Legacy Stuff and Hoarding

[jonny12x]

Am I the only one who REALLY doesn't like the thought of just throwing out perfectly good computer hardware, books, etc., just because they're 10, 20+ years out of date? Do you know of any places/organizations that take low-spec PCs? I'm talking single-core Pentium 4, 768 MB RAM, Windows XP, only useful for retro stuff. Also Zip drives, external hard drives, printers, and other peripherals. What about blank 3 & 1/2" and 5 & 1/4" floppy disks? I've got loads of them. I sent two boxes of old books (80s-00s) and disks to the Internet Archive, and felt proud of myself for having saved pieces of history (family was early to get on the computer bandwagon, and tended to keep stuff).

[Geek-9pm]

dictation.
It depends where you live. Use your local craigslist to describe what you have that you would like to just sell real cheap or giveaway. Be sure to include pictures. With legacy equipment it's hard to describe it in words what it is, the pictures do a better job.
The might be a local college that needs to have older equipment for their computer laboratory so that students can take things apart and put it back together again.
You might mention in what area you live.
Be sure and place information on Facebook and twitter. And if you don't use Facebook or twitter, now's the time to start doing it just to your grittier stuff.

[BC_Programmer]

I keep everything I have room for. I still have a book about PC-Write, PC-File, and PC-Talk from the mid-eighties, as well as a college textbook on "Applied Structured BASIC" from about the same time frame. I was basically a dumping ground for people getting rid of older stuff since I was "out of date" tech wise anyway. I don't go for old books, but I'll will occasionally grab older stuff on eBay. I've been looking for older Macintosh/Apple/Commodore systems at a reasonable price for a while, but they are rather high on the price scale.

I also looked into rebuilding one my first Windows PCs, but the same Motherboard alone was asking over $100.

Considering that, may be worth trying eBay if you need to get rid of stuff. Including the blank floppy diskettes, as they are getting harder and harder to come by (the 5-1/4" ones especially.). You might get a good price from people looking for that sort of thing. (Maybe not so much the P4 system, but anything before that seems to be going up in the sold prices).

[camerongray]

For me it depends what it is. I have a reasonable sized collection of vintage/retro/rare machines. However, all of those are machines that are somewhat interesting on a technical or historical level, several of which are pretty rare and valuable by modern standards (the rarest I have being a NeXTstation Turbo Color.). I then tend to restore them, get them all working (which can be a pretty big challenge for some of the more unusual stuff from the pre-internet days as there's very little documentation).  In the last year I've also started documenting them on my website YouTube channel.

That said, I have no interest in keeping tech just because it's old.  If I upgrade my PC the parts are likely still reasonably valuable so I'll sell them on.  When it comes to old Pentium 4 stuff, it's simply too old to be  usable, it's common as mud so not particularly rare and I'd generally either give them away (if I can find someone who wants them which is almost never) or recycle them after stripping any components that I'd have a use for.  Old stuff like that simply isn't worth having around for me, it takes up space, I'd never be able to use it for anything practical and it's not interesting enough for me to add to my collection.

I find that stuff from before 2000 tends to be resellable as it's not super easy to find and people tend to like having it for retro stuff.  Stuff newer than that but not new enough to run modern software tends to not be worth anything more than scrap value as they are so common.  I'm probably going to sell off a couple of my more boring machines (486 PC (I have several so don't need them all), old powermac.etc) to make space for more unusual stuff.

[Thomas_JK]

Am I the only one who REALLY doesn't like the thought of just throwing out perfectly good computer hardware, books, etc., just because they're 10, 20+ years out of date? Do you know of any places/organizations that take low-spec PCs? I'm talking single-core Pentium 4, 768 MB RAM, Windows XP, only useful for retro stuff. Also Zip drives, external hard drives, printers, and other peripherals. What about blank 3 & 1/2" and 5 & 1/4" floppy disks? I've got loads of them. I sent two boxes of old books (80s-00s) and disks to the Internet Archive, and felt proud of myself for having saved pieces of history (family was early to get on the computer bandwagon, and tended to keep stuff).

No, you are not. I also have a collection of vintage computers, computer related books, etc. I rarely throw anything away, but I'm not actively collecting more stuff, at the moment.

As mentioned by others, Graigslist, web auctions, social media might be good venues to sell your stuff. Blank diskettes would be quite easy to sell. Pentium 4 era stuff is a bit young, I think. Genarally, anything before 2000 is more sought after, and easier to sell.
Saving pieces of history (like you did with internet archive and books&disk) is honourable thing to do. My family also got quite early on the computer bandwagon (thanks to my father) and old stuff was often kept, books, manuals, disks especially, since they dont require that much space.

[DaveLembke]

I have a hard time tossing away good computers. Biggest problem for me is that I am so good at fixing them that I accumulated quite a few that were ones that people were throwing away that I fixed. I try to find them homes vs trashing them. Currently I have 16 computers of which 4 desktops and 2 laptops are used on a regular basis with me using the 2 desktops and 2 laptops and daughter and wife each have their own computers.

For the longest time I had kept the best computer for my own needs and given hand me down lesser powerful computers to them. Then as computers became cheaper to buy there was a flood of Pentium 4 through Core 2 Duo systems being sent my way as the $350 new desktop can run laps around that old Pentium 4 that clients had. Additionally Windows XP being no longer supported scared many into buying new computers and they contacted me asking for a place to get rid of their old computer and I took them off their hands for free disposal of everything except for CRT monitors which i have no need for.

My daughter I was going to upgrade to Windows 7 and a Dual-Core Athlon II 215 2.7Ghz, but she is happy with the old Dell which use to be a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz but I upgraded it to a better CPU with SSE3 that is running a socket 478 single core Celeron D 2.8Ghz, with 1GB RAM, GeForce 6200 256MB AGP video, and 160GB IDE HDD. She plays minecraft, spore, youtube, facebook, and hulu on it for hours and really enjoys XP vs 7. So that old computer has a home in her room with regular use. Looking at the resources when the computer is in use that Celeron D is running full tilt to do what she wants it to, and somehow while that CPU is weak, it does it ok and she has no complaints. When that CPU was for sale years ago it got 5 of 5 rating. The Pentium 4 HT would run better than the Celeron D with extra virtual core of hyperthreading and more cache, but I didnt have one to stuff into her system and one CPU that I thought was correct socket 478 P4 3.0Ghz HT is a mobile processor that looks exactly like desktop CPU, but system wont run it. Kind of stupid that Intel made mobile and desktop CPU's socket 478 and  yet they look the same you cant use mobile P4 in a desktop P4. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819112186

My wife I had her on a Dual Core Pentium E5400 2.7Ghz which was fine and she was happy with until she used my quadcore the one day and was saying she wanted faster because she felt the speed difference between my quadcore and her dualcore. So I got a Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz for $15 off ebay and she is now happy with the Quadcore system upgrade.

The 10 other systems I have range from first generation Pentium 4 1.7Ghz with 768MB PC-133 SDRAM all the way to two 8-core systems that I built for use only when needing to number crunch or play games that the Athlon II x4 620 2.6Ghz with 4GB RAM struggles with like Witcher 3. Of the 10 computers I have 6 desktops and 4 laptops with the weakest laptop a Intel Atom 1.66Ghz with 2GB RAM, a few Core 2 Duo Laptops and Dual Core Athlon Laptop from 2009 that the GPU is too weak in to play modern games that looks like new because only used on business trips.

Finding homes for older computers that are 7 to 15 years old  is kind of difficult because people can buy new computers these days so cheaply and people dont like lag even if computer is free they would rather pay say $200 or $300 and not have lag. Additionally people feel the push to be away from XP because they feel insecure about XP no longer having updates although they miss XP when they get Windows 8 or 10 and complain about this and that.

I have been tempted to space save by disassembling 4 of the large towers and storing the parts as good guts. Place the motherboards with CPU and RAM left installed into large ESD baggies and place into storage to safe for some day when there might be a demand for them as well as I do run some legacy games and the first Generation Pentium 4 1.7Ghz with 768MB RAM works best with older games from the mid 90s designed for Windows 95 and single-core CPU execution.

I have software going back to the 1980s. Most of it mid-1990s and newer. Binders full of software CD's and sharpie marker on the binder where the CD is with the key that was on the jewel case. Tossed out about 1000 jewel cases to save space. Years ago I got rid of my floppy disks around 1999 when i got a CD Burner and was able to fit 2 trash bags full of 360k 720k and 1.2MB floppy disks onto a single 650MB CD-R. I very rarely ever access that CD and made a newer copy of it since Disc media ages. but its nice to have all those shareware games and other software and DOS Freeware all taking up the space of a single CD-R.

I have a large and heavy HP XW9400 Server that I need to get rid of, but havent done that yet. It has 16GB of ECC RAM but it is a dual- dual-core ( 4 cores with 2 x dual cores ) with two AMD Opteron CPU's, and processing power wise its just too weak to be used for any needs I have. It has two FX-4600 Quadro It draws 365 watts of power when running. The fans in it are noisy and I was going to sell it but some of the capacitors are swollen on the large server motherboard. It runs correctly, but the capacitors are part of that capacitor plague that broke out some time ago due to the stolen electrolyte recipe that was sabotaged. That server is in my attic and its been eyed a few times as it really should go, but I'd rather have it go to someone who could use it vs a landfill. The nVidia FX4600 Quadro cards I was hoping would be good for video games, but they draw lots of power and are not designed for games. I even checked to see if  BOINC would support the FX4600 cards for GPU number crunching processing since the cards were designed for CAD and Engineering Simulation/Design use I figured maybe they would be weak for games but shine when it comes to processing power for number crunching for BOINC Asteroids project that I donate computer processing to. But these cards are not supported for GPU processing. I see high price tags on these Quadro cards but they just dont sell often. I might hold onto the video cards as a maybe some day there will be a collector demand for them since they dont take up much space.

If I was looking to get rid of computers and computer hardware for free, I'd probably use Craigslist or FreeCycle.

I have used freecycle to get stuff for free like a good working treadmill, mountain bike for my wife, and a good working Sony 27" Color TV CRT type for play with my old NES where the gun controller requires a CRT to work properly. https://www.freecycle.org/  Freecycle can be used to get rid of stuff too. I havent used it yet to get rid of anything but its free to use.

[camerongray]

And of course, the best place to store a collection of reasonably rare old machines is under your bed! 

Those photos show most of them but there are a few others that were either elsewhere at the time (I took a few of them to a video games event at university and left them in a cupboard there for a while until I could arrange transport to get them back home) and I have a couple of towers that are too tall to fit under the bed so are kept elsewhere.

This is the main reason I can't just hold on to tonnes of old PCs, storage space is limited, and don't particularly want to live surrounded by piles of PCs in every room!

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[patio]

I'll take that keyboard in the center of Pic #1 if you need more room...

[DaveLembke]

Nice collection. I have boxes and boxes of stuff in loft of my barn that I will go up there for example to get a older A to B USB cable and find stuff I forgot I ever acquired.  Only drawback to the loft in the barn is that while its dry out of the weather its still subject to humidity changes and daily temperature shift of cool frigid nights and warm days. I have an office up in the loft that is 8 x 8 that has electric heat and insulated but I didnt use it this winter because I messed up my left knee so I couldnt climb the old strong wooden ladder to get up to the loft. I have the materials to build stairs up to the loft, but delayed that project last summer because it was nice having a space to do my own thing and not have wife able to walk up stairs to pull me away from a project.     This summer though i am going to put the stairs in because its kind of dangerous carrying stuff up and down ladder and going up and down ladder 1 handed or no handed with elbows to the ladder leaning at the angle the ladder is to not go backwards off of it. Carrying down the HP XW9400 server down that ladder I got on it carefully and was thinking ok, I weigh 240 lbs and this server weighs probably 50 or 60 lbs. The ladder is about 60 or 70 years old. Hopefully no rungs snap. Not sure what wood they made this old ladder out of but the wood is very strong and doesnt give under my weight and objects I am carrying added up. The first winter that I owned this house I checked on stuff that following spring and summer and noticed that some CD-R and DVD-R discs were getting disc rot, and so I moved all my media into the dry attic of my home. I went to get data off of a CD-R which was filled like 698MB of the 700MB and had some data read errors. Surface of CD was like new. Looked at it further and saw that the edge of the aluminum in the disc was darkened. It looked like humidity somehow got in between the plastic platters sandwiched to aluminum burnable sheet. Ever since discs moved to attic this disc rot stopped. Computer cases also started getting small surface rust on the inside of the cases probably from the temperature shift and uncontrolled humidity. We get lots of fog and that humidity in the air must have condensed to the inside of the computer cases. So all good computers then got moved from loft of barn into attic of house to keep dry. I have about 6 large cardboard boxes up there still with various cables and cards that dont have much value to them older AGP video cards with like 16MB video and other stuff. Also lots of books which I probably need to donate or recycle, but some I will keep. I have a old book in GW-Basic which I use to use 30 years ago. While I dont program in GW-Basic because its way too limited and C++ is far better, it wouldnt take up much space to save that book as a favorite. I have other books on QBasic, older VB6, Access 2000, and Windows 3.11, Windows 95 and 98 books that I dont think there is any demand for. There is also somewhere in there a HTML book from around 1998 that I like that I might toss because its too legacy, but it has a full hex listing color chart. However Google these days can show the same color chart without taking up space in my home.

Now that i think of it, I have my Atari2600, NES, SNES, Playstation 1, and Play Station 2, and Sega Genesis and all games in boxes out there too that i forgot about until now... Now feeling an urgency to get them out of barn and into attic of house to get all that out of the uncontrolled exposure to humidity. 

Leaves work early to run home and deal with that... How I wish i could,...... daylight savings time needs to be abolished because its making for a blah day of lack of adequate sleep. 

[soybean]

Over the course of 2 1/2 decades since my first PC purchase, I've done some hoarding but I'm trying to move away from that way of doing things.  While still having some of the computers and hardware components I've owned in the past, - and I do still have some of it - I sense a need to reduce clutter.  This issue pertains to possessions other than computers, also. 

Regarding computing books, I have some I really have no need for now and I see no point in keeping them.  This includes such titles as Sams' Teach Yourself FrontPage 98, Using [LOTUS] 1-2-3, Peachtree for Dummies, Netscape and the World Wide Web for Dummies, etc.

[patio]

It may not qualify as hoarding...but i have every HDD that i've owned...
I sold a bunch of PC's with upgrades thru the years...always kept my original HDD's...

[Geek-9pm]

It may not qualify as hoarding...but i have every HDD that i've owned...
I sold a bunch of PC's with upgrades thru the years...always kept my original HDD's...

Photos, please. 

[DaveLembke]

It may not qualify as hoarding...but i have every HDD that i've owned...
I sold a bunch of PC's with upgrades thru the years...always kept my original HDD's...

I also keep most of my drives. Those I dont keep get a sledge hammer because I cant chance anyone getting taxes from say 2004 and having all my personal info to steal my identity etc.

Systems I give away or sell that I used for any period of time get a drive installation that I never used for any sensitive data. I have had a new hard drive fail before and not shipped it back under warranty replacement because my taxes for a number of years was on it and it wasnt worth getting a replacement drive and not knowing if someone would spin the drive up after cracking the external enclosure open. And fact of the matter is that the drive itself was still healthy, the USB to SATA board inside the 1.5TB Western Digital External Hard Drive enclosure died, so my data was all still there. When cracking the case open and voiding the warranty, and installing the hard drive internally to one of my systems it checked out ok with no errors and right then and there became an internal drive. I have used warranty replacement of drives through seagate but one of them was a gaming system that I floated the head on a 120GB HDD when the woofer under desk rattled the computer tower too much and I got a 160GB replacement as well as a 500GB Maxtor drive that i got in a dead computer I thought was junk but didnt toss it away yet. Then brother told me that Seagate acquired Maxtor and extended the 5 year warranty to Maxtor drives, and so the drive was 4.5 years old and I was able to send it back and for the cost of shipping get a brand new 500GB healthy hard drive.  The Maxtor drive wasnt my build and didnt have my data and it was dead to where it wouldnt spin, so it was not very likely for anyone to bother trying to get the data off of it.

Sometimes having an older IDE drive kicking around come in handy too, such as a clients computer crashed and their hard drive was junk with the clunk of death. I was able to scrub one of my 40GB IDE drives clean and attach it as a slave drive, then install XP to my 40GB drive, and run GetDataBack NTFS to read the bad hard drive even as it was having the clunk of death to reassemble the data onto my 40GB IDE drive that had about 32GB available. They had 6GB of data that needed to be recovered and so it took a few days but it finally sweeped the platters and assembled the data onto the healthy drive. Then I was able to burn this data to 2 DVD-R discs for client and give them their data back.

[soybean]

I, too, have kept old hard drives.  If I did not keep any, I destroyed them.  I have two external enclosures (but one does not work) for old 3.5" IDE hard drives and, likewise, have two external enclosures for 2.5" laptop drives.

[patio]

I have 3 Quantum BigFoots,,,thats how long i been saving...