Ask Slashdot: Projects For a Heap of Tech Junk? 210
yenrabbit writes "A friend has just told me he has 80 CRT TVs, a stack of DVD players and hundreds of VCR machines, all broken and all mine free of charge. I can already think of a few awesome components I can extract (flyback transformers for high voltage contraptions and so on) and have a few ideas, such as DVD lasers, that I can build. But what else can be made from such a treasure-trove of components, and how would one go about processing such a large volume of stuff with the least amount of effort? Also, I don't have access to online shopping so I'd also like a pain free way of salvaging many simpler parts such as resistors as well."
Another reader sent in a similar question: "The other day I went down to my University's property disposition center for the first time. In addition to mundane things like chairs and desks, it also had a wealth of technological devices, from old PCs and monitors to obscure medical and chemistry equipment. Honestly, I was a bit overwhelmed. I just don't know what I'd do with a old gene sequencing machine or a broken oscilloscope. Any ideas for fun projects? Or better yet, suggestions on how I can figure out which machines (or their components) are worth playing with?"
Recycle it (Score:5, Informative)
Recycle it
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Recycle it
Yes, and do it before the cost to recycle it goes up.
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I dunno, given the power consumption of a CRT...
Then again, given all the transport of materials back and forth around the world that goes into making anything new...
It's pretty confusing these days to tell WHAT is more efficient!
Sometimes "free" is still too expensive! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure it isn't going to cost you a fortune later to get rid of the stuff you don't salvage?
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Why do you think his "friend" is giving it away.
OTOH..... gene sequencing machine.....ZOMBIE ARMY!!!!
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It's probably an old one with impossible to get consumeables.
Just wait a a couple of years. They'll be giving them away in cereal boxes.
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Responsibly getting rid of the stuff, yes, it can cost money.
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Disposing of old electronic junk is easy and profitable:
1. Dig a hole.
2. Put your electronic junk in it.
3. Set fire to it.
4. Collect all the gold and lead that dripped into the bottom of the hole.
5. Profit!
6. ???
7. Die of cancer.
That doesn't seem right.
Leave the sequencer... (Score:4, Informative)
If you want some of your own DNA sequenced, send it off and then throw a big crazy party with the time, money, and space you saved by not attempting to do it yourself.
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" If you don't have access to a way to purify your DNA for it, forget about it"
you mean like ordering it online?
" by not attempting to do it yourself."
Booooooo. I would rather try learn and fail.
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" by not attempting to do it yourself."
Booooooo. I would rather try learn and fail.
Well said; also notable, if you don't try, you will always fail.
Dr. Seuss had a similar feeling, and it's only appropriate that I quote him on today, the day before his 109th birthday:
“It is better to know how to learn than to know.”
Re:Leave the sequencer... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't have access to a way to purify your DNA for it, forget about it
you mean like ordering it online?
No, not like ordering online. How do you expect to order your own DNA online if you want to sequence one of your own genes? And if you're going to send some of your cells to someone to purify your DNA, you might as well pay them to sequence it for you as they will have access to better instrumentation that will do it faster, cheaper, and more accurately.
by not attempting to do it yourself
Booooooo. I would rather try learn and fail.
The problem is there isn't a whole lot to learn from doing this. Methods and instruments have changed dramatically. What you would learn from an old sequencer would not be useful for a new one because the methods and results are so dramatically different.
To put it into a computer analogy, it would be similar to trying to learn computer animation by purchasing an old SGI Octane (after all, they used SGIs for Jurassic Park!) and spending a ton of money on old IRIX software, only to then realize that nobody uses it any more and you would have been better off financially and time-wise to buy a powerful PC and learn Blender.
Hence if your goal is to learn the old method just to learn the old method, then go for it. Your results will likely be garbage and your chance of getting anything useful out of it are very slim (after all, someone did get rid of the old sequencer). If, on the other hand, you want to learn how it is done today, and get meaningful results, stay away from it and talk to someone with a sequencer from this decade.
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Why not just try to sequence enough genes, to have it multiplied with a DIY PCM machine, and create the super deadly flu, which according to /. was capable of killing 50% of humanity?
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Why not just try to sequence enough geness, to have it multiplied with a DIY PCM machine, and create the super deadly flu,
For one, the flu has already been sequenced, so doing it again wouldn't be useful.
Second, the flu genome is RNA, and around 14,000 bases long [virology.ws] which is beyond what many PCR thermocyclers can do reliably, even with the best enzymes available. In other words, you would need better molecular biology techniques to get it to work well. Even more so, older DNA sequencers topped out at reading ~800 bases so you'd have to do a ton of sequencing in order to make sure you got your flu genome right after making yo
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Components (Score:5, Interesting)
You quite rightly said that it'll be full of:
Coils, ferrite magnets, capacitors, resistors, various discrete transistors and IC's, wires, motors, transducers (build a whacky digital backup medium using VHS tapes!), chassis pieces to build new projects on, raw materials (steel, plastic).
If you can't think of anything, don't take it on. Recycling at the component level is VERY labour-intensive - one idea (and I don't want to give too many for free because this is my business) is to train volunteers for accredited qualifications in electronic repair and servicing (City and Guilds do a good course at different levels with almost that exact name). While they're learning, they can be labouring :-)
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Brand-new electronic componets are unbelievably cheap. A reel of 5000 resistors is less than $7 these days (http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/RC0603JR-0710KL/311-10KGRTR-ND/726700). Most surface mount components are not worth desoldering.
You can buy all the red laser pointers you want for about $1 each if you know where to look.
For high voltage experiments, you are (probably) better off with Neon Sign Transformers than with CRT fly back transformers. Modern fly back transformers tend to be very picky
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I've got a pile of old Laserdisc players here. Most kind-of work, but not really good enough for resale in the limited market that they've got, and none can be profitably tuned up to work well (at least, not with any profit for -me-). I keep prying them open hoping to find a HeNe gas tube laser, but haven't found one yet. They generally get trashed, whole.
Small motors and stuff are fun, but they're also cheap as surplus items. They hardly seem worth the effort to scavenge when there's catalogs of them a
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Fill your basement (Score:3)
And call yourself a Ham.
;o)
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Come by and get the 35" tube TV in my closet while you're at it. I can't give that away.
I put my 35" TV out in the sidewalk with a 'free' sign on it, then put an ad on Craigslist-Free saying there's a free TV on the corner of X and Y. 20 minutes later a hipster was wheeling it away on his skateboard.
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I took a garbage bag and an old vacuum to the dumpster. I still had to go back to take one more bag and by the time I walked back to the dumpster the vacuum was gone. That took less than 5min and no craigslist ad.
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Ah Commercial Drive
Mount Pleasant actually, but close enough.
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Holy crap that's brilliant.
Don't bother with salvaging common parts (Score:2)
Also, I don't have access to online shopping so I'd also like a pain free way of salvaging many simpler parts such as resistors as well
Save yourself the time and effort and get access to online shopping. Frankly, even if you have to wait a month or two, or place a bulk order, it'd be worth it. Standard rolls of resistors and capacitors are cheap.
Not only that, but in modern technology most stuff is going to be surface mounted and useless to you. You'll probably find through-hole components in the VCRs, but it takes time and effort to desolder stuff, and you're left with tiny leads... all for a part that in bulk probably costs 2 cents. You
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On things like TVs and monitors I go for mostly the power components. Large wattage resistors, High voltage caps. Power transistors. Large diodes.
These can be expensive to buy. You can get enough from 10 TV to have a nice stock. Use a Paint striping heat gun to remove the parts from the PCB.
Don't bother with ICs except for standard ones like OP-AMPS, voltage regulators and such. These are mostly ASICs and of little use for anything but reparing now worthless TVs.
Oh yea and one of the most useful parts, scre
EGA monitors? (Score:3)
EGA monitors are pretty rare these days. If you find some, offer them to the folks at the Vintage Computer Forums, they'll be appreciated.
VCF would be a great place to find good homes for a lot of these items actually. Things like EMS cards for XT machines, or anything EISA.
A lot of beer... (Score:2)
Obvious business opportunity (Score:2)
Old useless equipment + sledgehammer + $3 to take a few swings = money for charity
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If it can't be fixed or reused then this is a great idea in so many ways. People need a way to dispose of pent up frustrations. Charge more like $/difficulty it is to completely destroy; and then sift through the pieces for precious materials, gold and copper and other metals.
Anything that can be recycled should be, ie plastic, glass, metal etc...
You'd just have to be willing to clean crap up. Make sure everyone wears safety goggles and they must sign a waiver so you're not held responsible for damages t
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and a lawsuit for all the toxins which will get spewed into the air:
- leaded glass in the CRTs (not to mention the voltage danger)
- lead in the solder
- cadmium in the PCBs
&c.
Please recycle it responsibly.
Negative Worth (Score:2)
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That's a shame, because CRT monitors are still superior to LCD monitors. CRT monitors can handle various resolutions without having to scale, and the more expensive ones offer resolutions higher than HD. In several ways, LCD was a step back.
Sadly, it's barely worth it. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you go to Weird Stuff Warehouse [weirdstuff.com] in Silicon Valley, you can get enough cheap previous-generation stuff to build a data center.
That's all working stuff, not junk. It's kind of depressing. Most of the gear there was valuable only a few years ago.
There's a service in Oakland CA [accrc.org] which takes discarded desktop systems. They check them out, try some board swaps to get them to work, clean them up, build them up to a minimally usable standard, wipe the hard drives, install Ubuntu Linux, and send them out to schools that need computers. That's about as good as recycling seems to get.
Sometimes you have to find a niche, too.... (Score:2)
For example, I used to work for a steel fabrication company, and they had a "web press machine" out on the shop floor. Basically, it was just a big contraption with air compressors powering a punch on a moving arm, over a conveyor belt. Steel beams would roll up to it, and the machine would punch holes in the ends of them where the connector bolts would go when the beams were installed.
The whole system ran an MS-DOS based program on a desktop PC installed in the metal cabinet that served as the "control pan
Laserdisc players? (Score:2)
If you have, or come across, any laserdisc players, may I strongly suggest Ebay? They aren't made anymore, I've never been able to find anyone who can still repair them, yet I still actively collect anime laserdiscs (http://www.otakubell.com/LDs/), and am not alone. I have 4-5 players, and if I can't find anyone who can do repairs, I wouldn't mind obtaining 4-5 more (once I move to a larger house, that is).
That sounds like my basement (Score:2)
Build a CEC YT-1300 (Score:2)
Take it all, get your 15 minutes of fame (Score:2)
Take it all, stack it six feet high in your house, and get yourself on an episode of Hoarders. Don't forget to find a friend or loved one willing to gasp at the sight of your hoard, shake their heads, and emotionally appeal to you to get all that junk out of your house.
Combination of answers, with contingencies (Score:2)
If there is a place you can donate to a less-fortunate destination (local or overseas school, library, etc) then make this your priority.
Else, if you can sell it in bulk on Kijiji/Craigslist for cheap (think $1 per monitor), then sell it, and donate the money to a good cause. They mightn't benefit from monitors and VCRs, but they can certainly use the money. I suggest in bulk, because you don't want to be supply-chain-managing a bunch of crap, do you?
Else, if you can recycle it, do so. Hoarding a bunch of w
Make a particle accelerator display (Score:4, Interesting)
Some things you can't do with LCDs; tinker with the electronics until you have an unscanned beam of electrons from the back of the monitor tube making a bright spot on the screen and use a magnet to move it around. Make it safe for kids to touch the display and work the magnet. Set up an after-school event to talk to them about relativity, charge, atomic structure, bremsstrahlung, X-rays, the LHC etc.
I used to mess up TV pictures with a magnet when I was a kid, it was fun to distort the actors on screen, but a lot of kids today may not get that experience. It's not a big thing, but I believe the experiences all add up.
There's Gold in them there CPU's (Score:5, Informative)
Gold is at 1,573.00 an ounce today.
Here's a link to check out cpu prices based on gold content:
http://www.ozcopper.com/computer-cpu-gold-yields/ [ozcopper.com]
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Scanners and printers (Score:3)
Scanners and printers are a good source of hard polished rods and bushings, belts and stepper motors with pulleys. You can build 3D printers and small desktop CNC mills with these parts. Old business-grade hardware usually has better parts too such as thicker rods and stronger motors.
Shooting your own "Hoarders" episode (Score:2)
And putting it on YouTube.
Mexico (Score:2)
Take it all there and sell it.
Do you have a boat? (Score:2)
Do you have a boat?
Really this is the wrong place (Score:2)
While you will find makers and hardware hackers on slashdot your mostly going to find kids who don't see the value in any tech they can't get a faster framerate than their friends playing the latest games on.
You should be asking this on Hackaday's forum or better yet on your local hackerspace's IRC channel.
Make a dinosaur. (Score:2)
Something like the stegosaurus from the movie "The Squeeze".
Comment removed (Score:3)
Four words: Do not collect junk! (Score:2)
Gold (Score:2)
Rail gun, EMP, DEW (Score:2)
It's not free (Score:2)
Every time I see a post like this, I'm reminded that I have been down this road myself, and seen my family members suffer for it.
If this is tempting, be honest with yourself, and look at your track record. I'll bet that you have alot of parts lying around for projects that are still "in progress". You have a reason that they are still "in progress", but realistically, you are never going to complete it. They are all waiting on something, and that thing they are waiting on is not actually in progress.
Now you
Tear down and sell for scrap. (Score:2)
PC boards etc sell for scrap on Ebay, for example.
I'd tear down everything. You can scrap steel cases, copper separated into different grades (ask your scrap dealer how they want it), aluminum, lead batteries etc.
Any 10 year old computers ? (Score:2)
Dip them in a cyande bath (Score:2)
The collect the precious and heavy metals and sell them. Profit!
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and a bunch of useless tubes full of leaded glass.
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And what else is leaded glass used for?
Yeah, build on of those.
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Laser CNC should be plausible with a lot of the parts from the VCRs / DVDs, assuming you can get or already have the controller boards (or are "electronic" enough to build them from reclaimed bits).
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Laser CNC should be plausible with a lot of the parts from the VCRs / DVDs, assuming you can get or already have the controller boards (or are "electronic" enough to build them from reclaimed bits).
He said DVD *players*, not DVD burners, I don't think he can even melt wax with a 5mw DVD player laser.
A 150mw laser diode from a DVD burner laser might be able to melt plastic, but it sounds like a lot of work for little gain. Blu-ray burners are said to be closer to 1W.
But if you value your eyes, where appropriate laser goggles since an errant reflection from a powerful laser can quickly cause eye damage.
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You're right....player. Oh well.
Oh, and here's the spec on power output of various burner lasers: http://elabz.com/laser-diode-power-output-based-on-dvd-rrw-specs/ [elabz.com]
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Don't forget the crystals.
Re:Time machine (Score:5, Insightful)
At worst...maybe make one and only one pass through to see if anything is genuinely useful. But one thing I've found is...quit just gathering stuff that *might* be useful some day for *some* project.
That type of thinking lands you where I once was, and to where a number of my friends are, namely they have workshops, garages and even spreading into their very HOUSES just heaps of junk. Stuff piling up everywhere.
I've basically given myself a new mode of action. I have about 2-3 projects, things I can and will realistically get to in the next few months. I will collect things for those, buy them, or otherwise attain them.
Anything else, I pass on.
I've made up my mind, that I will not move a ton of useless, outdated shit around any more.
I'm still going through my stuff after the last one.
I found books, tons of stuff, tech stuff that was outdated. Into the trash.
I had a number of CRT monitors, I kept only the ones I needed for computers I have that do not yet have flat screens. The rest of them...in the trash.
Old SGI workstations? In the trash.
Old network cards, old ram, keyboards I didn't need, etc....in the trash.
I'm actually once again starting to have a home office where I can find stuff I actually need to do the things I'm actually working on.
I still have a ways to go, but I'm unloading. I make enough money these days to where I can buy new or used stuff WHEN I NEED it for something I'm currently working on.
This also keeps me from getting into too many projects at once....and never having time to finish one. I have one friend, that bless his heart, he is like a cat and a laser pointer, always seeing something 'new' to start on, yet rarely finishing the last interesting project last month and way beyond, and yet, still accumulating stuff for all of them.
I know people like this...they have rooms that look like an audition for the tv show "Hoarders", and while I don't think it is so much a mental problem for them, it is the MO of always seeing possible treasure in a pile of shit, harvesting it, but never getting to it.
I figured out, the garbageman is my friend. I find something I've not used in awhile, it simply goes into the trash can, and they haul it away for me.
Re:Time machine (Score:5, Informative)
Before throwing electronics away make sure to check the appropriate regulations in your area. Many of these things are actually classified as hazardous waste under various jurisdictions and must be handled differently than normal trash.
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Of course, that's what rock quarries were made for: What you can't throw in the dump goes there.
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Before throwing electronics away make sure to check the appropriate regulations in your area. Many of these things are actually classified as hazardous waste under various jurisdictions and must be handled differently than normal trash.
Here's how they're handled differently: Non-hazardous waste it placed in a nearby, sealed, sanitary landfill. The hazardous e-waste is piled out in the open in undeveloped countries where it freely contaminates their local water supplies.
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You forgot to add that many times it's sorted by children in unsafe conditions
Re:Time machine (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't you put things up on freecycle instead, maybe someone can find a use for them rather than making more e-waste.
Re: freecycle (Score:2)
This is a great idea, and one that my wife often uses to get rid of things around the house we both decided are no longer needed.
BUT, freecycle can also have a hidden "cost"; your time and energy. On numerous occasions, we had people respond to a freecycle ad offering something, and then they turned into a no-show. That means we were stuck at home waiting for them to arrive, or alternately, hauled items out to the curb or doorstep, only to have to bring them back inside after they sat out all day and night
Out on the street with a FREE sign (Score:2)
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Never put a "free" sign on anything if you want said items to go away. Put a sign on it with a viable price, and it will probably disappear (read: "be stolen by local tweekers") within a week.
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Wait, Why was this modded down?
This is the crux of the problem. Not putting things in the recycle chain because you believe there is still a useful life for that 386 is exactly the problem. You save it, you pawn it off on some kid or some church and they leave it in a garage or something. Just take it to recycle. Maybe they do the right thing, but its almost certain that pawning it off on someone else does nothing good for anybody.
Get it in the recycle chain even if you have to take it apart and recycle
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Couldn't have said it better.. the only thing I would add is find your local recycling center (most county/city gov offices have them in some capacity) and drop it off there, rather than directly to the trash.
Re:Time machine (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed completely.
But everywhere you used the word "trash", the reader should infer the word "recycle". Many communities have recycling centers that will accept electronics for free.
For the adventurous among you, you might consider attempting to recover the precious metals yourself. I have a friend who recovers the gold from plated card-edge fingers. His last run of perhaps 14 old ISA bus cards yielded about 20 grams of gold. The drawback, of course, is that it uses corrosive chemicals, including nitric and hydrochloric acids, which have to be safely disposed of.
Re:Time machine (Score:4, Funny)
Hmm...I'd almost agree, though IMO one should never give up the opportunity to throw a perfectly good CRT off of the side of a building. They make awesome noises when they hit the ground.
Haven't you ever had to throw a big piece of glass away, and you ask yourself: Why am I just going to "throw" this away without breaking it first? Honestly I rarely if ever throw away big pieces of glass without breaking it first, and I think everybody here agrees. CRT's are equally fun to destroy.
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No, I've been hording electronics since my college days. You would be amazed how much old computer junk I had packed in a college dorm room. But... CRTs which I couldn't use, less than VGA, nonfunctional, I used to enjoy throwing them out the 3rd story window of the study room.
Also, old, nonstandard computer cases were fun to get rid of. Now... I really was hording, for example, cases which I could get a standard footprint motherboard into given a nibbler and a hacksaw and a LOT of elbow grease I kept. I
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Although psychically provocative, blowing up CRTs spews lead around. Those things should be disposed of properly.
Go shoot watermelons with a .222 - about the same level of visceral satisfaction.
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While the amount of lead in a CRT makes up a significant fraction of its weight, the lead is vitrified and not much will escape into the environment, even if the glass is shattered. More lead would likely enter the environment from the melon-destroying bullet shattering on a rock. That's still no excuse for littering the ground with broken shards of glass.
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Agreed completely.
But everywhere you used the word "trash", the reader should infer the word "recycle". Many communities have recycling centers that will accept electronics for free.
And there lies the problem. They "take" the stuff to "recycle" and cash in on it themselves. What would I get if I were the one who did the favor to send it to recycling? Not a fucking thing. So, aside from aluminum and other metals, which the local recycling center actually pays for, everything goes to the curb in bags. Straight to the dump. As soon as they give me incentive to recycle glass beer bottles, I will. As soon as they give something in return for the profit they will undoubtedly make off
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I second this. Go through and strip out what you might need for backups and spot fixes like wires and connectors, and pitch the rest. I've kept a ton of old hardware mostly for naught. Technology simply progresses too quickly to make any of it useful and the fuss of wrestling with old hardware just isn't worth your time.
Now, if anything is decent you might want to consider donating to a non-profit or a high school for kids to tinker around with.
Re:Time machine (Score:5, Informative)
Whatever you do, don't throw it in your ordinary trash. The only thing worse than paying $1000/month rent for a house full of junk is ruining our environment with something that does have value. Check your local area, electronics recycling is a value proposition for some metals (e.g. gold) but also for the rare earth elements in capacitors and hard drive magnets.
Throw the junk away (Score:3)
If you don't mind some light, but hard work, bordering on drudgery:
an old CRT has over a pound of copper in it. Older ones have quite a bit more.
When you get down to old processors and other circuitry there are some people who are able to salvage the gold out of them, but the parts need separated first. When I was in high school I helped sort and strip and salvage a couple hundred 286, 386 and 486 computers that were being disposed of by some large local businesses as a "donation" to the school my mom wor
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In addition to the clutter aspect, it may be worth considering the potential adverse health effects of having piles of old electronic equipment kicking around. Depending on their age, they may be leaking polychorinated biphenyls and/or banned flame retardants, etc.
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Windows 3 on a 486? You're being generous.
I'd go with Windows 3.11 on a 286 with a Hercules graphic card.
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Bah!
Windows 95.... on a 386!
Yes, it can be done, I've seen it.
It even had AOL muh ha hah hahh
Re:You binned some SGI workstations??? (Score:4, Funny)
Windows 3.11 on a 286 with a Hercules graphic card.
And a 2400 bps modem. Hopefully you can still find a copy of Trumpet Winsock around somewhere!
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Time machine? That has potential constructive uses...so it's just not evil enough.
With all of those lasers, I'd hope somebody could come up with a schematic for building a death ray. I've always wanted to have my own death ray.
Re:wall of monitors. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:wall of monitors. (Score:5, Interesting)
19" CRTs with 100-degree tubes are highly prized by collectors/restorers of arcade equipment. (The 19VLUP22 used in Tempest used a 100-degree angle of deflection, rather than the more common 90-degree deflection. The game was prone to burning holes in the phosphor under certain hardware failure conditions, and a collection of 80 or so CRT TVs may have something useful in them. Black-and-white 15" and 19" tubes are also useful to restorers of vintage gaming hardware.)
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Please turn in your geek card. CRTs still make fine monitors for computers and video game systems.
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for what you'd pay in electricity and labor in just a short order, you could make up for by buying higher-quality cheap LCDs...a quick scan at amazon shows there are new and refurbished lcds for $50. There's very little use for a CRT.
Some of us (Arcade collectors) prefer to keep things as original as possible and still repair / cap CRT's to maintain that. Sure LCD's may be cheaper or more energy efficient, but it's like an old muscle car that gets 6 MPG, you know what you're getting when you buy it and would rather keep it original.
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I'm not sure what anyone would do with a Beowulf cluster of VCRs, but I think it would be awesome!
Great to give to kids with an interest (Score:2)
in electronics. When I was a teenage geek, a ham up the street gifted me with a number of things including a marvelous "boat anchor" surplus shortwave set. And lent me a number of other things like a working scope. It was a great learning experience. If something wasn't working or couldn't be made to work, I salvaged components from it. My parents had no idea I was debugging 400 volt tube circuits. Somehow I survived.