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Homeless Wires?

Posted by Cliff on from the shelter-for-destitute-and-forlorn-compware dept.

BladesP9 asks: "I'm in the process of moving. As such, I have stumbled upon no less than five boxes of wires and various parts. Everything from PS2, SCSI, FireWire, USB and God knows what. Having forgotten all about this stuff I know I will never be needing any of this again as long as I live. Not to mention the roughly 100 boxes of 10 pack 5.25 inch floppy discs. I could just throw all this stuff away, but I am feeling somewhat guilty about that. Is there anywhere I should look to donating this stuff? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing 'Goodwill' would really get use of, but I hate to throw away perfectly good hardware and media if someone could make use of it. I'm looking for suggestions. My wife has given me until the end of the week to find a home for it or I have to take it to the dump."

7 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. People will take it by over_exposed · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My company has always given stuff like this to local churches. While they may not specifically be able to use it, they may be able to spend the time prepping it for sale. Look at the retail prices for USB and Firewire cabling... They'll either be able to use this stuff or sell it off for a decent profit.

    --
    "The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
    1. Re:People will take it by over_exposed · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Good call - my college had an intro class that used this kind of stuff all the time for a kind of hands-on museum display...

      By the way, nice sig :-)

      --
      "The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
  2. Try Craigslist. by Myself · · Score: 5, Interesting

    eBay isn't sensible for stuff that costs more to ship than it's worth.

    Post on Craigslist and get some local geeks to come pick it up.

  3. Do what David Clark Did... by Jorkapp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hide them beneath the floor boards

    --
    Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
  4. Re:Extra stuff? by bladesjester · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So is donating it to his local linux users group. At one point, I got roughly 100 network cards (mostly 3com isa) in among other things I got in trade.

    Only having use for about 10 (older machines +a few spares), I gave the rest to the local LUG. They were greatly appriciated because they had several older machinces still in need of parts.

    --
    Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
  5. Association for Computing Machinery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Look for a university that has a chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery. We take *everything*, and make working systems out of it, to use for student projects, community centers, charity, whatever. So we can use anything at all, basically. (If you're in the Baltimore area, the Johns Hopkins chapter is truly amazing at this.)

  6. Art by sho222 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why not weave them into a nice artsy basket. I'm sure your wife would love that. Look here for inspiration.