Slashdot Mirror
Questions for Entry Level PC Techs?
Rick Zeman asks: "For the first time ever, I have to interview and hire (I'm not management, so an exception is being made) what we call a 'PC Technician', which is an entry-level IT person. While actual computer knowledge and how we do things can be taught, how to think, and the aptitude for troubleshooting can't be. In the readers' experiences, what are the best (legal in the US!) questions to ask an entry-level candidate to really evaluate them? They don't have the resumes, the skills, or the experience yet, so I think they have to be judged on other factors that are harder to qualify."
"Find the power button on this computer. "
I kid you not... this one should filter out 95% of the cruft.
For helpdesk IT, play dumb, set up a system with windows broken, sit in front of it, don't let him see it, and have him walk you through getting it running.
For hands-on IT, same thing, but let him sit in front of it.
Video Production Support
Dont worry about the technical skills, you can teach them that. Responsibility, problem solving, and ability to learn along with social skills are more important and will lead you to a candidate that you can teach to do what you need.
I'm not sure what is entailed by 'technician', but I'm assuming that they will need *at least* some troubleshooting skills. Even non technical ones. I remember when I got a job doing tech support and the preliminary interviewer asked me a question: "I'm thinking of a product in a grocery store, find out what it is in less than 15 questions."
They didn't care that I had any IT background; they could provide me the training to fix issues, but I needed first to have the skills to find out what they were. I would suggest following a similar pattern. You've got people with little experience, skills, and knowledge concerning the subject matter, but the basics of logical deduction will get you the most value as an employer.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Since most business still run Windows, you need to find people with enough skills to fix the same problems over and over. Printing, Outlook, and antivirus/antispyware are the base standards. Ask if they know what Active Directory is, and what its used for. The best question, imho, is still to ask what is the quickest way to find out which version of Windows a user is running. (winver.exe ...btw). If they can answer any questions about those, that will filter out most of the riff-raff.
Give them a rather nasty technical question, even something that is beyond your experience or is totally made up (SQL Server on Slackware 4). Instead of asking them for an answer ask what steps they would take to find the answer. An entry level anything is going to have to learn a lot on the job.
Entry level implies that you want someone who can grow, so try and find out where they started and how they got there. Should show you a little about their learning style and curve.
The rookies will also run into situations that they haven't been trained for. You need to see if they can step through it and get a partial solution before going up a level and that in the interest of customer service they can recognize when they're getting in too deep and need some help.
give him a big box of junk parts, see how many working computers he can get in a couple hours. At least two you would think. Award bonus points for testing the power supplies before attaching them to the mobo and devices, just leave a meter laying around see if he grabs it. Watch for stuff like putting on the grounding strap first, etc.. Throw in some ringers in the box of course, and a mobo with bad (bulging or burst) caps, see if he spots it. Stuff like that there. That and just talking to him about computers should weed out the posers. Ask him to brag on the machines he's built, see if he knows off the top of his head all the parts, etc, then do the hands on test after you get your field narrowed down a little. You didn't mention what environment he might be working in, but if windows, then see if he can troubleshoot normal consumer click on anything FUBARS. In fact, you can have fun with that, just stick a working non firewalled vanilla install of ths or that windows installation on the net for an hour and go find the dodgiest links you can find and click on everything. Install a ton of screensavers and whatnot. Give the final test on that machine, see how clean he can get it, and what tools he asks for for troubleshooting. That should be enough to go through the selectees. Even if they can't get everything, you'll see if they can proceed in a logical manner.
They don't have the resumes, the skills, or the experience yet, so I think they have to be judged on other factors that are harder to qualify.
I tried to think of a good answer, and had decided on "fix this PC" (where it has some glaringly obvious problem that should take any decent tech under five minutes to find and fix, such as a dead HDD), but then re-read the part I quote above...
What requirements does this job have, that you expect applicants lacking the skills and experience to do the job?
I would agree completely that overall familiarity with PC architecture and problem solving skills in general matter far more than having the LED error codes for a Dell Dimension 4300s memorized - But it sounds like you expect to not only interview, but hire, completely clueless individuals.
At the very least, you should have no trouble finding people who can demonstrate simple tasks such as installing RAM or setting up a modem connection on XP. Don't settle for less in the hope that you can train someone up the level of basic competency the job demands.
Unless, of course, you plan to have these people do nothing but take calls and read scripts - In which case, for all our sakes, just make sure they can read and speak reasonably clear English. Although that particular "test" would probably break the law, you can easily give it in a roundabout way that answers the question without raising any eyebrows.
1. What is the Device Manager and how do you access it? 2. What are the differences between IDE and SATA? 3. What is the process of installing Windows XP on a blank hard drive? 4. What is Safe Mode? 5. What does RAID stand for? 6. Why should a PC tech wear an anti-static wristband? 7. How do you reinstall a printer driver? 8. What is POST? 9. How do you access "msconfig" and why would you use "msconfig"? 10. How do you change the screen resolution?
Anyone who wants to be a PC tech should be able to answer at least 8 of these questions. You can train them, but they must have some basic knowledge. For entry level tech guidelines, I would consult an A+ certification guide. In fact, you should buy (at company expense) an A+ certification guide and use questions from there. After you hire one of the applicants, give them the guide as a reference for their job. You did say they were entry level after all.
Most people that interview with me hate me for it - but in return I've yet to hire someone who didn't do a good job...
You first ask a few simple questions so they relax a little - repeat that if they don't know its alright - just say how you would figure it out... Then you move on to questions you're certain they don't know... and ask how they would troubleshoot it. There are always the basics - like ask the user when this first happens, ask exactly what is slow and so on - that shows how they go about a new problem - and in the end, that's what matters. Don't go by how correct their answers are - but how they answer it. If they try to BS their way around it. If they admit they don't know or if they come up with a million different answers. You want the ones that come up with many different things - even if many of them are wrong - it proves that they have the right attitude.
Peter.
I spent the last year in Paris working at a school as an entry level technician and often had to solve problems that I didn't know anything about. The skill to doing this is being a fast learner and also to know how to go about solving a new problem.
I suggest you give them a problem which they probably don't know how to solve and ask them to talk through their process. This could involve some quick research on google or using common sense, etc etc. Its feasible that someone with very little tech experience could do this job as long as they have a quick brain and good common sense.
The next most important thing is social skills and the ability to get on with their users. I know how common it is to have to deal with people who know nothing about computers. You could play the role of a retarded user, or even better, get someone else involved who really is a novice and get your interviewee to train them to do something. You observe their social skills and how they interact with the novice.
1) Ask them hard question, get them to talk through their process of trying to solve it
2) Give them a task of training a novice to do something, or act as a novice yourself. Ask very novicey questions to see if you can frustrate them. Patience is a virtue needed for IT tech jobs.
3) Get them to talk through a spyware infestation, a virus infestation. Make up some hypotheticals to ask them. Example: Someone calls you up and say's their internet is broken, what do you ask them first? Go through the scenario step by step and see what they do.
It's fairly easy to see quite quickly who are the people who are sharp thinkers with good inter-personal skills. It's also fairly easy to pick those people up who know what they're talking about. Ask them to recommend a virus scanner, if they say Norton, kick them out of our office immediately! They should know about programs like AVG, Avast, Stinger.
You are correct, computer knowledge and how things are done in your organization can and should be taught. This means that the individual you are going to hire needs to have a good work ethic, troubleshooting skills, and have excellent customer service skills. This individual is going to be the physical representation of the IT department for the majority of the company. You want someone who is going to come off as courteous, intelligent, and hard-working.
What questions you ask are not as important as how the candidate answers the question. Are they confident of the answer they provide? Are they too serious, or are they friendly in their interview? Are they able to create a rapport with you during your conversation? Do they come across as someone who knows what they are talking about? Would you want this person to represent your department to all the other employees in the company?
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
Ask them the same question six times during an interview, pretending each time to not understand the answer - that'll give them an idea of what support is like.
Of all qualifications, the one that a person must have to be successful in this business is a passion for technology. For entry-level people, this could well be the -only- real qualification you need; everything else is learned.
Ask them how they decided on computer technology as a job, or as a career path.
I've found people are surprisingly candid when you ask this - some will tell you straight up that it was a good-paying job they thought they could do.
Others will tell you that they've been tinkering with computers since they were 12, in the computer club at school, etc.
If this is a 9-5 job for the candidate - or they've heard it's an easy way to make good money - keep looking. You want the kids who live and breathe this stuff.
Good hygiene and communications skills count - but you can get a feel for those in the first 5 minutes of the interview
Another good question is asking how they learn new technologies. If they tell you they learn by going to 2-day seminars that their manager approved - keep looking. You want someone who's not afraid to use the O'Reilly or the Google, and keep wrestling with the tech until they get it.
I interview senior-level developers in my job; and I still ask both of these questions in every interview.
I've been in a similar situation, i've hired several apprentices for my company.
In case you're unfamiliar how an apprenticeship works:
It's part of one of the possible education roads in switzerland. At age 16, you start an apprenticeship in a company, which usually is 2-4 years (depending on the amount of skill of the job required). An apprenticeship requires attendance at a public school for one or two days a week. The pay is usually very weak, from 450 - 1000 CHF / Month. At the end of the apprenticeship, there's a standardized test.
Since people start at age 16, they have no qualification whatsoever (except that they finished public school), and as an additional drawback, you can't fire apprentices unless they SERIOUSLY fuck up (stealing from the company or something like that, or fucking up in school several times in a row).
The only thing i've paid much attention to is interest. Interest in IT can vary, e.G.:
An avid gamer, maxing out the performance of his video card, by working with lots of settings? Creating custom ini files for you game?
A young Linux zealot, telling my windows is a bad thing.
Writing programs?
Young, interested people are raw diamonds. They don't understand professional IT yet, and they have a lot to learn. While it is my job to help them to learn, the bunch of stuff is what they have to do alone. Just provide the infrastructure and support. It doesn't matter much what kind of skills they already have, since most of them don't help on their job - but most of my apprentices are more up to date on PC/Consumer hardware than iam.
Interest is all that matters. Someone who is willing to learn will be able to do everything you want him to, it just takes some time.
There's an important second skill, and that is social skills. You always have customers, be they internal (like in an enterprise) or external (in my case, SMB support).
An apprentice will have to learn how to deal with customers. In my case, i go to customers with them, let them stand aside (for about half a year). After that, they will have the skills to solve small problems on their own. The next step is to learn to deal with the customer. Delegate tasks, have them solve the problem on their own, report to the customer. And as a last step, send the on their own way.
This process takes about 3 years with an apprentice - you can shorten this ALOT if someone has at least a bit of previous experience.
And another tiny bit i've learned. Never solve a problem for your apprentice, if time is not critical. Give hints, push them in the right direction, let them figure out the solution on their own.
Never lie to them - while it is sometimes necessary to adjust the truth for a customer, never lie to your apprentices - there's nothing worse than learning the wrong things.
Entry level to my mind means a user facing role, desktop support or such. The single most important thing for them to have is social skills - i'd rather hire someone that the users get on with and has difficulty with the tech than someone who irritates the users enough to start complaining to managers. You can get a feel for social skills in a 10 min chat. If you have a friend in the marketing department or whatever ask them to help you out with a social appraisal. The tech side of it is easier.
What about locking all the 1st's in a single room with a pile of PC equipment, a webcam, and the diktat that the one to come out with the greatest number of working PC's wins. The result would be amusing to watch, I suspect, though cleaning the bloodstains off the floor later may be a bit messy.
-b.
This is a good start. Perhaps the following questions together will make up most of the 1st interview on the technical side:
-When was your first experience with a computer - what kind of computer was it?
-Whats the most complicated thing you've done on a computer, even if it didn't work?
-(as stated above)Describe your home network and computers.
-What kind of experience do you think you'll gain and what type of experience do you want to gain from this?
-Lets say we work with you and get you a Microsoft Certification, what would you do once you had that certification? (Assuming this is a windows shop)
All that on top of a personality quiz including how they handle stress and repeated questions - maybe even ask them something repeatedly throughout the interview process to see how they handle it. For the second interview of the most likely candidates, like someone else said, computers, computers...
1 computer, in pieces, in a box. Put it together. It can be a junked computer - this just tests their knowledge of computer hardware.
1 computer, connected to a printer and some sort of bad device (cdrom unplugged from IDE, but powers up, ejects, etc...) - have them hook up the printer how your techs would (ie: without the OEM drivers - if you use networked based printers, you can decide how hard you want to be based on the first interview) and then have them find out what device is having problems. Ask them what steps they would take to fix it.
Continue asking that stupid question you keep repeating to see how they react. The first eye roll, sigh, etc should give you a reasonable example of how they'll handle all those stupid questions in the real world. Expect them to look a little confused the first couple of times.
Time both of the computer quizzes and see what you get between each person. Match these up to personalities and scores on the 1st side of the interview. I would also bring in an accomplice to help give a secondary recommendation and have them ask a few of the same stupid questions a few times. At some point, tell these poor people why you've asked the same questions over and over - either at their final interview (just before "we'll call you") or when they react the wrong way.
Agreed. Be a dick to them and see how they respond. If they get pissed, bye bye. If they deal with you gracefully, congratulate them, drop the dick act, and tell them that if they can handle *you*, then they should be able to handle customers just fine. Emphasize that acting nicely to dicks is key to being a successful help desk person.
Been there, done that. I ran a help desk for an ISP overseas on a military base who overcharged customers like no one's business, and continued to charge their credit cards even after they'd left and cut off their accounts. The head of AT&T Asia-Pacific came over to straighten up the mess, chewed out the entire organization, and then presented me with an award. "Customers chew us up right and left, but *invariably* complimented us on the help desk. You guys are a bunch of thieves, but we've never had better tech support."
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
I've had to interview folks for this position several times. The most important thing to me is that they don't create more work for me than they'll unload off of me.
I like to (in sight of the candidate) create a new account and login under that account. Then I reach back and unplug the keyboard right in front of them. "Can you browse to www.cnn.com now?" is the question after that setup.
The correct answer is for the tech to reach to plug the keyboard back in or ask if they can. That's full credit there. Tell them that, and then ask them if they can think of any other ways. Since its a new account it won't be in the browser history -- but seeing them check is extra credit. Finding a textfile and copy/pasting the characters out of it or using charmap is also good for extra credit, along with a remote desktop connection, ... (as an interesting side-note I developed this test before being assigned a Pri1/Sev1/Blocking bug by an overzealous tester at Microsoft which I root-caused as her unplugging her keyboard cable).
For my second question I like to (again, in plain view of the technician) edit the boot.ini file on a system in such a way that it rendered unbootable. Then shutdown/restart, and ask them how they'd fix it. Yank the HD and put it in another machine, alternate boot media, ...
If there's any chance they'll ever work on hardware set them up in front of a junk PC (make sure it's an easy one to take apart/put together -- not some obscure system of latches to get the case off -- they can learn about those guys on the job and should not be graded on never having opened some vendor-specific box). Tell them to pretend that the simple NIC on the table is a prototype board the developers need installed, and as such is very expensive. Ask them to handle the physical install of the card, and talk you through what they're doing. The big thing is they should either ask for a static strap or mention that "it's just pretend so I'm going to just ground myself to the chassis before I pick up the card..."
If your entry level tech can get full credit on all of these they're probably safe to turn lose without supervision. Partial credit for good attempts and thinking aloud about the problem (ask them to when you give them these problems) should mean they need a minimum of supervision. If they bomb out on all three then they need a babysitter and you should probably move on to the next candidate since they're gonna break more than they fix.
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
People often forget details in interviews.
When I interviewed for my current job as an ISP Technical Support Representative, I completely forgot what DHCP stood for. But I did remember what it did. "What does DHCP stand for and what does it do?" would be a good question, and give far more weight to the "what does it do" part. Only worry about the "what does DHCP stand for" part if you have to decide between two closely matched candidates - the one that remembers that may be a little better when under real world pressure.
I agree with the comments about being social. You could train a monkey to do most entry level tech jobs. The social part of interacting with the customers is a lot harder to train for.
- Do you have a PC at home? More than one PC? Did you assemble your PCs yourself?
- Do you have a laptop? Have you ever serviced its interior yourself?
BUT take care not to fall into the Expert Junior Trap: Companies look for talent, they find the talent and hire it to a junior position, but leave the talent in their junior position for months or even years. In the end the talent gets mad from boredom and does one of the following things:- Learn slacking skills to avoid the boring work and do something else with their 9-5 time instead, like e.g. contributing to open-source. This is common among underpaid or demotivated expert-junior staff (they would resign professionally if the company were paying them enough). Sometimes the expert-juniors may try to communicate their thoughts to the management in various ways, but they get either ridiculed or ignored.
- Resign or cause you to fire them and get a better position elsewhere or start their own company.
- Leave their brain at the gate at 9am and regain it at 5pm, usually for contributing to open-source.
Employers must understand this expert-junior complex and deal with it. Someone with no work experience, even without a degree, may be more skilled than their managers. Also note that the performance of an employee at work depends on pay, the other employees and managers, position, expectations, economic level, and the presence competitors in the job market. Even if they don't show their expert self at work, they may be experts in their own projects where they are intrisically motivated. The management must seek to create such an atmosphere where employees, even junior ones, can be intrinsically motivated to do their job. (BTW I study for an MSc in Management, including a good amount of HRM)It sounds like you were trying to be cute, but this points out the problem with the obvious solution: average computer users often won't know the answer, or might think they know but have the wrong answer, or even give you a nonsensical answer.
For example, what if the interviewer answered "guacamole", but was really thinking of wasabi? (I've seen people make this mistake in real life; it can be quite humorous.) In 4 seconds you got an answer, but it's the wrong one, so good luck doing anything useful with that information. OTOH, if you had asked "is it edible?", "is it plant-based?", "what color is it?", "is it spicy?", etc., you would have gotten to the correct answer, even if he didn't know the name of it.
This happens *all the time* at computer help desks. "What can I help you with?" "My firewall is blocking my virus checker from letting me install IE8..." If you take his word for it now, you're never going to solve the problem.
In fact, that suggests to me a better test: You have to troubleshoot a couple simple problems for different made-up people, and it's going to be randomly
- an expert who knows far more than you about computers
- a hobbyist who thinks he knows a lot, but is actually wrong
- a complete newbie who only knows computer buzzwords he saw on TV
If you can solve problems for people in all 3 classes (without knowing a priori who's in which class), and without pissing anybody off, you're hired.
One question they asked me at my first tech job interview;
If you were going to buy a PC, would you go for a big-name supplier like Dell, or a home-built system from a smaller shop?
The correct answer is any, or none! But you learn a lot from it. If they want a big supplier like Dell, you can ask them why; it's because of a large technical support base, corporate contracts and so on, and some guarantee of reliability (i.e. maybe the laptop battery would explode but they can do a recall).
If they say a small independant PC shop in the high street, you can ask why you eschewed the huge technical support. I said this one, because I really would.. personal service is always good. Walking into the store with your broken PC is a lot more friendly. You can have the guy at the independant store walk through what went wrong and it helps you learn why so you don't do it again. That, in my view, is better than Dell collect-and-return, where you just get back a working PC. But then I'm a tech; if you were a home user, you'd probably be better with Dell.
The next question is; Or wouldn't you build it yourself?
Build myself? I used to but I got bored of it. The cost; there is no way you can buy retail the same price as you get from a PC shop or even Dell. You may be able to build the exact machine you want, but you can do this by 'upgrading' a system that's been prebuilt for you. If you buy one with integrated graphics, but want an ATI Radeon X850 GTX-PO-ZZZZ-QUAK or so, buy one. At least the system would have been burned in for you, the components tested to some degree for compatibility and driver stability at either point. Being your own tech support is tedious. Do you really want to spend days of your own time troubleshooting and losing time you could be working or playing on the system?
You just have to ask questions that get a feel for if they understand how people buy, use and break systems. Knowing how to troubleshoot a bunch of simple Windows problems isn't the issue; giving them a PC to work on and see if they can handle it is a bad idea. What if the problem is something they know how to fix, easily, but they get stuck on other simple problems? You're testing competance on specific issues there, not general troubleshooting skills, or even common sense.
Why not go on Google and look for some of the more esoteric ones. I saw someone here said their interviewer made them play 20 questions.. that's a good test but it's a little offputting to some people. Groceries? Huh?
I remember a story about a guy who got taken out for a meal for his interview.. I think at Microsoft. The interview ended when he got his meal on the table and immediately put salt on it without even tasting if it needed it. That would be a bad trait.. if you consider for a moment how that kind of attitude affects the way he'd develop software. I have no idea if it's truly true or not, but it's a good example. Try things that bring out the applicant's general demeanour, see if they are friendly and helpful, or arrogant little pricks who just want to rattle through support cases.
Take a pc apart, put it in a box, see if they can get it together again.
This is exactly what they would do at the university's computer repair shop where I used to work. An applicant was given a box of parts and told to make a computer. Clones were easy, Macs were a huge pain in the a$$--I hated those cases!
I get the first applicant in.
"Ok" I say "I'm just going to ask you some simple questions to guage your knowledge of Computing and Networking in relation to the Operations Field"
"Sure"
"Right. Question One. What's the best way to stop an individual posting nasty articles to news?"
"Close their account"
"Good - But can you elaborate?"
"Delete all their files, Change their password to `Knobhead' and Erase any backups of their account"
"Excellent. What is a killfile?"
"Uh. It's a list of usernames/topics/news items etc that you wish the news- reader to automatically skip so you don't have to wade through rubbish"
"Uh No. Remember I said pertaining to Operations. A killfile is in fact a file with a list of names of people you are going to kill."
"Oh. Of course."
"Never mind. What is DCE?"
"Delete, Close and Erase"
"Good. DTR?"
"DON'T TRY to RING. The Operator's watchword"
"Well done. DBMS?"
"Dont Bug My Supervisor. Probably the most important acronym around"
"You betcha. Ok. A user comes to you with a complaint about another user sending sexually explicit email messages to them. What do you do?"
"Take a copy of the messages, close the complainant's account (by accident) and extort money from the mailer by threatening to show their parents"
"Good. I think you'll do nicely. Hang onto this wire..."
"I don't think so."
"Excellent. You passed the final test. You start tommorrow. Please leave by that door so as not to disturb the other applicants."
BZZZZZEEEERETTT!
Electrified Door Handle. Gets them every time. I think it's the "Complaints Dept" sign that draws them to it like moths to a globe...
I push the body out onto the fire escape.
"NEXT!"
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
I have to agree and to disagree with you.
Yes, certificates aren't everything. In fact, i don't think they have much value (though i have my share of them, as long as my current employer pays for all the expenses).
However, there are a few things which you seem to forget:
* People entering the IT industry don't know professional IT yet
They have built their own PCs. Fine. But in a corporate, professional setting, you don't build your own PCs. You don't build your own servers. And the "why" is what people entering the industry have to learn (sometimes painfully so).
* People entering the IT industry won't be the "know it all" anymore
Most people with a serious interest into it, were the one with the most knowledge in their circle of influence. When entering the IT industry, that's usually no longer the case. Even if you're socially top-notch, it will take some time to adjust to this change. If being social isn't your one of your primary advantages, it will take even more time.
* People entering the IT don't know lots of technology yet
You've built your private exchange server at home. It worked fine. Now you have 100 exchange servers, distributed across the globe. At home, you had your own domain. You experimented with Group Policies. It worked fine. Now you have 100 domain controllers, 10'000 clients, and 200 GPOs. Even if you understood the basic concepts, you will need to learn that with a different scale, there is a different responsibility.
In the end, even the most gifted child without a life will have to adjust to the pace of the company, and all its quirk. It takes time.
And most people that are looking for an entry level pc tech job don't have the qualifications, nor the interest in the field. Weeding out the trash is the difficult part of doing job interviews.
I think at Microsoft. The interview ended when he got his meal on the table and immediately put salt on it without even tasting if it needed it. That would be a bad trait.. if you consider for a moment how that kind of attitude affects the way he'd develop software. I have no idea if it's truly true or not, but it's a good example.
There are lots of reasons why someone would do that unrelated to his competence at a job:
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I keep a box of odd hardware pieces and adapters, connectors and cables. I have them reach in and pull out something at random and describe what it is and what it does.
I explain that good guesses are as revealing to me as actual knowledge or experience.
This is the only way I have found to determin apptitude for troubleshooting. I have had several "A+ certified" graduates fail the box utterly. I have seen MCSE's who could not tell a modem from a network card. And I have trained those who showed good deductive reasoning who went on to own companies or work for big name network and content providers.
Some of the box goodies:
ungerman bass 10 base 2 card
scsi terminators (active and passive)
coax terminators
cisco 2501 cable
null modem cables, (commercial 9 and 25 and handmade with rj45(hp keyed) ends.
offset (sun) serial adapters
propriatary sony cd rom
2.5 to 3.5 ide adapter
floppy drive, hard drives (ide, mfm, rll, scsi, sata)
heat sinks, variety
mainboard standoffs and riser card
breakout box , serial
various processors and ram sticks (sipp, sims, dip, piggyback dip, dimms ect)
crimpers, punch tools, milspec power "y"
66 block, 110 block
all varieties of centronics connectors used on printers, scsi, thicknet, for pc's, macs, sun, NeXt, and SG's.
fiber couplings, rca jacks and cables, RF connectors, (and a handful of CB radio couplers also)
*"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"*