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Technology

Homeless Wires? 118

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

Homeless Wires?

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  • Extra stuff? (Score:3, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:21PM (#12492099)

    I'll take it.

  • Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Muad'Dave ( 255648 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:22PM (#12492102) Homepage

    A bulk-buy on eBay. Charge shipping + $1.00. Sort by cable type.


      • Hah! I hadn't read my sig like that. It does sound like one of those trick logic questions, doesn't it?

        So far I've got the The Falkirk Wheel [thefalkirkwheel.co.uk], in addition to the usual Scotch Distillery tours for my two Scotchophile harem girl companions.

        • If you are in edinburgh here's my "must do" list

          - Curry at King's Balti (it's BYOB so a case of beer should do three of you)
          - For a decent pub in that area try the Abbey
          - For something trendier my wife and I love Bar Kohl on George 4th Bridge, not very scottish but they have an impressive vodka selection.
          - Obviously the castle is a must-do if you are into that kind of thing (not so exciting for a native)

          For more traditional food (depending on your wealth) I can happily recommend the Witchery. For somethin

          • Thank you very much! We are very much into seeing true Scotland, not the same touristy junk you see everywhere. We want to learn about the people and culture, so as a start in that direction we're only staying in B&Bs except for the night of our arrival.

            My wife wants to see the valley of Tweed and the highlands (naturally at opposite end of the country!). We have one of those 'own a square foot of Scotland' things thru a nature conservancy - for laughs we'd like to see what shopping mall its under. (Act

            • I'm not that familiar with the south of scotland. Despite having lived the vast majority of my life there, i've never spent much time anywhere south of edinburgh.

              As far as the highlands go, i'd recommend skipping Aviemore. My opinion is that the west coast is far more beautiful. The island of Skye (you can drive there) is probably an excellent choice. The scenery is spectacular and it's enough off the beaten track that it's not horribly touristy.

              My email is graha dot ms at graha dot ms if you want to have
  • 1. Clean out closets
    2. Find hardware/media
    3. Sign in to EBay
    4. ???
    5. Profit!

  • While you're at it. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:22PM (#12492111)
    My wife has given me until the end of the week to find a home for it or I have to take it to the dump.

    While you're at it, why don't you take your testicles, too? You don't seem to be using them. You should be ashamed of yourself for admitting such a thing in public. You don't bring home money? You don't run your own house? I bet she made you give up all your cool rock band tee-shirts after she moved in, too?

    What a tool.

  • People will take it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by over_exposed ( 623791 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:23PM (#12492114) Homepage
    My company has always given stuff like this to local churches. While they may not specifically be able to use it, they may be able to spend the time prepping it for sale. Look at the retail prices for USB and Firewire cabling... They'll either be able to use this stuff or sell it off for a decent profit.
    • Local schools, too, will take in such equipement.
      • Good call - my college had an intro class that used this kind of stuff all the time for a kind of hands-on museum display...

        By the way, nice sig :-)
      • Local schools, too, will take in such equipement.

        In high school, the director of technology let my friends and I clean out an entire room being used for parts storage. What we didn't throw out we got to take home. Trust me, schools don't want your old shit - they have plenty of their own to deal with.
      • Unfortunately, a lot of schools are not allowed to accept direct donations (in materials or money). I know that in Oregon, there are a lot of districts with such a policy. Something to do with it being unfair to the rest of the schools or something. There was a story in the Oregonian about ten years ago about a guy who wanted to donate a ton of money (like $30,000 or something) to his son's public school and they wouldn't allow it. They would allow him to donate it to the school district to do with as they
        • It's to make sure that all the schools are about equal. Otherwise the school in the rich neighbourhood would get tons of donations from parents who have the cash sitting around while the school in the poor neighbourhood would get nothing.
          The school district has to be fair across the entire district, and they have decided that donations like that would make the situation unfair because the donations to the rich neighbourhood school would in effect make the funding per student to be higher than the poor neigh
          • Why would I want to donate money or items to a school that my child *doesn't* go to, then?

            This just cuts their noses to spite their faces. Instead of the school district the donator is in getting something, nobody gets anything.

            After all, people still pay taxes and my taxes still go to whatever the district likes.
            • You could just spend the money on your kid then and cut the school out of it. Your kid would probably be better for it as well.

              By donating to one school, the kids in that school will benefit. In the rich areas the kids in the school would probably benefit a lot. Including the ones who's parents didn't donate anything. Why should these children get these benefits when children in other schools won't?

              I guess it comes down to your motivation for donating in the first place. If you want to improve your child'
      • The schools around here don't want "old crap". There's a huge school budget deficit, so they make sure and only spec brand new, state of the art hardware for the schools. Go figure.

        OTOH, a lot of local *students* might be interested. Check with school computer clubs, or try finding where the local geek kids hang out.
        • "Old crap" is horribly expensive to make usable and maintain. You also run into the issue of having 374 different types of computers that you have to maintain.
          Buying 100 new identical name-brands with a warranty through their education program is far more economical than accepting people's POS old computers for free. When one dies, it becomes parts for the others. When an old POS dies, it becomes landfill.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • "They'll either be able to use this stuff or sell it off for a decent profit."

      Hmm. Nuns with 5.25" floppies. They cant go too far with that.

      While youre at it, send them BNC ethernet cables, tokenring cards, EGA video cards and those giant Soundblaster ISA cards. They'll wonder why www.vatican.ca doesnt come up on Netscape 3.0 running on Windows 95. And why the heck doesnt USB work.

      I've seen countless Pentium1 PCs under the rain out in driveways around here. Check their prices on eBay. In most cases the s

  • Try Craigslist. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Myself ( 57572 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:25PM (#12492131) Journal
    eBay isn't sensible for stuff that costs more to ship than it's worth.

    Post on Craigslist and get some local geeks to come pick it up.
    • Of course, the problem with that is that then there are people on Craigslist who will know where you live. If there are any people on the face of the earth that it would be frightening to have hold that information, it's the creepy people on Craigslist. ESPECIALLY the kind of creepy people that will come and pick up free ANYTHING (seriously, you could post free empty bottles of ranch dressing and some weird ass hippy or hillbilly or crankhead will come pick them up).
    • "eBay isn't sensible for stuff that costs more to ship than it's worth."

      I'd disagree:
      1) "Worth" is in the eye of the beholder. I just eBayed a BROKEN camera lens that I thought was worthless. Went for $26.

      2) Even if it goes for $0.99, charge actual shipping plus $2 for the box, etc. Someone who is willing to pay for it is more likely to use it than a free deal.
  • Well if you are in the Austin area there is Good Will Computer Works [austincomputerworks.org]

  • Well ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by chris462 ( 656034 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:26PM (#12492144) Homepage
    This may be obvious, but ... eBay?

    Tell them you saw The Virgin Mary or whatever in it and Golden Palace will pay you thousands. ;)

  • At the risk of sounding like a broken record (Score:5, Informative)

    by conform ( 55925 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:27PM (#12492156)
    Free Geek [freegeek.org] has a list of links to organizations, which (like Free Geek itself) promote computer reuse and recycling. The stuff you've got really doesn't belong in a dump, even if it's reached the point of being of no use to anyone.

    If you're not near any of the places listed, please consider shipping your stuff to one of them. Most are nonprofits, which means you can compensate for some of your cost with a tax deduction, and you can feel good about knowing that your old crap is either being given to people who wouldn't otherwise have access to it, or is being taken apart and disposed of properly, rather than taking up space in a landfill and potentially leaching nasty chemicals (mmm, heavy metals).

  • Freecycle... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Atlantis-Rising ( 857278 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:28PM (#12492167) Homepage
    is always a good bet.
  • You need to let your wife now who makes the deadlines in the house. If this was already done you wouldn't have this problem at all.
  • My wife has given me until the end of the week to find a home for it or I have to take it to the dump.

    <audio src="whipcrack.wav"/>

  • Do what David Clark Did... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jorkapp ( 684095 ) <jorkapp&hotmail,com> on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:32PM (#12492205)
    Hide them beneath the floor boards [slashdot.org]

  • A few places (Score:5, Informative)

    by mopslik ( 688435 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:33PM (#12492212)
    DIY Parts [diyparts.org]
    Craig's List [craigslist.org]
    FreeCycle [freecycle.org]
    eBay [ebay.com]
    • At least in my city, there is a huge freecycle community, and if you were to post that on freecycle, there would be a hundred geeks offering to come pick it up, or even help you tear it out of the walls.

      Definately consider Freecycle.
  • I have had a 'study' for years full of junk (as my wife calls it).
    Now that I am moving I am finding that I need very little of it.
    Still it hurts to throw it out.
    My advice:
    - Email techie buddys, you never know
    - Free buy and see magazine?
    - Dump

    Thanks

    Jay
  • Hi I am ready to take/buy the floppy disks from you !! contact me asap.. Thanks. walburn@gmail.com
  • Don't know if your community has a freecycle forum, but if you post "Bunch of computer junk must take it all" it will probably disappear in about an hour.

    http://freecycle.org/ [freecycle.org]

  • Try Freecycle (Score:2, Informative)

    by nile_list ( 812696 )
    http://freecycle.org/ [freecycle.org]

    Kind of like Ebay! Except you get a warm, fuzzy feeling instead of money =)
  • I'd say either keep it, or give it to a friend with a big closet. As soon as you get rid of it, you'll come up with some project or inherit some cool device and be all, "I know I had the right connector here somplace.. Curses! It was in the box I gave to goodwill!"
  • With 100 x 10 = 1,000 5"1/4 floppies, you could tile your garage wall and have them "out of the way" while still holding onto them.

  • Association for Computing Machinery (Score:1, Interesting)

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

  • Dear Slashdot (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by QuantumRiff ( 120817 )
    I have a 1972 Ford Pickup in my front yard, (4 of them actually, 2 on blocks). It is not currently running, and is full of rust, but between the 4, Someone could get 1 of them to work. I hate to throw it out, cause I keep telling my wife, and her parents, and her sister and her family (that all live with us) that one of these days, I'm going to get it to work. I also have a few "spare" washing machines out in the front yard. Do you know of someone that I could "give" these to, so I don't have to take th
    • There's salvage yards around here that deal in scrap....pretty much anything. I think one pays 42c a pound copper, 30c a pound steel, 22c a pound iron, something like that.

      Divide by 2 if you want them to pick it up.

      Probably could get $200 from them for that stuff.

  • Art (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sho222 ( 834270 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:42PM (#12492293)
    Why not weave them into a nice artsy basket. I'm sure your wife would love that. Look here [art.net] for inspiration.
  • If you don't get rid of that stuff by the end of the week, you should just give everything to your wife.

    Or take her to the dump.

    Hopefully, you were kidding about her giving you a deadline. If not, well you should definitely give her a piece of your ... oops, I gotta run! my old lady is calling me. BBL.

  • the dump may not be such a bad idea (Score:4, Informative)

    by wcb4 ( 75520 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:44PM (#12492310)
    Not sure about the dump in your locality, but where I live, just before you enter the dump per se, there is a steel building. There you will usually find hundreds of items that people think are too valuable to throw away, but they have no need for... I dropped off a few old computer chasis and an older printer, monitor and some cables one Friday afternoon. Found something else Saturday morning, and by the time I got back there, the stuff I had dropped off Friday was gone to a good home. See if there is something simialr in your area. If not, talk to someone about starting something like it
  • I'm sure Good Will would take it to sell in the Good Will Store.

  • It doesn't seem like the kind of thing 'Goodwill' would really get use of, but I hate to throw away perfectly good hardware and media if someone could make use of it.

    Here in Pittsburgh, Goodwill has a store specifically for used computer hardware. I've been there a couple of times for one thing or antoher, or just to browse. Given what I've seen, they certainly wouldn't have any compunctions about taking in a load of random computer hardware and connectors, so long as the stuff wasn't obviously dama

  • What I do (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ratbert42 ( 452340 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @04:54PM (#12492425)
    First I try to "loan" things like that to other geeks. I know it's hard, but try to find a single geek. He'll probably still have it 5 years from now if you need it back.

    Or my other option is to smuggle it into work and put it in / on an empty desk, especially right after someone leaves the company. Problem solved.

  • Tell the lazy bums to get a job. Why should I work hard all day to support a bunch of homeless wires.
  • I would love to create a museum for computers (which should, of course, include a special section on historical libre software!). If you are in Europe maybe you could consider donating this stuff to me. I hope some day I will have the resources to start a museum project.
  • I have a box of misc cables, I sorted it and found 25 spare power cords. But ONE of the cables is suspect. Back in the early days of the IBM PC, they announced a major recall of power cords. Tens of thousands of power cords were shipped before it was discovered one idiot worker was wiring the hot wire directly to ground, and would definitely cause a short, maybe a fire. The store I worked pulled all the defective cables before they got to customers, but not before one got to ME. I am certain that one of my
    • Couldn't one just probe the connections and find the bad cord? Seriously, this is slashdot.
    • I am certain that one of my spare cables is one of the recalled cables, but I have never been able to determine which one.

      You need a continuity tester or an ohm-meter. It would be very easy to test the cables to see which (if any) had a short between hot and ground.

    • You need to chill out. First, a short circuit won't cause a fire, it will just trip the breaker. Second, this type of thing is very easy to check with an ohmmeter. Third, it is not that likely that the recalled cable is actually defective -- chances are, they recalled 10,000 cables to get 100 defective ones.
      • I checked into the story of the bad cables back when it happened. It was hard to get details, but I finally found out part of the story. One guy at the cable assembly plant, a new hire at a subcontractor, misunderstood the cable wiring instructions, and every single cable he made was defective. I was unable to determine how large a percentage of the total cable production run was defective, but it was rumored to be about 25% of the all cables produced during the time this guy was working production. ALL the
        • u dont need a 'continuity tester' just a simple flashlight bulb and a battery and a piece of wire.
        • Personally, I consider a multimeter to be as basic a tool as a screwdriver, so I kind of assumed you already had one. If not, you can find them for $10-$15 and they are a good investment. You can use one for checking various voltages (outlets, adapters, polarity, etc), as well as resistance and continuity. If you do any work around the house, it's hard to do without one.
          • Yeah, I used to have a multimeter, back when I was young and foolish. Then after a few near-death experiences with electrocution, I refused to work with any electrics ever again. Then someone swiped my multimeter and I never replaced it. If I need electric work, I'll hire a pro, or just throw it away and get a new one.
  • If it's at all recent, I can almost guarantee that stuff'd get snatched up on Freecycle [freecycle.org]. Go there and quit asking silly questions on Slashdot.
  • Why not build a bopamagilvie and call your Eustace, enk? [infinityplus.co.uk]

  • Sometimes... just sometimes the wife is right. (Score:4, Funny)

    by hoggoth ( 414195 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @05:34PM (#12492842) Journal
    For all of you posting about how he shouldn't take that attitude from his wife...

    Consider that maybe, just maybe, she is right.

    My wife has been after me for 12 years and three homes to throw out some old boxes of "important stuff." I put my foot down and refused to do it.

    12 years later I finally got around to opening those dusty museums of a ME I'd rather forget!

    Bell bottoms? Check.
    Sleevless velour "muscle shirt", size extra-small? Check.
    300+ floppy disks of Apple II games that I swapped for at fairs, but never actually played. Not once. Check.
    Mouldy hammock. Check.
    100+ pounds of wires, integrated circuits, resistors and capacitors scavenged from an ancient mainframe being throw out by my university that I was sure to use someday for some project. Check.
    One precious copy of Playboy with the one and only Nancy Drew, Pamela Sue Martin? Check.

  • How about donating it to your local college?
    It doesn't even have to be the CS or similar department. You could donate it to the art department. I'm sure they would love to have such odd materials.
  • Check out Freecycle [freecycle.org] and see if there's something in your area to facilitate this.
  • Try Lemon64.com [lemon64.com], look for the forums.
  • If I understand you right, you have a lot of old hardware and cabling.

    Before you dispose of them (however you decide), take pictures and send it to a website that archives these pictures. Especially if you have a lot of old hardware or obscure cabling, pictures of these may be a little hard to find, for people who're looking for some exact shape or model of old cabling.

    VGMusic.com's Gallery [vgmusic.com] is an example of such a website. (though with a slant toward gaming consoles). For example, if you're looking for a
  • at http://www.greendisk.com/ [greendisk.com]Greendisk. $5.95 for up to 20 pounds plus shipping in the U.S. (Try "media mail" from the USPS for discounted rates.)

  • The Local Hamfest (Score:3, Informative)

    by N3Bruce ( 154308 ) <n3bruce@gmailDALI.com minus painter> on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @09:57PM (#12494843) Journal
    Check the ARRL for listings of Hamfests in your region. [arrl.org] Offer the whole box or two up for a few bucks, or sell the stuff piecemeal for 25 or 50 cents a pop. Even if there isn't a hamfest in the area for a month or two, say you will sell your stuff there. You might be able to buy some time that way. The hamfest will also give you the opportunity to acquire new junk as well, so be prepared to defend any items that follow you home, or keep them in the trunk of your car until the coast is clear.
  • the lean manufacturing system my employer is implementing

    If you are not currently using it, dispose of it.

  • I doubt it but if you have a bluetooth adapter hanging around in that box-o-junk, I'll gladly take one off of your hands. I also accept hard drives larger than 1G and ram of the PC133 variety. (Size is unimportant, I'm not that kind of guy.)

    (I could really use a bluetooth adapter that anyone has. I recently lost mine and am very heartbroken. I've been looking all over but can't find it. It's the only communication that my iBook and Nokia 3650 phone had with each other. They dearly miss each other and hope
  • Keep the cables and take you wife to the dump.
    *ducks*
  • I got rid of over 300 lbs of functional and non-functional computer parts by giving them away for free. If you put those boxes up for free on craigslist, you'd have 20-30 prospective new owners that wqould come and take it off your hands.

  • What I did was to separate it into three smaller boxes, and then drove down to the goodwill dropoff late at night and skillfully slid each box into the night drop-off slot.

    There, I GAVE it away.

    It's not my problem if they throw it out because they don't know what to do with a SCSI-1 to SCSI-1 cable, or boxes of 5-1/4 disks.

  • If you're like my household, for every box of 10 year old tech goodies, there's at least 3 full boxes of decorations, scrapbook junk, and other girly things.

    Make a deal with your wife, you throw out 10lbs of junk, and she does the same.

    That's fair, right?

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