True Tales of Tech Hoarding

Recently some member of my household forced me to watch several episodes of A&E's Hoarders. This led to several *ahem* discussions about hoarding tendencies and the closet of cables, wires, boxes and parts in my basement. But I'm not doing bad compared to some of these tech hoarders. My favorite is the guy using a stack of 9 VA rack machines as an end table.

Comments

You call that hoarding?

[ComputerGeek01]

Only one closet full? Pfft, lightweight. Come back when you have a real collection!

Re:You call that hoarding?

[spun]

I've got one box of cables, neatly organized in gallon freezer bags by type. I've got another box with a few spare parts I might actually need. I used to have many, many more boxes of parts and wires I never used, but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Yvan256]

I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.

Possible replies:

1. Make a list of all her clothes and shoes and when she wears any of them. If she ever wants to throw something away, tell her she hasn't used clothes/shoes x in y days and that therefore she should throw those out.

2. How long before you're thrown away? /duck

3. Don't ever tell her you don't want kids!!!

Re:You call that hoarding?

[DJRumpy]

My 'tech closet' is very similar, although not so neatly organized. I have a big box of random video/audio cables, and another box of PC parts, ranging from expansion cards for things like SATA when SATA wasn't integrated, and video capture cards. The rest consists of old optical drives, old IDE/SATA drives, Motherboards, old video cards, etc. Every few years I go through and throw out items that I'm not likely to need anymore (simm's, ISA cards, 10MB NIC's, etc). Although I can see things getting very messy, I do have a sig other to keep things in perspective. I would only hope that others who keep a similar stash have someone else to keep them in line from time to time.

I do occasionally have to defend the value of my tech closet. I have saved friends and family some significant cash over the years just by recycling parts from there. I probably re-use maybe 30-40 percent and the rest gets tossed, but better some reuse/value than none at all.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[houghi]

Insightful? Only on /.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Monkeedude1212]

I didn't even know this was a thing until now. My room mate came up to me the other day and casually told me "My cousin thinks we have a very geeky house" and I replied, "How come?", to which he responded, "Well, we've got 4 desktops here in our living room/kitchen, only 2 of which actually get any use. This doesn't include the laptops you and I normally use, and Mike has HIS own desktop in his bedroom. Not to mention the pile of 10 or so Programming books stacked on the coffee table here, and the remaining pieces of that printer we took apart for fun last weekend. We've got posters on the walls with cheeky jokes about what you've learned from video games."

And I told him, "Yeah, I guess its a bit messy, but I mean, I don't know if its all that geeky. I mean, what do other people have lying around?"

To which he replied, "Well my cousin has posters of girls in bikini's along his wall, and many many more empty pizza boxes. His X-box has Modern Warfare 2 in the tray, ours has the movie cube2:hypercube. Where we have our router, he keeps his stereo. There is no computer in visible sight, they are all tucked away into each others bedrooms. His coffee table is littered with empty beer bottles and plastic cups, one of which has a sticky ping pong ball in it. When people come over to play Age of Empires 2, he has chicks over, and probably bones them all."

So I retorted, "Your cousin sounds like a douche"

Anyways. Anecdotes aside, my house has about as much junk as that entire article shows, except for the last 2 pictures (which are of course the most impressive, I can't keep stuff that organized)

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got one box of cables, neatly organized in gallon freezer bags by type. I've got another box with a few spare parts I might actually need. I used to have many, many more boxes of parts and wires I never used, but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.

Sounds like we have a lot in common! :-)

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not big on throwing old tech into a closet. I've got a room reserved for all my old 20th century tech and I keep it running. Atari 2600, got it! Super Nintendo, got it! Commodore 64, got it! Win 3.1, G3-400 iMac, Win95 and Win98 w/3DFx support, got it! My old 25" TV is going south on it's vertical deflection but if I need to, I can still pick up something like that from Walmart. Attention to detail MATTERS!

Re:You call that hoarding?

[spun]

I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.

Possible replies:

1. Make a list of all her clothes and shoes and when she wears any of them. If she ever wants to throw something away, tell her she hasn't used clothes/shoes x in y days and that therefore she should throw those out.

2. How long before you're thrown away? /duck

3. Don't ever tell her you don't want kids!!!

1. She already does this. If she hasn't worn it in a year, it goes to Goodwill. You thought she was power-tripping with the clutter removal? Nope, it's damn near a compulsion.

2. Ah, but I continue to be useful. ;)

3.) She hates clutter, remember? Kids are clutter to her. Neither of us want kids.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.

Watch out. Be always nice to her.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Provocateur]

Oh and the photo of the lamp on the stack--sure made my day--and if he had a girlfriend/wife, I'm sure SHE won the argument, See? THAT'S what this table is for! but as soon as she turned away, the guy put it back and adamantly proclaimed: 'and THAT'S what this stack is for!!' (spoken in a whisper though).

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Malard]

in most countries wives use that as grounds for divorce

Re:You call that hoarding?

[JWSmythe]

    On point #2, don't underestimate the powers of a vibrator, and a friendly neighbor who will do handyman work for free. Sometimes they're one in the same.

    Disclaimer: Friendly neighborhood handyman license #OIFKDURWIFE.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[ajlisows]

Funny thing is, I was a slight tech hoarder and my wife is a shoe/old clothes hoarder. If the clothes are wearable....even if they are more fit for a teenager....she keeps them. I harassed her to get rid of some of the stuff and she pointed out my collection of garbage. I decided to set a good example and one day started throwing out/selling/giving away/hitting with a bat most of the stuff in my tech pile. It was actually quite liberating. It is not longer difficult to find the actual USEFUL things that I rarely use amidst the piles of stuff I never used.

Never did get the wife to throw away the old clothes though. Oh well. At least it ensures that she keeps the school girl skirt. ;)

Re:You call that hoarding?

[xaxa]

I have a small toybox of useful stuff (spare mice, HDDs, keyboard, cables, etc). Anything that's obsolete or broken is in a second box (along with other broken electronics, light bulbs, etc). About once a year (or if I move house) I take the contents of the second box to the recycling centre.

At my parents' place I have a few old Acorn Archimedes PCs and some spares. They're underneath a bed and very difficult to access, but at some point I'll put most of them on eBay.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Anonymous Coward]

...but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer...p>

shouldn't that be a thrower-outerrer ?

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cube2: Hypercube is the best one of the series (but all of them are worth watching). Better use for the Xbox than a videogame. Come to think of it,the whole concept of the Cube series would make for a great videogame (if it hasn't been done already).

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Gilmoure]

I'm down to just a 5'x10' storage shed. And I've gotten rid of all drives less than 1 GB in there. But yeah, lots of old Macs and stuff. And those old LaCie drive towers; great industrial design!

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Gilmoure]

Not coffee?

Re:You call that hoarding?

[r_jensen11]

I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.

Possible replies:

1. Make a list of all her clothes and shoes and when she wears any of them. If she ever wants to throw something away, tell her she hasn't used clothes/shoes x in y days and that therefore she should throw those out.

Why? Just to give her another excuse to buy more clothes?

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 30 TB hard drive cluster (20 x 1.5) in my drawers. Does that count?

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Shotgun]

I used to have many, many more boxes of parts and wires I never used, but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.

My wife used to try that. Then she ended up needing a few cables or such. I told her to go to BestBuy to price them. Then I'd go to my closet and pull out a few, or make one up from others. She learned real quick that my stash is not just a random collection of wires.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[cmiller173]

Never did get the wife to throw away the old clothes though.

Never "throw away" old cloths. When you donate usable used clothing to a charity of your choice and you itemize them well they become a HUGE deduction. I came to this realization back during Clinton's first term when it came out in the news that he wrote of a pair of underwear for $7. If your in the 25% bracket that is $1.75 off the bottom line (no pun intended). Multiply that by the 6-10 bags of clothes we donate each year (kids grow fast) and it becomes $500-700 off the tax bill. Use software like itsdeductible.com (or H&R Blocks version) to get the IRS approved valuations and it becomes easy.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[spun]

...but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer...p>

shouldn't that be a thrower-outerrer ?

Throw-outerist, perhaps?

Re:You call that hoarding?

[spun]

We have an open marriage. I'm useful to her not because I satisfy her sexually, though I do at least as well in that regard as anyone who has been married for ten years, but rather, because we have each other's back, because we have the same moral center, and because our strengths complement each other's weaknesses.

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Anonymous Coward]

1.) His X-box has Modern Warfare 2 in the tray, ours has the movie cube2:hypercube.

2.) When people come over to play Age of Empires 2, he has chicks over, and probably bones them all."

Between these two statements, I find the Cube sequel harder to believe.

Really? They made a sequel?

Re:You call that hoarding?

[raygundan]

Eventually, your wife will discover monoprice.com, call you out on both misleading her AND hoarding useless shit, and make you get rid of it all again. Seriously-- when any cable you can conceive of is like $4 shipped, there just isn't a point to keeping an entire attic full of them "just in case".

Re:You call that hoarding?

[hurfy]

I agree mostly not that impressive ;) I can come up with that much stuff myself also! Organization somewhere in the middle of the range, some of it is sorted in those large plastic drawers stacked up 8 ft high. Alot of it is redundant but i do mess with vintage stuff a bit so some is invaluable to have on hand.

And for the record...my lamp is on a stack of 12" removable platters from my 1980 Wang minicomputer :O The other lamp is on top of an original Compaq computer on top of a Wang PC on top of the minicomputer.....

Re:You call that hoarding?

[Monkeedude1212]

I'd argue that its actually WORSE then the first one. They try this whole, the cube is messing with the 4th dimension, time, all throughout the movie. While I like the idea of multiple dimensions and even the idea of folding of space-time, its like they didn't do their research very well.

I have this thing about bad movies, its hard to explain. It's not exactly like the whole, "It's so bad its funny" kind of thing, its something more than that. I can't really explain it. I KNOW something is terrible, but I can almost feel this connection that the actor either loved or hated delivering that line, or that the storywriter couldn't figure out what to put there, or the director wanted a different scene but they couldn't budget it...

Re:You call that hoarding?

[mog007]

Can they ship the cables to my house in less than the 5 minutes it takes to dig the cable out of the box in my closet?

Sometimes you need parts NOW, and I have been desperate enough on several occasions to get ripped off by the local stores.

I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this week.

[Maxo-Texas]

Took out the hard drives... maybe... maybe... I'll mount them and extract them.

Took out the memory (???? who is going to use the old memory- why did I do that?)

Threw two away- put the other on the curb (it felt like a super high quality case someone might want).

Entire box of random cables (sorted through it and kept 5 "special" cables but tossed the rest.

When in doubt, watch an episode of Hoarders.

Trying to get my house in decent shape for a party this weekend.

Guilty

[dov_0]

I realised I had a problem with hoarding when I realised how many ISA boards I had... I threw them out. Then the 386 motherboards too.

Re:Guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

In 100 years they will be worth thousands to private collectors...
Assuming they cost between 10 and 100 dollars, that's not a terrible ROI, IMHO...

EDIT: Captcha was 'compute'

Re:Guilty

[Jhon]

I usually pry off the CPUs of any processor I don't have in my collection. I've got everything from 8088 to present. A few flavors of 6800x, 650x, to name a frew. I even have an 8186 pulled from an old palmtop.

Everything else goes in a pile which twice a year goes to the e-dump which rotates around our city collecting toxic chemicals and e-waste.

Re:Guilty

[Captain Splendid]

Same here. The only stuff I bother to keep is CPUs and HD platters. Oooooh, shiny!

Re:Guilty

[Jhon]

Yeah... I pull those, too. LOVE the magnets.

Re:Guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to have a large collection of old CPU's I pulled out of old machines. Instead of tossing them, I chose a few examples of every generation (8086 up to P4) and mounted them in a shadowbox that now hangs above my desk. It really does look good, and puts that old junk to the only use it really can be.

Re:Guilty

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

No! Not the old motherboards!!!

I've got a HUGE stash ... Including some nice stuff like 4 (1 fully functional) commodores, 1 Talent MSX, or an Apple Powerbook 140 from 1992.

Dozens of HDs, from 10 MB 5 1/4 models from my old XTs and 286, all the way to 4 GB Quantum BigFoot. {2,3,4,5}86 and Pentium{I,II,III,IIII} mobos. I've got a box full with dead processors from all times. I've even got a few Hercules displays. Shitloads of ISA, EISA, PCI, and other cards. Several boxes full of cables. A motherfucking GeekPort together with a box full of crap I did with it. Shitloads of software, including one opened OS/2 Box, and one unopened OS/2 Disk+Licenses+Manual in it's original envelope, several DOS boxes, all from IBM, including IBM DOS 5.0 + DOSShell. A few cubic meters of 5 1/4 in Floppies with soft and games. Another box with just GNU/Linux distros in 3 1/2 Floppies.

Yes, I Hoard technology. I love it. And I'm not throwing it away anytime soon.

Re:Guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a crate of 8186 processors. Probably 200+. And about 100 8088 and 8086s. And about 300 or so Z80s. Sigh...

Re:Guilty

[Hatta]

Please, at least offer this stuff up on Craigslist or Freecycle. Give it to someone who will use it, or at least give it a safe place until it finds someone who will. This old stuff is fun to play with, a lot more fun than modern PCs. You never know what will be useful either. Some of those ISA cards could have RAM on them that can be used to upgrade an Atari 600XL to 64K, allowing it to play many more games.

Re:Guilty

[TRRosen]

I always wanted to tile a wall with old CPUs. "Next on DIY. How to turn that old 486 into a decorative back splash."

Re:Guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

I found a 4004 that I got from an "electronic" calculator that they were throwing away in my 2nd summer job. I wish I still had the the nixie tubes.

Re:Guilty

[dov_0]

I refused to throw out my two Apple II's. One day I'll get one working again. Man that was a cool computer.

But, but,

[omarius]

I use a MicroVAX for an end table, you insensitive clod!

Re:But, but,

[Maximum Prophet]

A microVAX is a little too small unless it's racked, but I used to have a VAX 11/725 in the small wheeled case that was coffee table sized. Alas, during a move I had to part ways with it because the power supply had died. sniff, sniff, I miss that beast. It had 25MB fixed disk and 25MB removable, 3MB of RAM and ran BSD 4.2. In MIPS, it was about as fast as a IBM PC/XT (but had a linear address space)

Re:But, but,

[Anonymous Coward]

lightweight.

Try a VAXbar.
http://toyvax.glendale.ca.us/~vance/vaxbar.html

Re:But, but,

[TRRosen]

I use an Apple Network Server 700 as an end table. The bonus is I put magnets on the bottom of my iPod dock so it doesn't side around. Some day in going to turn it into a mini frig.

Re:But, but,

[omarius]

I don't think you and I are thinking of the same thing. 1) I wasn't kidding. 2) It looks similar to this one.

Re:But, but,

[omarius]

I know about the VAXbar. Microvaxen are too small. Maybe it would do for picnics.

At least the new tech is small

[qwerty8ytrewq]

Not that many years ago my dad got an air-spun harddrive the size of a washing machine, and an electron microscope the size of a kitchenette stashed in our back shed. To be fair, he did remake it into some cool shit, but really, it was all about love of last years tech. I still think about diving into any dumpster I go past that I see wires poking out of. Recycling is such a good crutch for the hoarder.

Re:At least the new tech is small

[Jhon]

I do stuff like that on a much smaller scale. I have an old acoustic modem sitting next to a 1960s phone in my office. Both the phone and the modem are busted -- but it looks just too damn cool.

At home, I have an Atari 1030 sitting under my bedroom phone. I also turned an old dual mobo server case in to a small chilled wine cellar (it's about the size of a small fridge anyway).

Re:At least the new tech is small

[markass530]

I was intrigued by your mention of that "Air Spun Hard Drive" but didn't come up with anything on wikipedia, did it go by other names?

Re:At least the new tech is small

[Ukab the Great]

Perhaps he's referring to Bernoulli Disk Technology where the drives spun on a cushion of air.

I haven't heard of them being the size of washing machines, though.

Re:At least the new tech is small

[qwerty8ytrewq]

Quoting from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive HD heads are kept from contacting the platter surface by the air that is extremely close to the platter; that air moves at, or close to, the platter speed.[citation needed] The record and playback head are mounted on a block called a slider, and the surface next to the platter is shaped to keep it just barely out of contact. It's a type of air bearing. So the removeable 20MB discs were not spun using compressed air (I think) but rather the whole thing was (and still is) stopped from destroying itself by an air film. Can any old skool tech hoard nerds help me out here?

Re:At least the new tech is small

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Lovable stuff. I'm still hunting for a 1970's Payphone from Entel (The phone company at the time in Argentina).

They were fucking amazing, this is what they looked like:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EbEIPrrCAnI/SMp_6IqeRlI/AAAAAAAAAYg/lOe9ImQ8Jjw/s320/tel+publico+entel.jpg

They came in a variety of colors. Fucking amazing!

Re:At least the new tech is small

[puto]

most payphones in latin america looked like that until about 10 years ago. check mercadolibre.com sort of the latin american ebay. here is one that is a bit newer, working, just touchtone. http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-83851059-telefono-publico-telecom-ex-entel-unico-_JM Here is an errickson that is rotary. http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-83913697-telefono-publico-antiguo-ericsson-_JM And another one. http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-83913775-telefono-publico-_JM

Re:At least the new tech is small

[Anonymous Coward]

air-spun harddrive the size of a washing machine

Is it sitting next to the washing machine by any chance?

Re:At least the new tech is small

[Anonymous Coward]

Bernoulli wasn't even a hard disk. I'm guessing something like an IBM 1301.

bah, so many amateurs

[drinkypoo]

The pictures sent in weren't worth their price in bits. I've got three crates of cables (those clear 12-gallon ones) in my room, and probably four computers that aren't turned on. And this is my light load. At one point I had four IBM RT/PC model 135s at work, and about 11 Apollo workstations in my apartment. *shudder* DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. At least I sold my 4/260 and my Cat 5k when they were still worth some money.

I have a friend...

[Nadaka]

When his soon to be wife and kid moved in to his trailer, she made him throw out 4 full computer systems and a dozen CRT monitors. Why? because there was no room in the kitchen cupboards for trivial things like food and dishes.

Re:I have a friend...

[jweller]

I'm sorry, it sounded like you said a tech nerd lived in a trailer.

Re:I have a friend...

[Nadaka]

He does live in a trailer, on the back acre of his parents lot, down a gravel road, 2 miles from a town with a population under 2000.

It is also a 30 to 45 minute drive from Stennis Space Center.

Re:I have a friend...

[Anonymous Coward]

No you don't.

Re:I have a friend...

[HereIAmJH]

He does live in a trailer, on the back acre of his parents lot,

Ahhhh, the redneck version of living in his parent's basement. Because THEIR trailer doesn't have a basement. You just have to put it in terms people around here can understand. I grew up in Missouri, I can translate....

AtariAge

[Hatta]

You think that's bad, you should check out some of the collections at AtariAge. People who have a dozen spare 800XLs "just in case". I've got to say this shit is impressive. This too.

Re:AtariAge

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

"I've got to say this [atariage.com] shit is impressive."

You got that right!

I would not call that example "hoarding", because it is extremely organized and accessible. I visualize hoarding as "keeping stuff with little chance of finding it again when you need it". Also not having much of a chance of needing it.

In that example, I could easily imagine the guy (I assume it's a guy, because it's got "guy" written all over it) coming home and gaming on anything he chooses. He's certainly be able to find and run whatever he owns.

Strangely, I don't imagine any chicks hanging around.

Re:AtariAge

[Tempest_2084]

Thank you, I try and keep my collection neat and organized. I like to keep as many systems as I can out so I can play around with then when the mood takes me. What computers and systems I keep out tends to be in a constant state of flux, but it's always organized. I do indeed know where everything is at all times.

I also don't keep extras of anything, just one of each. I simply don't have the room for backups and spares. Eventually my goal is to have everything setup like a museum of sorts.


>>Strangely, I don't imagine any chicks hanging around.

I think my wife would disagree with that statement. :)

Re:AtariAge

[Anonymous Coward]

Strangely, I don't imagine any chicks hanging around.

Strangely????

Re:AtariAge

[santax]

That reminds of the time I was still 'collecting' msx-homecomputers. In the end I had 27 of them. Sometimes I still think about that collection, but to be honest... it's better now it's gone. Was just collecting dust and when I wanted to play a game, I would just fire an emulator. Still did hurt a bit saying goodbye to them. Then again, in return I got a walking voicebook with titties. If only she had come with a mute option.

Re:AtariAge

[StuartHankins]

Thanks for the links. Absolutely awesome collections, very well organized. I'm sure it took a lot of planning and thinking and moving things around for them to be displayed so well. If you're going to collect something this is the way to show it off.

Re:AtariAge

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

LOL. I stand humbly corrected! Thanks for sharing the background info.

Re:AtariAge

[Anonymous Coward]

If anybody needs a Hi-Def kit for the original Xbox to make an XBMC, I'm hoarding about 13 of them, currently.

G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Manip]

I'm sorry but that G5 PowerMac tower is still one of the most attractive towers ever built. I still find it amazing looking and I wouldn't bin it either.

I too hoard wires, but they often come in handy. I just recently needed an old-style pre-USB printer cable ... Which I had... Four of...

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Yamata no Orochi]

old-style pre-USB printer cable

And you don't even know what they're called?

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Combatso]

****ronix

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Anonymous Coward]

Mantronix?

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Manip]

Which name would you like me to use? And would anyone else know what I was talking about?
  - "Printer Cable"
  - "Parallel cable" (which could be one of dozens of things!)
  - 25 pin D-SUB
  - 36-Cen cable
  - "serial cable" (very vague - and inaccurate)

Pre-USB Printer cable makes sense, everyone knows what I mean, and it doesn't allow people to think I don't know what a USB cable is...
 

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[operagost]

"Parallel printer cable", because it plugs into a PC's parallel port on one end and a printer on the other.

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[troll8901]

I think some geeks still use parallel ports nowadays - to access their home routers via the JTAG interface.

I bow down in respect of these knowledgeable geeks.

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Anonymous Coward]

Centronics

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a parallel printer cable. That can only be one thing.

"Pre-USB Printer Cable" is a way of saying "Parallel Printer Cable" for idiots. The fact that people think it is OK to randomly make up new names for things because they are too stupid to know what its actually called is down right appalling.

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Anonymous Coward]

'Centronics' should ring a bell for anyone who's known a world without USB.

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[sheph]

Yeah it started with a p and was the opposite of serial.

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[GiMP]

Saying "Centronics" is like saying "Molex", when there are different Centronics and Molex connectors. I mean, how would I differentiate between his printer cables and SCSI-1 cables!?! Geez!

Furthermore, why bring printers into this, when there are other things that could be connected via that parallel port cable? Sure, printers were the most common thing connected to that port, but not the *only* thing. Additionally, I never really understood why people still call parallel null-modem cables, "laplink". It is like calling diapers, "Huggies", or pacifiers, "Binkies" -- and who does that? (Hint: I don't)

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[maxume]

I have a borrowed usb->parallel adapter (it really is one way) sitting a few feet away, for hooking up to the borrowed LaserJet 4L. I wish I didn't have to give it back.

(How do I know the cable is 1 way? The driver built into Windows pukes all over itself when it does not get the bidirectional communications that it is expecting)

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[FingerSoup]

An RS-232 serial cable might be entirely accurate for a "Pre-USB Printer cable". I used to have an old dot-matrix printer that was serial only. It was also an option on several laser printers I used throughout the 90's...

Either "Centronics printer cable" or "Parallel Printer cable" are identifiable and accurate.

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[jfruhlinger]

It was literally hot. I've noticed that now that I've switched from the G5 to the laptop, my office is much colder in the winter and less oppressively hot in the summer. I considered continuing to use it as a winter heat source but then bought a $30 space heater instead -- probably more energy efficient.

Josh (author of the original article)

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Dogtanian]

****ronix

Mantronix?

Mantronix?!

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[atroc]

Centronix or Parallel probably.

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[nizo]

Trash?

Seriously, I think I just recently sent the last one I owned to Goodwill (well, assuming there aren't any hiding anywhere that I haven't found yet).

Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot

[Anonymous Coward]

... Or vacuum cleaners "Hoovers" or facial tissues "Kleenex". It does happen.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[2obvious4u]

You can take your old computers to Best Buy and they will recycle them for you. No need to put them in a landfill. That is where I take all my old tech.

Here are some links:
news article
recycle information

Also note that if it has a screen they will charge you $10 to recycle it; however they give you a $10 gift card to use in the store as well - so it is a wash.

Never fails

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

I've definitely got some stuff gathering dust in places in my house. The thing is, every damn time I dump or recycle an item, it turns out I need it shortly thereafter. It's never the stuff that I'm keeping. Only the stuff that I get rid of. Grrr.

What I need is a real-life OS X trash can or the Windows Recycle Bin, so I can recover things right after I trash them.

Re:Never fails

[delinear]

What I need is a real-life OS X trash can or the Windows Recycle Bin, so I can recover things right after I trash them.

I have one of those, only the other half prefers to refer to it as a "garage". Mind you, when it fills up the seek times are horrendous.

Re:Never fails

[mrdoogee]

That's why I "partitioned" that storage medium. On the first partition My wife has installed Volkswagen 2.0, which a lot like Apple products only does about 3 things, but she seems happy. However lately, she keeps making me format and re size the partition map so that she has more room, eventually I may have to use public storage to save things "in the cloud".

Re:Never fails

[pclminion]

I've definitely got some stuff gathering dust in places in my house. The thing is, every damn time I dump or recycle an item, it turns out I need it shortly thereafter. It's never the stuff that I'm keeping. Only the stuff that I get rid of. Grrr.

A corollary to this: the best way to avoid ever breaking something is to have a spare.

Re:Never fails

[Anonymous Coward]

Already done, I have 3 cabs full in a Storage Company, including 4 Sun E4500's, a Sun E6500 (needs 32A commando socket) and many A5200's as well as an A1000 and D1000, oh and 2 Ultra 30's.

I also have 3 bookcases full of computer books with misc assorted cables laying all along the top..

Re:Never fails

[qwerty8ytrewq]

Wow, imagine a warehouse or floating ships recycle archive store, that collects your tech, robotically stores it, lists it online, then sells it back to you at low cost. Like Freecycle meets Amazon. Somewhere dry and with cheap land, yet good transport infrastructure would be needed. perhaps the shipbreaking yards in Pakistan could branch into this industry.

Whatever.

[tarsi210]

These people have clearly not visited my house. Or any of the houses of the other geeks I hang with. Come back when you have 100+ machines in a single basement and we'll talk.

Re:Whatever.

[flyingfsck]

...but are they all running Linux and serving mail and blogs?

Re:Whatever.

[tarsi210]

Beowulf cluster of Gopher servers, naturally. RAID-6 with 8" floppies.

If it helps, it's really funny to see...

[Anonymous Coward]

... your garbage man scratch his head looking at a ~100lb server the sive of a mini-fridge next to the trash can before he throws it in the truck. And then it's even funnier to see him try to pick up the heavy duty contractor cleanup bag that he didn't know was full of old 3GB SCSI drives. It's totally worth it, just be sure to hide while you watch him so he doesn't see you laughing.

Re:If it helps, it's really funny to see...

[jvin248]

You probably had $100 in scrap aluminum (high grade casting type) that sits under a pile of dirt now - that might do better as something new.

Re:If it helps, it's really funny to see...

[maxume]

It will likely get recycled at some point in the future.

I used to do this

[Pojut]

Until I realized how much of a pain in the ass it was to move everything. At this point, I'm 26, and likely will only move a couple more times, but when I was younger moving was a fairly normal occurrence...and I definitely didn't want to deal with all that stuff.

Re:I used to do this

[plopez]

I read somewhere that the avg. 'Merican (I am assuming you are one) moves about every 2-3 years. So consider that. Moving a couple of times is prob. a low estimate. I lived so that all I needed fitted into my van until I was in my early 30's, following tech jobs across the country. The bad part was I had *ahem* 3 bicycles (commuter, road, and mountain) and 2 sets of skis.

I used to "rent" furniture from the Salvation Army. I would buy some cheap, but nice looking and serviceable furniture from them. When I moved again I would return them as a donation. The cost was in the range of 100-200 USD.

HTH. Seriously, I hope it does help you.

Re:I used to do this

[Skuld-Chan]

34 - moved like 9 times now :( aren't IT layoffs fun? I am guilty of this pc hording thing too. I still have my Amiga 4000 and all of its accessories... I really should get rid of it.

I still have all my Mac stuff (G4 powerbook, cube etc etc) which I never use.

Re:I used to do this

[mcgrew]

When my marriage broke up and I lost the house, I had a half dozen computers and a whole bunch of other stuff. I moved into a tiny apartment with my then-teenaged daughter, and left most of it at the old house the bank was taking. First, there just wasn't room (I had to rent a storage shed for the stuff I did keep), and second, moving all my junk just became too painful. I still have all (well, most) of my cables, though, and the woman who's staying with me now bitches because I'm a hoarder.

Re:I used to do this

[raygundan]

Don't let that lack of moving frequency let you think it's not going to be a pain. I did the same thing-- but believe me, the first time you do a full-house move with a grownup-sized house and a ten-year hoard of junk, you'll seriously regret it.

Also, that's how i learned that people on ebay will buy ANYTHING, and that you're probably wasting a ton of money by letting a bunch of crap sit around in your garage/closet. Hell, I found a half-inch stack of vintage Apple "rainbow" logo stickers-- which i sold one at a time for about $4 each. Made more than $100 on those alone. Sell your junk. You'll have the cash on hand for that one time in fifty where you end up actually needing something you cleared out, and you'll get a new one that isn't covered in mouse turds from sitting in your basement.

Re:I used to do this

[azmodean 1]

Yea, my first major move after college I ditched all the inoperative stuff (which was most of it), but now I'm maintaining a more streamlined and "useful" collection, the star of which is the AS800 I got from a friend for helping him move. It's probably going to be the firewall and misc network stuff box once I get around to configuring it properly. Had to spend about a week of evenings learning to speak AlphaBIOS getting it bootstrapped, haven't had time since then to make it do anything useful.

So very guilty and not sure why

[Sabalon]

I have so much junk around and in the attic. My old gateway from 1992 is up there. The PC we got back in 86 is up there. Part of it is sentimental value. Part of it is "hey...I may get bored and fire that up" someday. It has of course yet to happen, but you never know when a VLB video card will be needed. Or I may need to get data off that old MFM drive.

Part of it is the initial cost of the stuff makes it hard to get rid of. Part of it is knowing that it's not good for the landfill. But my wife says most of it is my nature, given you can also find toys from when I worked at Burger King in the 80's up there as well. Sigh.

Re:So very guilty and not sure why

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that, Sir, is a ID # to be proud of.

Re:So very guilty and not sure why

[Pentium100]

That's nice... I don't have a lot of stuff (for some values of "a lot"), but all of my friends know that before they (or someone they know) throw out an old device (especially old audio equipment - tape recorders etc) they should call me and most of the time I take it.

The oldest working computer device that I have is a dot matrix printer made in ~1985 (Robotron CM 6329.01M), I use it as a backup if my primary printer (also old, but not that old HP PSC 2500CM) stops working. I also have an old MFM hard drive, but somebody took out a chip before giving it to me, so I think that some day I'll buy a Microscience HH725 hard drive, connect the electronics card to the one I have and try to pull out the data.

And my saying is "empty space is wasted space", for now there is enough air outside, so I do not need to stash it inside my house...

Re:So very guilty and not sure why

[MrNiceguy_KS]

Yeah, he's been hoarding that for years too.

value

[leomekenkamp]

It would be interesting to find out if the reason why some of us are so attached to old hardware just might be that it was not long ago that that hardware was mind boggingly expensive. My brother sometimes took a IBM model 5155 home and let me play nethack on it. At that time you could buy a nice car for that money instead of such a beast.

More than 10 years later I got my hands on one of these, but sadly parted with it under the influence of my wife at the time. (Yup, we divorced.). Seeing a picture of it still fills me with awe thinking how expensive this machine once was. Maybe that awe combined with a but-it-still-works attitude makes us think twice about throwing such stuff away?

Re:value

[Anonymous Coward]

Economists call it the endowment effect.

Re:value

[biza0re2]

I upgraded a Compaq luggable, http://oldcomputers.net/compaqi.html to Linux once. I found a pentium motherboard that could handle the ISA video card and fit in the weird form factor. It still works even.

Re:value

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also the fear of those rare occasions where either something breaks, or you need to access something old, and then the part you need isn't there and it'll take time and money to make things right again. This kind of event only needs to happen to you once, and from there on, you end up hanging on to a lot of old hardware just in case.

It's not quite the same as the kind of hoarding disorders you see on TV - you aren't actively going out buying more all the time. It's just a gradual accumulation of outdated hardware. The instinct to hold on to that stuff is reinforced by 1) sometimes something really does break, and you're saved a bunch of pain by being able to swap in an older but good-enough part 2) sometimes a friend's stuff breaks, and you're able to save them a bunch of pain by temporarily fixing it. Having enough parts to throw together pretty much an entire last-generation loaner PC has been helpful from time to time. Actually, I've got one such box loaned out right now.

What separates us from the truly deranged is (hopefully) the ability to prune our collection of spare parts every few years, or whenever we're low on space; to recognize which parts we really DON'T need anymore and get rid of them. Paring the pile back down to a few things still worth keeping another five years, and a few with nostalgia value. Like, I've still got a few sticks of each type of RAM I've used since the 386 era, because it's small enough that it isn't a burden to save, and it's kinda neat to have examples of the progression side by side. But most of the machines the older RAM went with are gone, and in the next pass I'll probably be dumping all the (very few remaining) ISA cards, 95% of the floppy disks, the cables for which I no longer have any devices that either end fits in, and so on.

Re:value

[qwerty8ytrewq]

Yes! I regularly find myself looking twice at ruined CDRS lying on the road- just because a few years ago, anything on CD cost $30 or more........Plus there is the steampunk chic appeal of the old stuff, you can see how it works/was made

I don't hoard, I repurpose

[gman003]

Old busted CRT monitor? Toss out the innards, use it as a stylish bookshelf.

Box of PCI slot covers? Bookmarks. Busted PC speaker? Rip out the electronics, flip it upside down, use it as a coin bank.

I do this all the time. You'd be surprised what you can do.

Re:I don't hoard, I repurpose

[maxume]

...if you like the look of industrial plastic.

It is nice to know that I am not losing the battle to throw things away as badly as some others.

Re:I don't hoard, I repurpose

[ColdWetDog]

Old busted CRT monitor? Toss out the innards, use it as a stylish bookshelf.
Box of PCI slot covers? Bookmarks. Busted PC speaker? Rip out the electronics, flip it upside down, use it as a coin bank.

Behold. The prototypical Slashdotter. The only contact he has with women is when mom tells him that dinner is ready.

Rejoice in your tiny, warm world. It will get lots more complicated.

Re:I don't hoard, I repurpose

[sznupi]

Did you really use "stylish" in there?... O_o (also, you probably wanted to write "blood-stained bookmarks")

Re:I don't hoard, I repurpose

[Anonymous Coward]

Behold. The prototypical angry suburban fat married man. The only contact with joy is when he remembers he was once young.

Rejoice in your tiny, hateful world. Only people as miserable and joyless as you are "adults".

Now who will save the world?

[2obvious4u]

NO! I can't throw away my old Token Ring cards and cables! What happens when the world goes post apocalyptic and I have to connect to a legacy system to save the world from Skynet? I need all my old devices it is our only hope!

Re:Now who will save the world?

[Anonymous Coward]

Skynet will plug a single 4Mb/s card in, the whole ring will slow down from 16Mb/s to accommodate it, and you'll spend all fucking day running around the building trying to find it.

(Wow, I'm old.)

Re:Now who will save the world?

[petermgreen]

One of the many disadvantages (along with reliability) of networks that directly connect end devices together.

Thank god for modern switched ethernet.

Re:Now who will save the world?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, throw it away. It's useless: In all likelihood you've already lost the token.

Re:Now who will save the world?

[azmodean 1]

Wow, you've come up with a pretty workable plot device that will unfortunately never be used because only geeks will get it...

Even though you can do the same thing today by connecting to some 802.11 access points with an old wireless card... but still only geeks wil get it.

first sign of trouble

[jp102235]

The first sign of trouble is when you said/thought, at least I am not as bad as X. oh goodness.
The second sign: an intervention by way of watching a tv show devoted to your disease.
Take it from a former hoarder: just throw everything away (donate, trash, etc). There are way
more important things in life than, well, "things". Once you start spending as much time, energy,
and care for the people in and around your life, I doubt you will ever hoard again.

-sent from my cray-

Re:first sign of trouble

[Reservoir Penguin]

I hope you realize that people are more important than things is just your point of view. There is enough room in the world for different kind of personalities. If Perelman believes that abstract ideas are more important than people AND things I say more power to him. I personally find it offensive when someone tells me to just get a girlfriend or just get outside.

Re:first sign of trouble

[jp102235]

I totally agree, let me quote myself:
'There are way more important things in life than, well, "things". '
ideas, theories, science, politics are all worthwhile (among many others), although it is presumptive of me to decide for anyone else what is important.
I will step out on the limb and say that, unless you are a museum curator, art dealer, or collector of rare, storied, artifacts, "things" are a bit less meaningful to devote your life to. having said that, has anyone seen my stapler? -sent from my cray-

I think I'll recycle some stuff when I get home

[Peter Simpson]

Thanks for the inspiration.

- trying not to leave my kids with the bill for a 30 cu yd dumpster

Surely you jest... this is hoarding?

[JPerler]

My office

My basement (pt1)
(pt2)

I bet we can do a lot better than these rank amateurs. Rally, Slashdot!

Murphy's Law

[symes]

applies in this case. It states that an item's usefullness increases ten-fold as soon as it is thrown away. Hoarding is only natural.

Re:Murphy's Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone else noticed accusations of hoarding coming from their other half, the same one who has a wardrobe full of clothes and shoes she's worn maybe once or twice but can't throw out, y'know, just in case?

Re:Murphy's Law

[Anonymous Coward]

But if you don't throw it away you'll never need it.

Re:Murphy's Law

[stacybro]

Problem is that it only increases AFTER it is thrown away. Until you do that it is an almost useless piece of junk.

Re:Murphy's Law

[doogledog]

Maybe you have to make a big show of pretending to throw stuff away. Maybe in front of some other, more modern hardware. That'll trick 'em!

Re:Murphy's Law

[santax]

Speaking of which, I just got a letter from her lawyer. The divorce is final!

Re:Murphy's Law

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Speaking of which, I just got a letter from her lawyer. The divorce is final!

Hold on to the letter, it might be worth something someday....

Re:Murphy's Law

[Just Some Guy]

It states that an item's usefullness increases ten-fold as soon as it is thrown away. Hoarding is only natural.

To a point, yeah. But I've gotten to where I keep last-generation equipment, cables, etc., but pitch anything older. I can imagine needing a parallel cable or an IDE ribbon, but the AUI transceiver went out the door. I'll keep memory as old as PC-133 for the benefit of my kids' Athlon 1.4GHz PC, but SIMMs get trashed. I can imagine finding a use for a 100GB hard drive (like using a USB adapter with it to move gigs of music from home to work), but that 4GB UW SCSI drive gets used for target practice.

I think that's what separates me from a hoarder: I have a (reasonable, containable) stash of relatively recent hardware that gets handed out to friends who need more memory or an emergency replacement hard drive. Anything truly out-of-date gets tossed or recycled.

Re:Murphy's Law

[uncle slacky]

Mine hoards old sewing machines (really old, usually hand- or foot-cranked Singers). We have a deal - I'll throw out my old computers when she throws out her old sewing machines.

I suspect eventually we'll convert the attic into a shared display space for both types of obsolete tech.

I do the opposite of hoarding

[vikingpower]

Every two years, I throw all my computer stuff away - or sell or recycle it, having shrubbed the hdds, then buy the latest stuff. Keeps the house tidy.

Re:I do the opposite of hoarding

[Anonymous Coward]

Every two years, I throw all my computer stuff away - or sell or recycle it, having shrubbed the hdds, then buy the latest stuff.

Keeps the house tidy.

Do you shrub your drives in your front or back yard? Do they require much maintenance to keep them looking nice?

Re:I do the opposite of hoarding

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Your sick!

Re:I do the opposite of hoarding

[mrdoogee]

I like to arrange them next to each other—only with one slightly higher, so you get a two-level effect with a little path running down the middle.

Re:I do the opposite of hoarding

[Limburgher]

A path, a path!

I needed that...

[decipher_saint]

Whew! You know when I think about all the boxes full of crapola I've hoarded over the years it reminds me that I should just send that stuff to the electronics recycling centre instead of having it take up my precious living space.

The small stuff

[hessian]

In my electronics box I found:

* Disk labels for an Apple ][e
* PC/XT to PS/2 keyboard converters
* PS/2 to USB keyboard converters
* A 14.4k modem
* A chip extractor tool
* A laplink cable

Archaic, but small enough to overlook for another decade. I put it all back of course.

Re:The small stuff

[vilms]

Yup. In my hallway, now stashed APART from the pile of stuff I keep meaning to put on the street with a sign that says "works! please take me!" is a Mode32 floppy disk. This Connectix software "cleaned" the dirty ROMs in early Macintosh II systems, enabling them to address more than 8MB RAM. I can't throw it away. Because, you know, I might need it again.

Re:The small stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I use a PS/2 keyboard, you insensitive clod!

That's not hoarding...

[Chelloveck]

Bah. Pikers! Look at those photos, you can clearly see the floor in some of them! No tech hoarder worthy of the title still has a visible floor.

Re:That's not hoarding...

[alan_dershowitz]

No kidding, that collection is for babby. I've got old SGIs laying around, stacks of ZIP drives, spare scanners (3) in case I need them, about eight laptops, eight different kinds of Macs, including a working SE with SCSI network adapter(!) I've got two RS-6000's that are too expensive to run. About ten towers of various builds. I've got a Windows NT4-Alpha machine for kicks.

My friends bring their friends over to stare in awe at the fruits of a life wasted on old junk, and that's not even to speak of the video game collection :-)

Re:That's not hoarding...

[mikael_j]

Well, some of us make sure to "forget" large chunks of our collections in our parents' garage every time we move (just make sure there's a gap of a few days between moving out from your old place and moving in to your new place, your parents will happily let you put your stuff in the garage "over the weekend"). And despite this sneaky move I still have a 10 m^2 storage room connected to my apartment that's a deathtrap due to all the stuff I've piled in there.

The only problem with my storage method is that I occasionally spend a few hours going through the pile I have at home only to realize that I left the Indigo^2 workstations in my parents' garage and I'll have to ask them to ship one to me.

Just mention "shoes"

[petes_PoV]

and the conversation will magically change direction, though you'll be even deeper in the doghouse

Re:Just mention "shoes"

[jellomizer]

You do realize clothing designers rummage threw the trash to make popular whatever statistics show that people throw out in a significant amount.

Re:Just mention "shoes"

[vilms]

Are you serious? Or is this some setup for an introduction to Derelicte?
OKAY! I'LL BITE!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoolander

IBM System/36

[Foxxxy]

I recently was forced to part with my old IBM System 36 and corresponding hard drive that was 350lbs and the size of a dishwasher. The system 36 was the original 700lb model 5630. They were used as end tables but didn't fit with my wife's tastes. I am proud to say that I was able to get the box up, with connected terminal and actually pulled data off of it (printed) in 2005. I was challenged by some friends to make it work to show it could still be put to use and damn it, the yellow paged manuals I still had made it easy.

My tech hoarding earned me some extra income as I won the bet making it work. So don't throw it out, your tech buddies will pay good money to watch you fight with 20 year old tech.

Toxic waste

[plopez]

Considering that much of tech gadgets contain toxic waste, usually in the form of heavy metals, reusing them as furniture isn't a bad idea. It beats dumping them into a landfill or paying for recycling.

The tech industry is a filthy industry. Esp. when you factor in the planned obsolescence.

Re:Toxic waste

[Sqweegee]

The problem with the hoarder I work with is half of the reason he keeps most of his junk is to reclaim the rare metals through half baked schemes. Any chance to get mercury from smashing old thermometers and any circuit board with gold or silver plated contacts and he's all over that.

It doesn't help that the hoarding is partially enabled through work in the guise of keeping spare items to maintain some of our out dated equipment. Last year while he was on vacation we cleaned out a "storage room" and disposed of about 3500 cubic feet of electronics. We still regularly come across old PCs hidden behind lab bench panels, circuit boards above ceiling tiles.

He should retire soon, but what's going to happen to the tons (litereally!) of junk he has stashed at home or at the cottage when he eventually passes on. At least the stuff at work we have the ability to dispose of properly.

Re:Toxic waste

[Monkeedude1212]

Some old processors have a lot of copper in the heat sinks. On the London Metal Exchange looks to be about 3.5 dollars a pound.

You can usually get a good price for those, and the rare earth magnets in hard drives also sell for a pretty penny.

Re:Toxic waste

[xaxa]

You can usually get a good price for those, and the rare earth magnets in hard drives also sell for a pretty penny.

Where would I be able to sell them? I have a few (10 or so), and I'm not really interested in keeping them.

Re:Toxic waste

[Monkeedude1212]

Ebay is a good place to start. TradeKey and a few others are fine. I mean you might get lucky with Craigslist or Kijiji.

Best way is to find these kinds of auction sites, and put just 1 up on as many as possible. Whichever one sells first is where you put the rest, or if you're lucky, they'll all sell, and you'll be able to rinse-repeat with your remaining. Just be carefull not to post the whole lot on many sites, should more than one bid start on 2 different sites and you can't fill both orders.

Re:Toxic waste

[nizo]

Does he have a large vehicle, and is he willing to come over and pick things up??? Sure, all these have valuable metals in them!

Re:Toxic waste

[Anonymous Coward]

So, using toxic waste as your furniture is a good idea, I see.

Ive got a pirate Hoard! Arrrrr!

[qwerty8ytrewq]

Finally I feel like a proper pirate, http://www.technewsworld.com/story/47895.html?wlc=1271864089 , collecting a valuable (?), (not any more) hoard of musical loot on the high seas in cool boots.

This has nothing on the soft arts.

[bregmata]

Try googling for "yarn stash" or "fabric stash." These people have had centuries of established practice. There is an entire industry dedicated to catering to the guilt these people have.

The clever entrepreneur will look at tech stash hoarders and see opportunitie$.

If anyone is going through their stack right now

[Yvan256]

Please be on the lookout for this old soundcard (Innovation SSI 2001), as well as AdLib Gold (or its echo/reverb modules), anything by Covox (especially Sound Master 1, Speech Thing), Roland (MT-32, CM-32L, CM-64, LAPC-1), and the old Creative Game Blaster.

I'd buy the SSI 2001 and AdLib Gold modules, the rest should still be a pretty easy sell on eBay.

If you have anything that can be classified as "Sound Blaster or compatible", it's not worth anything unless of course you want to use it yourself in an old system to play old games.

I try not to hoard...

[spammacus]

... but I don't actually know how to dispose of the equipment properly. So it lingers in my closet.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have civic amenity sites/household waste recycling centre or whatever they are called where you live? Around here they take old computer junk free of charge. Only "downside" is you have to take it to them and throw it in the right container or they'll start screaming :D

Partial Reinforcement

[BlueBoxSW.com]

Any psych-turned-CS person will tell you that the hardest behaviors to break are partial reinforcement.

Behaviors that don't pay off all the time, but sometimes do.

Anyone who has saved hours of time by pulling out an obscure manual from the bottom of a pile, or recovered data with the help of a rare connector type from the junk closet, is getting partially reinforced.

And therefore, will continue to collect.

Re:Partial Reinforcement

[Cocoronixx]

Any psych-turned-CS person will tell you that the hardest behaviors to break are partial reinforcement.

Behaviors that don't pay off all the time, but sometimes do.

Anyone who has saved hours of time by pulling out an obscure manual from the bottom of a pile, or recovered data with the help of a rare connector type from the junk closet, is getting partially reinforced.

And therefore, will continue to collect.

...and maybe that is because it is a valid behaviour?

Re:Partial Reinforcement

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's not valid because they forget the greater majority of time that the stuff is in the way and of no use. Saving a large pile of junk just to hope to have a use for it isn't very useful. That's how these hoarders get started. As the piles grow, they can't find anything so they get new stuff, even if it's the same. I helped a friend try to end hoarding. In the end we found they owned several of the same thing just because the others were at the bottom of a pile.

Re:Partial Reinforcement

[SleazyRidr]

It a cost-benefit thing.

Keeping a few things that you might need is sensible. Keeping everything you've ever had isn't.

Re:Partial Reinforcement

[greed]

Right; if I give something away, I know I'm going to need it in the next 6 to 12 months.

I gave away my last AGP video card a couple of years back. 4 weeks later, my fileserver went down with bad capacitors on its AGP video card.

I gave away my solderless breadboards. I've since had to replace them....

Power supplies... RAM DIMMs... you name it.

(Part of this is because I'm the fix-it guy for a small start-up and all my friends, especially the ones with "restricted finances" let's say.)

Anything that's truly not needed, I can't give away: QIC 150 SCSI tape drive, for example, or 3X CD-ROM caddy-loading drives.

So I'll stick with organizing things instead of trying to get rid of them. If I do get a new technology X, it's best to try and sell the old one right away. Don't wait a year or two until it's beyond obsolete, but not a classic.

Re:Partial Reinforcement

[raygundan]

Do none of you people ever use ebay? I don't know your exact model, but QIC 150MB SCSI tape drives are going for like $180 on ebay right now. Don't tell me your time to put it in a box and ship it isn't worth $180. I didn't see a 3X caddy CD-ROM, but caddy drives range from $15-$80.

Somebody will buy ANYTHING. And you'll find that although you have a few things that sell for $2+shipping, you'll also probably have a few that end up getting bid up to $300 inexplicably. It's never what you expect.

I've only once failed to sell a piece of junk on ebay, and it sold on the second try. I've even succeeded selling things like "broken 12-year-old Palm PDA with smashed screen" and "grab bag of random cables i found in my garage, untested". Sell in batches, so that you only have to go to the post office once.

Re:Partial Reinforcement

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't tell me your time to put it in a box and ship it isn't worth $180.

Personally I hate shipping stuff and it always takes more time than I expect. You also aren't including the time spent creating a listing and dealing with the customer. If you enjoy that stuff (many people do), then it's a fun and profitable hobby. I'd rather be doing other things, so it is a waste of my time. I just drop the stuff off at Goodwill and it there's profit to be made at least it goes to a good cause.

Hans Reiser . . . is that you . . . ?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Isn't that what sunk Hans Reiser's excuse for chucking out the back seat of his car?

I saw some guy on the TV who said, "What a lie! Everyone knows that geeks *never* throw anything away. Even if it is broken and useless!"

He should have followed that up with, "Tip the veal! Try the waitress . . . etc."

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[tixxit]

At many of the garbage dumps here they have a section for computers that they will sort through and donate to schools/kids.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[NJRoadfan]

Took out the hard drives... maybe... maybe... I'll mount them and extract them.

Took out the memory (???? who is going to use the old memory- why did I do that?)

A good Ask Slashdot... how does one quickly and securely wipe a pile of hard drives? As for the old memory, one can make money on it if their timing is right. Good old Rambus RAM sold for a pretty penny when the 5 people still using those machines wanted more RAM.

I am not a hoarder

[rossz]

I don't have all that much computer equipment. Just five 1U servers, a 2U server, my old machine that was replaced by by new machine, my laptop, a few switches and routers, a butt-load of network cables, a bunch of spare power cables, a couple of UPSes, and 170 SCSI drives (73G, 15K RPM).

PowerMac G5 towers

[Weedhopper]

Still sell for quite a bit on eBay/Craigslist.

I've taken a couple old PM cases, gutted them, hacked in modern components and had some funny reactions from Apple guys.

I think I'm going to try it again, only this time, I want to change the finish from alu to gold or bronze to fit in more with Art Nouveau/Deco style of projects I've been going with. Anyone got any ideas how to do that?

Re:PowerMac G5 towers

[Anonymous Coward]

Have them anodized at a specialist shop.

Re:PowerMac G5 towers

[qwerty8ytrewq]

metallic spray paint. or... DIY anodising (just fill the bath with an electrolytic solution of your choice and hook the case up to a voltage with the other end attached to your favourite metal anode.)

University Labs

[seven of five]

For true tales of tech-hoarding horror, look to your local university.

I spent the past year clearing two physics spaces out. Forty years worth of leaky vacuum pumps, x-ray transformers, copper, stainless steel, botched and long-forgotten projects, a Heathkit PDP-8 rack, Hercules graphics cards....

more than a roomful

[Anonymous Coward]

My 10x12 office is like a shrine to lost tech, or rather several shrines, piled on top of or next to each other. (~300 cu ft.) In my wife's "area", more tech takes up a whole wall, floor to ceiling, plus an entire 5-shelf unit on another wall filled with empty boxes and packing material, gathered back when I was thinking of selling some of this stuff.. (~150 cu ft.) In the workshop, more tech is piled floor to ceiling, 3' deep, next to the furnace (~100 cu ft.). I probably could fit all the extra stuff in my office, but then I would have to lose about 150 lbs. so I could squeeze through to my desk. (I would then weigh about 50 lbs.)

Running machines: ~4
Runable machines: ~10
Parts machines: ~4

Oldest: Timex Sinclair 1000 (ready to ship! bo)
Newest: EFIKA running MorphOS

My solution against hoarding

[houghi]

I just give away/sell/trow away everything I have not used in two years. Clothes, computer parts, all the same. I have given away my C64 and made somebody else happy. My old openSUSE boxed sets go in the bin as soon as I get another. I this get rid of about 95% of the stuff I have. The other 5% are things I mostly keep for decoration. CDs, DVDs and books are among that.
And yes, there will be some other exceptions. But all in all, I just get rid of stuff I do not need anymore.

Once a year I do a serious clean up and see what I can get rid of. The thing that was hard to learn was what to do when you are not sure. I have learned that the best thing is to get rid of it. I rather go and try to buy a new coax end then having all that stuff still around.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[DMUTPeregrine]

Take the platters out and go to town with a sledgehammer/sandpaper.

Retrocomputing!

[RedMage]

I agree that throwing old hardware all over the room is excessive, but some of us "collect" these old machines. I collect them for a mixture of history and as a way to remind myself "Don't do THAT again!" I even write about them and their history: http://codeslave9000.blogspot.com/ for anyone interested in following along at home. Parts is parts, but keeping old machines in running order is much more challenging and rewarding.

Amateurs...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got half a basement full of Apple II's and pre-PowerPC Macs. Why? Because at one point I wanted each and every machine and was too poor to be able to afford to buy them. So when I had the money ($5) I skipped lunch and bought the machine I wanted.

I love Silicon Valley... especially Weird Stuff.. ;)

It gets better...

[Angst Badger]

My favorite is the guy using a stack of 9 VA rack machines as an end table.

The best part is that if you look past the stack of machines he's using as an end table, you'll see the original wooden end table shoved ignominiously into the corner.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Firethorn]

how does one quickly and securely wipe a pile of hard drives?

In my area that's a 'fun trip to the rifle range' A few holes through the platter and you're good.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Minwee]

they give you a $10 gift card to use in the store as well - so it is a wash.

No, it sounds to me like you're still out $10.

recursive junk storage

[captbob2002]

I've been hanging onto an AT&T 9-track tape drive (and a few 3B2/600s) for more than a decade now. At least the 9-track cabinet is big enough to store all the other crap inside.

If nothing else it is fun to mount a 9-track tape and scare the kiddies with the spinning wheels and whoosh of the blowers.

I might use the tape enclosure as a garden shed someday.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[TheRecklessWanderer]

I know if I hold onto these SIPPs long enough I'll find a use for them eventually.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[golem100]

Given that my significant other is moving in with me, some "adjustments" have been made to my single-Engineer lifestyle.. This past week I delivered unto the philistine clutches of the local Electronics Recycler: Six Amiga 1200 Computers; [14 MHz MC68EC020/2MB/120MB EIDE HDD] Four Amiga 3000 Computers; [16 and 25 MHz MC68030/18MB/105 to 400 MB SCSI HDD's] Two Amiga 4000 Computers; [25 MHz MC68040/18MB/250MB SCSI HDD's] Five Amiga 4000T PCBA's; Two VideoToasters; 1 Moniterm Monitor; 40 SCSI HDD's; [of various generations--including an originally USD$4000 Maxtor "Magic" 1.2GB] 10 UHD-FDD's; [1.76MB 3.5"] Two DC250 SCSI Tape Drives; [and about 100 Tapes--incl. the contents of every Amiga Pirate BBS in USA circa 1992] One Irwin FDD-interface tape drive; [another dozen or so tapes] One Microtek 4800dpi SCSI Flat-bed Scanner; About a dozen PC Motherboards--VLB, PCI, and expansion boards--a bunch of Adaptec SCI host adapters going back to ISA; Three Northgate Omni-Ultra Keyboards; A box of "Cherry" ERGO Keyboards; a couple of EGA Monitors; and about 20 tubes of 4Mbit Flash Memory that I paid USD$70/pc for!!! The Commodore SX64 stays! What's left? Mostly Engineering documentation--Schematics, BOM's, Service Manuals--and plus a couple of functioning CDTV's, an A1000 and a A2500HD... [and the video game collection from hell...I've got any GameStop seriously beat!] Sigh.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Anonymous Coward]

A good Ask Slashdot... how does one quickly and securely wipe a pile of hard drives?

3/8" Power Drill. No better, quicker way.

Which is more responsible

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Now my wife has a different opinion of course, but it seems to me that keeping your clutter around you self limits your acquisitions of more clutter. Those people that buy, use discard, buy use discard are filling up the common landfills with toxic waste whereas I keep my toxic waste close at hand and out of the ground water.

I do have several Sinclair 1000 systems and a few 5 1/4 drives and maybe a few computers that can use them. But I think my wife got my box of punch cards and tossed them. I am still trying to forgive her for that. Individual punch cards are fetching a good price. My Master thesis in cards might just pay for my tuition back then. IBM Selectric, wired for computure control anyone?

An uncluttered house just means a cluttered landfill, out of sight out of mind, but not out of ground water.

        Viva Nostalgia.

Re:Which is more responsible

[xaxa]

I have a box of stuff waiting for me to take it to the recycling centre. It's not as if it's difficult to get to (I love the name: Smuggler's Way, London -- now where they load rubbish onto barges). But it does feel incredibly pointless to take a trip to the dump, so it has to wait until I happen to be going past with time for a little detour.

(Having said that, I don't buy much stuff. My phone is three years old, when my PSU+motherboard broke a few months ago I only replaced the motherboard/CPU/PSU/RAM, my brother has my decade-old laptop controlling his school technology project. I generally don't buy fresh fruit/vegetables in packaging if there's an option, although that's more because then the waste bin fills up too fast with plastic trays and boxes and that's inconvenient.)

I wish...

[sootman]

I've got as much crap laying around as anyone but I do wish I had one more piece--a big purple SGI deskside, I think like this one that really would have been a perfect end table. Unfortunately, I didn't have room for it at the time it was available, and by the time I did, the guy who had it moved away and the machine had been tossed.

Digital hoarder

[bobdotorg]

I've been moving around quite a bit for the past five years - I teach internationally and live on what I can fit in two checked bags and a carry-on. And this includes a bicycle.

I've managed to shed nearly all of my tech equipment that's not currently in use - I'm down to laptop, monitor and a small gym bag of cables, media, and crap.

However, when measured digitally, I've become quite the hoarder, with about 10 TB of crap split between my four 2.5" external HD's (Now in 1TB!), and a video server I run for an old roommate.

At one point (2006) I had about four years of 'The Daily Show' in my collection.

Until 2008 I never deleted an email, and then, only spam.

At about the same time I stopped saving / archiving everything downloaded into my browser downloads folder.

Not to mention every application / utility installer file dating back to 1988. Apple's switch to Intel chips finally allowed me to delete those archives.

I know that there are many out there who are much worse.

But using the typical metric of 'hoarder', I'm hardly a blip.

Re:Digital hoarder

[Dogtanian]

Thing is, that digital hoarding isn't really a major issue in terms of space, given the way that storage has grown (and still is growing). It's only a problem if it's important data and you want to keep it backed up or you can't find what you want.

And "every application / utility installer file dating back to 1988"? If you can store on some arbitrary medium- rather than being tied to the original disc or whatever- then some of those older files are going to take a miniscule amount of space by modern standards. I mean, you could store in the ballpark of a million 3.5" floppies' worth on a modern terabyte hard drive, and they're not always full.

I don't keep every email purely and simply because I know that I'll never need most of it and it's easier if I just keep what's important rather than searching. But if I *was* inclined that way, I'd probably be able to get away with a half decent method of searching my emails.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Maxo-Texas]

The amiga was awesome.

My first computer virus

Tank Wars

I wrote and sold a game for it (made about $900).

Played endless hours of Battletech (so sweet-- and the new versions do not duplicate the experience- they always get their egos involved and try to make it "better" and drop something that was cool for something which is stupid). We made our own mechs, had our own fleets, had our own pilots and occasionally watched them die on a failed eject. Played ridiculous numbers of games of hours and hours and hours.

I should of been on this...

[Muffinmix]

When I was deeply depressed, I started hoarding computer parts and racks... In the hay day of it all I have 5 Sparc 5 servers as a stand for a Sun 21" monitor (55-70lbs) a Honeywell Bull terminal and hundreds of burnt out or blown up pieces from old machines stacks of hard drives... Craziness. But it's all gone now.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[phantomcircuit]

Took out the memory (???? who is going to use the old memory- why did I do that?)

Old memory can actually be fairly valuable since they don't manufacture it anymore. I recently sold a 64MB DDR SO-DIMM for $25.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Anonymous Coward]

Also note: BB does NOT accept hard drives (including internal to notebooks or desktops - must be removed first)! Not clear why - any ideas? I figure liability issues with PII (Personally Identifiable Info) and/or some specially toxic components?

RO

Guilty as Charged.

[DarthVain]

I would suspect most tech folks have to some degree or another hoarding of old technology.

I know myself I have an embarrassing amount of crap I should throw away.

I think I have an IPC Pentium I 120Mhz system, a Dell PIII 800 system, and a custom built BP6 dual 466Mhz Celerons. I am sure other people have a lot more.

What is worse is all the crap that goes along with that. Cables, spare parts, etc... About the only rational for keeping them is because you still have the systems. Some of the stuff isn't even compatible technology anymore. I know I was cleaning out some of my Dad's tech junk telling him what to keep and what to toss, and was laughing at him for having 51/4" floppy disks still as well as an old serial keyboard, until I realized that I probably have a serial keyboard as well for my old Pentium system myself.

Some are curiosities, that are just unnecessary anymore, like a 4 port Hub NIC, or like an FM PCI card (FM radio for your PC!)... Probably worse is the hundreds and hundreds of floppy disks and CD's now, that I have absolutely no intention of trying to figure out what is on them all. Likely Pirated games from the mid 90's...

Maybe this spring I will try and dump the really old stuff like the Pentium and friends... The BP6 I got to keep around because it is still pretty cool, and can run a decent Linux still. I know a couple of years ago I went through my hard drives to see what was still working, and was surprised that some had died while not even in use anymore. However I remember I still had a tank of a HD, a 6GB fujitsu drive that just refuses to die. Kind of useless seeing as I can get a thumb drive bigger than that for like 10$ but whatever...

Sun Ultra Enterprise 4000

[Pop69]

Highly recommend these, make brilliant coffee tables.

My one even functioned as a computer last time I tried powering it up

NASA needs it

[daemonenwind]

The Hubble telescope runs off Intel 486 chips.

I remember reading somewhere that NASA scours resale shops for electronics to keep the shuttle flying.

You never know, hoarding could mean you have the "Right Stuff" for space exploration.

Re:NASA needs it

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, I just refuse to believe that NASA gets so little support from everyone that they have to buy -used- processors for the space shuttle. (Actually, wait, that's actually kinda funny. change of plans - I believe you)

Re:NASA needs it

[petermgreen]

IIRC it was only ground support equipment that they were using used parts in, not the shuttle itself.

Obsolescence is a BIG problem when you try and keep a electronic system running for that many years with minimal changes.

Donate old software to NSRL

[dwhite20899]

If the fit ever takes anyone to make room for newer items, and you need to shift old software out of the way, think of donating it to the National Software Reference Library. We'll even pay the shipping. You'll be helping a unique resource.

Cleanliness

[Thyamine]

It seems like cleanliness is the real decider. If you keep things organized, and maybe even labeled, people seem less inclined to complain or see it as a problem . If you have stuff shoved in a closet, or all over the floor, or just stacked randomly in the order that they entered your closet... well that's when it's a problem.

MegaGuilty

[bloosh]

I have a small garage in my house that I converted to a man/tech/beer/doctor who cave. No, I don't live with my parents.

It contains (mostly on wire rack shelving):

My Linux machine and iBook.

And old iMac I just picked up. Works.

5 Apple //e computers, an Apple II+, two Apple IIgs machines, three monitors for the machines, an assortment of floppy drives, craploads of floppies, and boxes of parts including cables, various cards, manuals, etc. Most of the hardware is from eBay, some is mine from the 80s. It mostly all works.

A working Commodore 64.

An Atari 2600.

A collection of computer magazines I had in the 80s & 90s.

A collection of my 80s & 90s computer books & manuals. Some I picked up off eBay as well.

A Vector Graphic Vector-1 computer system with manuals a friend's dad built in the late 70s. Doesn't work, but I can't part with it.

Two Magnavox Odyssey2 game systems. One is mine from 1978 and the second from eBay. Both work.

10 old rotary and touch tone phones. 8 work, four are hooked up and working. There's a few more scattered about the house which my wife tolerates.

Plastic crates full of old IBM Model M and other keyboards, assorted cables.

A real IBM AT system board that works.

Beer related stuff.

Doctor Who related stuff. And Star Trek & Star Wars...

What's left of my LP collection and a bunch of CDs.

Over the couple of years few years, I have given away or tossed the following due to needing room because of kids:

2 Mac SE machines. Regret this.

A Lisa 2 that I tossed. Still have the keyboard and a few parts. The electronics were extremely corroded.

Some old desktop 486 boxes.

Two SGI machines. I got rid of a bunch of Sun machines before I moved to this house.

A few hundred LPs that I gave to a collector friend who has about 10,000 LPs.

I think I need help...

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[ikkonoishi]

How does one quickly and securely wipe a pile of hard drives?

Fe2O3+2Al

Classic Restoration

[Anonymous Coward]

Why limit it to, say, cars or houses? I'm still trying to completely option out my mint 1995 Compaq CDS944, waiting to find that external 128k L2 cache at a garage sale somewhere. Part collecting/hoarding increases my odds of trading for that component.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[SleazyRidr]

I was at a party once, and I stepped outside for a phone call. After talking for a few minutes, I realised that I was surrounded by monitors, and just up there were at least 15 boxen. I sometimes feel a little bad about the draw of electrical stuff I still have...

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[hldn]

be sure to salvage the strong magnets out of there as well. they're very useful. i took the two magnets from an old harddrive and used them to make a super strong money clip. it can securely hold 25 bills folded in half (50 layers!)

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Given that my significant other is moving in with me, some "adjustments" have been made to my single-Engineer lifestyle..

This past week I delivered unto the philistine clutches of the local Electronics Recycler:

Six Amiga 1200 Computers; [14 MHz MC68EC020/2MB/120MB EIDE HDD]
Four Amiga 3000 Computers; [16 and 25 MHz MC68030/18MB/105 to 400 MB SCSI HDD's]
Two Amiga 4000 Computers; [25 MHz MC68040/18MB/250MB SCSI HDD's]
Five Amiga 4000T PCBA's;
Two VideoToasters;
1 Moniterm Monitor;

Are you bragging or trying to piss people off? I have an empty shelf in my hoarding room just crying for an A4000 and 1200. I can't even win one on eBay and you're tossing them out....

But you can use some of it

[jmcwork]

I have recycled several systems, upgraded others and always kept the hard drives (personal info paranoia). I took one apart the other day and decided that the three very reflective platters could be arranged to make a great shaving mirror for the shower.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Anonymous Coward]

I must admit, I have a plastic crate of cables. My fiancee, sisters, and mother used to try and convince me to get ride of it, until they saw how useful it was. I should go through and get ride of some of the cables as some I am unlikely to need, but since I bought a house in October I can't think of a month when I didn't go digging in it.

Some hoarding tendencies aren't bad. Just be sure you recognize them and keep them in check. As long as you're a middle ground you're okay. If you start getting to an extreme, then start trying to control things, seek help, or if its not causing any harm you can embrace it.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Atraxen]

Actually, the area people that would still need/use these parts. In my old research group, I was babying a 286/XT switchable computer because its power supply liked to act a bit funky. We had already cobbled together a battery to maintain the BIOS settings (after I spent an entire day of trial and error getting the BIOS to be able to read the hard drive - documentation was lost to the world...) And we were always on the lookout for old computers being tossed from the department to keep flush with 5-1/2 and 3-1/4 drives. And that's just for this one computer - I'm not even bringing up the 386, 486, old Mac, and other tech we had in that lab.

"But why not upgrade to X?" "Oh, that's stupid, the Y is way cheap now!" I can hear some people ramping up to make these comments... Here's why - if it's not broke, don't fix it. And, if we had that $5k handy for the X or Y you're suggesting, we'd rather spend it on something else altogether! Our electronics rack may be replaceable by a $10k digitizing oscilloscope, but not only did our system already work, it could do specialize pulse rejection, finer amplification, etc. But the important part is that it already worked.

So, consider asking your local instrumental/analytical chemist if they need the parts. And if they don't, you can even offer it to the physicists... ;*) Or, I suppose you could start a side business reselling these components to science folks, but then you're going to have to hoard even more, which seems to be the cautionary point of the article.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Maxo-Texas]

At my current pay level $25 is a rounding error. It's not worth my time to capture. I have been offering things for free on craigslist and putting them on the curb. Reuse is preferred to the local dump.

Heck, I put out a $499 yamaha receiver and speakers today (along with a bunch of wiring). The hassle of setting up surround sound on my TV just isn't worth it to me any more. I'm back to the basic stereo sound that comes with the TV (and a lot less wiring running around the base boards of my wood floors).

It's just too easy to become a prisoner of your possessions.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[maxume]

Abrupt physical destruction is likely to be faster, but you probably don't have to worry that much about the secure part, just overwrite them with one of the software tools that says it does that (DBAN seems to get a lot of mentions).

(Recovery shops are very careful not to talk about what they can't do, but if I read the internets right, they can't read through a couple of writes on a modern drive, and even if they can, your data probably isn't worth it)

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Atraxen]

Cardboard box + lobby = happy broke chemist ;*) I agree about simplifying though - I think I finally tossed my Vic-20 in my last move. And boy, do I ever need that audio tape drive daily since ;*)

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Anonymous Coward]

www.freegeek.org

Just make your disability into a resource by institutionalizing it. You're not hoarding if its in a warehouse.

Different direction

[SuperKendall]

NO! I can't throw away my old Token Ring cards and cables! What happens when the world goes post apocalyptic and I have to connect to a legacy system to save the world from Skynet?

I totally thought you were going to say you couldn't just throw the Token Ring cards away because you had to make sure they were disposed of properly in Mt Doom.

Re:Different direction

[MrNiceguy_KS]

That's Tolkien Ring.

Recycling a cradle for an original Palm Pilot

[alanw]

One of the items in the first photo on the website looked rather familiar: the USB cradle for a Handspring Visor. Only yesterday I received a Garmin Geko 301 to replace a 101 after the firmware hit a date related bug[1]. The prices for a serial cable are ridiculous, so after finding some useful hints[2], I decided to make one up myself. An expired British Computer Society membership card was cut up, and I went through my box of old bits to scavenge a 9 pin D serial connector and cable from the docking cradle for an 1997 Palm Pilot Personal.

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/10/garmin_dates/

[2] http://www.jens-seiler.de/etrex/datacable.html

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[SQLGuru]

Goodwill and Dell do some tech recycling, too. Plus, if it can be repurposed, I think Goodwill does that first before dismantling it.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[RESPAWN]

Fe2O3+2Al

Thermite?

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I just bought your HD on eBay. Might want to try disposing somewhere else.

seen this

[TRRosen]

I have friend like that. You might have seen his garage it was featured in the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

My Dad's house looked like Mike Quinn's

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, my Dad's house was starting to look like Mike Quinn's Electronics out in Oakland.

I hauled away two station wagon loads of old AT style PCs and mini-towers, CRTs, and dot-matrix and carriage-wheel printers to his local recycler. And I'm afraid I only made a dent on the bedrooms and hallways. I suspect there is more stuff packed into closets, garage, and rafters. I know there is vintage 50s and 60s electronics and test equipment out there somewhere, though I haven't seen it since I was a kid. And I think there's also stacks of obsolete laptop computers and luggables, which were probably already obsolete when he started buying them as surplus and now are doubly obsolete.

My biggest fear is that if I clear too much of it out, he'll react to the empty space by going on a spending spree and harming his and my Mom's finances to acquire more rubbish.

Re:My Dad's house looked like Mike Quinn's

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former patron of Quinn's (damn, I miss being able to just buy components without having to wait for Digi-Key or having to drive all the way to the South Bay), and while I'm sure nobody'll miss the AT-style PCs and stuff, there's probably some stuff in what's left that's actually worth something to someone.

. I suspect there is more stuff packed into closets, garage, and rafters. I know there is vintage 50s and 60s electronics and test equipment out there somewhere, though I haven't seen it since I was a kid. And I think there's also stacks of obsolete laptop computers and luggables, which were probably already obsolete when he started buying them as surplus and now are doubly obsolete.

Where you wanna go is the Electronics Flea Market in Cupertino.

...as a seller, not a buyer. Talk to whoever walks up, even if you end up giving most of the stuff away, you'll also get an idea as to what, if anything, is worth charging for. (But don't let Dad go. He will buy as much as he sells ;)

Haul it to the Flea Market, and whatever people don't buy (or take for free :), that you can send to the recyclers. (I use ACCRC for my recycling needs, on account of they'll not only recycle the dreck, they'll probably find a cool use for any interesting/vintage parts that happen to show up... or even just build a skull out of old PC motherboards and flat panel displays.)

I dehoarded, and then regretted

[Anonymous Coward]

A few months ago I chucked a bunch of equipment I hadn't touched in nearly a decade. Guess WTF happened: within a few weeks, I needed some of it, and ended up spending money on buying some obsolete crap. Ugh.

Re:I dehoarded, and then regretted

[Anonymous Coward]

In a recent decrapification, I got rid of:

- Various old PDAs
- Parallel port -> SCSI adapter
- Several old broken laptops

I will never need them again, and good riddance.

Oh come on now

[gregthebunny]

You can't lump everyone with large piles of "stuff" into a "hoarding" umbrella. I, for one, have three distinct sets of "tech stuff":

• Spare parts. Anything from the Pentium III-era and up that could be used to repair/replace a friend or family member's existing computer. I often take spare parts on partial trade for work on newer machines.
• Collection. I am a collector of rare and odd technology. A few of my friends collect strange tech as well. We trade amongst ourselves and find things for each other, just like collectors of anything else, like coins or Elvis memorabilia.
• Random crap I should throw away. I'll admit, some of it is hoarding, or just sheer laziness and procrastination. I just need to organize the legitamate spare parts from the junk and throw it all out.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Where there is hoading there is wasting

[NotQuiteReal]

Most true hoarders just end up wasting stuff... it is neglected and decays in its piles.

I have a relative who is a hoarder, mostly books, and they end up rotting in leaking sheds and patio covers, if not just being bug eaten in the stuffed house and garage.

Tech stuff is no different. Sticky old cable sheaths that are gross to the touch, old mechanical items with dried out bearings and drive components. Corroded connectors. Just plain old shit that doesn't work anymore, and is long past the point where it can be put to use.

Re:Where there is hoading there is wasting

[raygundan]

Definitely. When I cleared out the PC junk after the last move, I did the same for books. Sold it all on ebay, one piece at a time. I realized-- as much as I liked those books, I don't reread them often. And when I do, repurchasing the handful of books I reread would hardly be expensive. All I was doing was wasting a shitload of books somebody else could have been reading, while simultaneously annoying my wife.

ohhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget hoarding that crap just take it to a pc recycler, they want your junk. It's fairly cheap if not free www.abetterwayrecycling.com in Maryland takes all of our stuff (I'm in virginia) Works out well

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Anonymous Coward]

I did the same. Wasn't as useful to keep my creditcards together... :-(

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[hairyfeet]

I would add if the stuff is working or even if it is not you might want to put in on Freecycle before sending it off to the dump or to be recycled, as you never know when someone else may have need of it. I often get P3 era PCs donated to me by SMBs and with Puppy Linux on them make a great Internet/Homework PC for those that do not have any.

Puppy is low enough resource that even with a P3 400MHz and 128Mb of RAM Puppy flies, and you'd be surprised how many poor folks don't have a PC that could use one. I also refurb them for charities like small churches, as I have found Puppy plus the OO.o Dbase wizard makes it really easy for even the most nontechnical secretary to make little databases for keeping up with donations, donor lists, etc.

So before you start chunking what you consider junk, put it on Freecycle for a day or two. You'd be surprised how many old greybeards like me use those parts to Frankenstein boxes to give away.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Sir_Lewk]

No, it's a delicious cake recipe.

Wish I'd known...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have paid good money for the Video Toasters. They are nigh on impossible to find (in good working order) but my company still uses them and could use some more spares.

Those two alone would have made you an easy $1000, no questions asked.

USB floppy drive? Pah.

[Retron]

Some guy there's got a USB floppy drive connected to his hub "right now". Ooh, scary - I use those things daily at work, so it's not exactlty hoarding.

No, I can beat that. Not only do I have several large boxes full of 5.25" inch disks that I got off eBay for next to nothing, I've got a 5.25" drive in my Core2 Duo machine running Windows 7. It's the only floppy drive I've got connected to this machine and it's properly set up in the BIOS and everything. You know what, Windows 7 even has a nice 5.25" disk drive icon, even if it's reusing the one from Vista.

Bendix G20

[frank_adrian314159]

Or at least a couple of backplanes from them... I carted them around for a couple of moves until I figured that they were unlikely to be used in an art project anytime soon.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[raygundan]

Why... why would you do this? The recycler? Hell, I've sold things like "grab-bag of untested PC cables i found in my garage" on ebay for money. Functional Amigas could have at least earned you several good dinners out with the wife if you hadn't just dumped 'em... and selling to somebody who will use the gear is ALWAYS a better option than recycling, which should be your option of last resort. People on ebay will buy ANYTHING, and pay you to ship it to them.

Start in on your video game collection next. It's just a waste, sitting there unplayed-- people will pay you to play those games. Your easiest option is probably a swap service like goozex.com-- just get on and list your collection, and requests will start to roll in. It's taken most of a year for my old games to gradually disappear, since the older ones are not requested frequently-- but it's pretty low-effort.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[2obvious4u]

I have used Freecycle as well as well as donated to local donation centers. The stuff I took to Best Buy was non functional. I still have 3 working computers that have an old version of Fedora on them. I may put those up on Freecycle as well.

I just try not to put anything in a Landfill; that is a last resort.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody has demonstrated data recovery after even just one wipe pass of writing zeros. No random numbers, special patterns or multiple passes: One pass, just zeros. Anyone who is afraid that someone somewhere may have that capability and hides it from the public for unknown reasons should simply not rely on overwriting data to make it unreadable. In that case, I suggest heating the platters beyond the Curie temperature and grinding the remains to dust. Don't forget to wear a tinfoil hat.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[azmodean 1]

Fe2O3+2Al

Thermite?

Translation: Fe2 = Iron O3 = Oxygen, so Fe2O3 = Iron Oxide, 2Al = Aluminum.

So yes, Thermite.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Tempest_2084]

Took out the memory (???? who is going to use the old memory- why did I do that?)

I thought the same thing then I discovered that an old 32MB SIMM worked just great in my Amiga 1200 accelerator so you never know. Then again if you still have an Amiga 1200 sitting around you're probably one of the people the article is talking about. :)

On a Very Special Episode of _Hoarders_...

[otis wildflower]

• ISA wavetable synth cards? Check. (Ensoniq Soundscape and GUS)
• Shredded Powerbook? Check.
• Assorted 8-Track tapes? Check.
• Assorted SCSI terminators (active, passive, differential, centronics, etc)? Check.
• PCI video cards (3Dfx, Diamond Viper, Matrox MGA)? Check.
• Shredded G4 Cube? Check.
• Rat's nest of cables (RCA, BNC, Thicknet, RS232, RS422, AppleTalk, Parallel, SCSI, etc)? Check.

Who knows, I might find use for some of it someday..

Re:On a Very Special Episode of _Hoarders_...

[nizo]

Or it may just continue to accumulate, until your kids inherit it all, and curse you for not clearing it out before you went :-P

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Anonymous Coward]

Mossberg 500 or Browning M2

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[hldn]

i actually have my debit and credit cards in this money clip too and have had no problems with them; they swipe fine even after a year using it.

http://teamdead.net/gentoo/image/random/DSCF0074s.jpg

you can see where i have a slot for my cards. there are two credit cards, a debit card, my driver's license, and a blood donor's card in there. the side opposite the money clip even has a wallet sized photo window :)

That's nothing!

[SheeEttin]

You call that a hoarder? You should've seen my Computer Tech room in high school last year. We had enough Dell GX100s to build a fort. We had so many CRTs that the floor along one wall was lined with unused ones.
There were several cabinets (your everyday two-door seven-foot free-standing beige cabinet). We used them to store miscellaneous hardware. One was for power supplies. Another for Cat5. There were full. There was also a mechanic's toolbox for hard drives. You know, red, steel, drawers? Overflowing. Hard drive capacities ranged from 5 GB to 80.
And then there was a three-drawer chest. Each drawer was about a foot and a half deep, six feet wide, and some three feet (maybe) deep. The bottom drawer: cards. Sound, Ethernet, video, you name it. The middle: power cables. The top: I don't remember. Probably because the hardware was out-of-date enough that I never went in there. Oh yeah, those drawers were also full.

(And then there was the hardware we used!)

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[Eivind]

recovery-shops can't for reasonable cost even read trough a -single- complete overwrite. Thing is, to even -attempt- doing more than that, you need to swap the electronics, and the costs add up quickly.

99% of the "recoveries" they do consist of recovering data that is on the disc already, but that has been marked as "deleted" in the filesystem. i.e. it's filesystem-recovery not data-block-recovery.

Yes, if there's data on the disc, that you've got reasons to suspect entities would want to pay 6 figures just for a -chance- at getting some of them, you might want to do more. But for average home-computers, a single overwrite is entirely adequate.

Let's have a competition!

[howzit]

Let's have a competition. Private people (no tech businesses allowed). We send in pics and find the S.T.A.S.H (Super Tech.Appliance Squirrel Hoarder). I start with a GARAGE full of bits and pieces, starting with a Heathkit CPU (circ. 1980), thru ZX Spectrums, Radioshack TRS. 80's, Commodore VIC 20 and 64's etc, etc. Beat that small fry! The wife will be happy that SOMETHING came of it all!

LaserJets

[troll8901]

... for hooking up to the borrowed LaserJet 4L.

First introduced in May 1993. Still in use today.

I think it's great engineering - and a clever decision to design wear-and-tear components as replaceable parts.

Be careful when transporting it, okay!

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[RESPAWN]

Yes, I know what the elemental symbols are. I just couldn't remember if that was the makeup for thermite or something else entirely. Thanks for playing.

U.S. Spelling

[SuperKendall]

That's Tolkien Ring.

Hey buddy, here in the U.S. we spell "Tolkien" as "Token", just like you spell color all funny and we correct that too.

It's actually also part of a secret effort in the U.S. to remove any "i" before "e" that we find, to make the use of that rule even more generally wrong than it is already.

Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we

[LandGator]

If you live anywhere near a FreeGeek http://www.freegeek.org/about/intergalactic/ , take your gear there. If they can't be repaired, or stripped for parts to build new boxen, your gear will be responsibly recycled http://www.freegeek.org/free-geek-designated-e-steward/ and not end up in a Third World landfill toxifying the planet.

        * Free Geek Arkansas (Fayetteville, Arkansas)
        * Free Geek Central Florida (Orlando, Florida)
        * Free Geek Chicago (Chicago, Illinois)
        * Free Geek Columbus (Columbus, Ohio)
        * Free Geek Michiana (South Bend, Indiana area)
        * Free Geek Twin Cities (Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota)
        * Born Again Technologies (Murfreesboro, Tennessee)
        * Free Geek Vancouver (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
        * Free Geek Providence (Providence, Rhode Island)

And there’s us, here in Portland, Oregon. The original Free Geek

got ya all beat!

[seekertom]

i have worked for major computer main-frame cos, ic mfg cos, pc service orgs, and my 'sunday at the park' for me was a day at the local scrap yards. when i moved from my last house.... i agreed to take only one trailer-load, 8x8x24; is what, 1500 cu ft? i LEFT a pile that took 5 20-yd rolloffs to clear, stuff like you wouldn't believe! i got here, started hoarding again (still?) and filled up a 20x20 garage/shed (trailer still loaded). that wasn't enough. added on another shed 16x20, filled that sucker in a heartbeat. then redid the 3-car garage under the main house roof, and filled the first two spaces with more crap, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, sideways walk-thru only. pulled a lot of crap out of the main house the ol said had to go, and filled 3/4 of the 3rd car space with it. my own bedroom had tiptoe space plus a small bed only. eventually had to move to another room to sleep. then i needed to work more in my 'computer room', aka two of the three car spots, so i bought (additional) 5 industrial-size shelving units, 6 ft hi, 5 ft long, 2 ft deep. put 'em out in the enclosed back porch and filled them to capacity, hoping to make room to sit down at my beautiful electronics work bench, including a place to park my elbows. unfortunately, all that stuff i moved out of the 'puter-room never made a dent, so i still work off the edge of my 'current' bed... thank gosh it's a queen size! now, where was i? oh yes. please don't think this is a bragging scene. it's not. i had finally learned my lesson. i haven't increased my load in at least 5 years, altho the mess i have created is more than i can bear. every time i look at the hundreds of antique radios, telephones, church organs, 8" floppy disk computers, 50lb 5 meg hds, etc etc, i want to cry. i need to get rid of it all, sell it off and clear the crap out of my head. i even set up a couple websites for the sale, but haven't completed either one, altho the basics are in place. see www.cmyaccumulations.com, and www.jandmsolder.com for a glimpse. take it from a truly sick old man, don't follow in MY footsteps! hoarding s u x !! thanks fer lis'nin' seekertom

Cloud hoarding

[Geminii]

The last time but one I moved, I had two days to get rid of almost a decade's old and crufty gear, which filled a room floor to ceiling. I put it out the front of the house and spread the word on Freecycle, the IT section of the local paper, and amongst the local tech-heads.

Two days later, the only item I had left was a single 14-inch CRT. Everything else - the cases, the 5M SCSI drives, the completely random crap from who-knows-where - had been ninjaed.

If you're worried about throwing something out, particularly if you live in a city, don't. Just get all the other e-hoarders to come around and make your crap their crap. Outsource your e-junk. Use crowd computing.

Re:Cloud hoarding

[qwerty8ytrewq]

Respect.