I would urge you to actually try the Market Pro Computer Show and Sale. You can find information about the shows at this link.
Although they are advertised as you said "'Comptuer Show and Sale and Monster Truck Rally' events advertised constantly on cheapo UHF stations," they are mostly filled with local (DC/MD/VA) vendors and some out-of-area (PA/NY/NJ) sellers who sell computers and computer compenents. I would not recommend this show for any novice computer user. I do extensive research of the product(s) I want to buy before I go there; because the phrase caveat emptor is very appropriate.[1]
However, since you mentioned you wanted more of a swap fest, this may not be for you. You might try...
There are also fedral auctions at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) which sell many components. However, most of them are really old government surplus. My step-father once picked up three 9 inch floppy drives there (it was part of a pallet where he wanted the plotter). I don't know the URL of the auctions but you can goto the GSFC Website and search for it. Google may work as well.
Finally there are HAMfests in the DC area you can go to. Not being a HAM operator/user I don't know of any. Once again, google may help.
[1] My friend once claims that he bought a motherboard from a computer show that was not FCC compliant (made in China) and interfered with radio devices. I have only bought a bad harddisk once which the (local) vendor was happy to replace. Again, caveat emptor.
Well we used to have HAMFEST around here a lot. Haven't seen any advertisements for one lately, then again I haven't been looking. It's possible that the Marketpro shows (that you mentioned) muscled it out of the way. Walking around was fun at HAMFESTS, lot of cool tech junk.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I used to live in the DC area and there were plenty of really good hamfests, which always had tons of computer stuff. I live in Austin, TX now, and the local hamfest-type scene is *pathetic*.
Look for the Hamfests in Bowie, Timonium and Manassas. The Gaithersburg hamfest (F.A.R.Fest) was the biggest I remember, but since I've left the area, I think it moved to Bowie. I remember plenty of smaller ones, but the smaller ones tended to be more oriented to amateur radio, and less cool technology junk.
Hi!
These are my favorite Maryland Hamfests, in order of preference:
Greater Baltimore Hamboree and Computerfest - the event mentioned by the previous poster. A big two-day event in April in Timonium. See http://gbhc.org/.
BRATS Ham/ComputerFest. A big one-day event in July in Timonium. See http://www.bratsatv.org/hamfest.html.
CARA Hamfest. I always enjoy this event, even though it's relatively small. Occurs in September, in West Friendship. See http://www.qsl.net/cara/
FARFest. This one used to be very big, but their move to Bowie a couple of years ago greatly decreased their attendance. Occurs in September. See http://www.amateurradio-far.org/
There are events in other US states too, of course. See http://www.arrl.org/hamfests.html. Some Virginia hamfests should also be convenient for folks living in the DC area.
- Tim
So the thing would be to find out what are the major tech/science schools in the DC area. Approach them with the MIT model, and then, when the arrangements are made, promote it to all of those tech/science schools. You should be able to break even, and maybe even make a buck or to to help finance your other research projects.
Heck, you might even wind up with tables of surplus spook gear.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I don't know if they still do it, but the University of Waterloo used to sell surplus junk on the first wednesday of each month. They usually had decent stuff.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
They come around in these big hot air balloons that look like the moon. I think they hit all the major metropolitan areas.
In the midwest, there is the Dayton Ohio Hamfest. Which is a huge (as in takes all day to walk around literally) place to buy/sell/trade all forms of geek gear. If you know your stuff, you can find some computers and parts that havent been seen for years.
MmMMMmm... Dayton Hamfest. I went down there (from Toronto) with a friend of mine in my old Dodge pickup truck. Half-ton truck, went down with nothing but a spare tire under the bed and our suitcases behind the seat. Came back so badly overloaded that the cops made me put it on the weigh scale. (I was, like, three pounds below my limit. Good thing the fuel tank was almost empty at the time.) Crossing the border with that stuff confused Kanada Kustoms. They tried to charge me duty on a 50 year old TV set, for one thing.
I loved the Dayton Hamfest. But, never again. Ever. It was bad.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
At the university of waterloo here they have monthly surplus sales. I saw all kinds of great stuff while I was there... so check with the local universities...
--
Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
We don't have much in that department. There are of course the Martket Pro shows, which is where I get almost everything, but they just sell, no swaps. The only other close thing is a place called SmartCo, which is local to St Mary's county to my knowledge. It takes surplus and old computer equipment from the local naval base and has volunteers rebuild them for schools. The old policy also allowed you to scavenge for yourself on occasion if you volunteered enough.
Due to the dismal lack of such things locally to my knowledge, I'm also much anticipating the results of this inquiry...
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
[managed to get a refurbed 21" trinitron for $300 a couple of years back, some APC 2200s for $600 each, etc.]
For more info, see:(As it's coming up at the end of the month)
I highly suggest getting there as early as you can on Saturday, and if you find a deal, go for it, as it might not still be there by the time you go around the entire place (it's a massive computer show).
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Market Pro Shows (http://www.marketproshos.com) does computer shows and sales, but they're for modern equipment. They have shows all over Maryland and Virginia. The closest to the DC area would be New Carrolton.
I've been to both. The HAMfest is nalstolgic, and I been able to get a base for an old Compaq laptop there.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Ever since computers started invading Hamfests in
the mid 80's, they have been a great place to buy
new and used parts at the lowest possible prices.
For a list see:
http://www.arrl.org/hamfests.html#listing
The University of Maryland in College Park runs the "Terrapin Trader", which has everything you could ever want. You can see some of their stuff here (click on inventory, then Data Processing for the computer stuff). It wasn't so long ago that they were giving away Alphas! Looking at it now, I see a lot of Sparcstations and some older PCs. Worth a look.