Post by thread:[OT]: Junk or useful?

Rats! I forgot the [OT] and sent it to all... Sorry for the interruption but I don't know how to Un-Send the first one... Its time to gather up another trailer load of junk and get rid of it... Can anyone offer a reason to keep any of the following: MFM hard drives? PC XT? PS2 M80? Any ISA parts? My interest is in the future, not the past! Most likely it will go in the trash, I don't think it would pay for the effort on EBAY. John Ferrell http://DixieNC.US

Contact the nearest computer/science museum, other than that, I would trash it all. -Mario {Quote hidden}> Rats! I forgot the [OT] and sent it to all... Sorry for the interruption > but I don't know how to Un-Send the first one... > Its time to gather up another trailer load of junk and get rid of it... > > Can anyone offer a reason to keep any of the following: > MFM hard drives? > PC XT? > PS2 M80? > Any ISA parts? > > My interest is in the future, not the past! > Most likely it will go in the trash, I don't think it would pay for the > effort on EBAY. > John Ferrell > http://DixieNC.US > -

Well, I just took my original 286 (that cost me $1,500) and my original 486 to the "museum in the garage." The 286 is still pretty much original and runs. The 486 now has linux on it, and runs SLOWLY. I think it came with Windows 3.1. Harold -- FCC Rules Updated Daily at http://www.hallikainen.com

On Oct 12, 2005, at 12:40 PM, John Ferrell wrote: > Can anyone offer a reason to keep any of the following: > Any ISA parts? I'd say ISA parallel and serial cards might be worth keeping. There are enough mid-range pentium systems with an ISA slot or two that they're not totally useless (and you can avoid munging your motherboard chipset when using the ports for non-traditional uses.) I recently realized that the amount I've paid to store some of my older junk has exceeded the cost of replacing it all with brand new stuff :-( I think I'm about to trash a bunch of monitors, for instance... BillW

Hi John, Wednesday, October 12, 2005, 2:40:30 PM, you wrote: > Can anyone offer a reason to keep any of the following: > MFM hard drives? > PC XT? > PS2 M80? > Any ISA parts? The hard drives likely have strong magnets in them - I've pulled a few from dead drives; they are fun to play with, even if you cannot find anything useful to do with them. I have a hard time prying them off of my filing cabinet - they have to be slid off the edge. I don't know how many boards you would need to justify trying to extract the gold, but IIRC, Nuts & Volts had an article on what was involved in reclaiming the gold at home. Then there are the floppy drive motors.... -- Best regards, Patrick Murphy James Valley Colony

And you wash and re-use zip lock bags? What is your hourly rate? How long does it take you to pull one of them and take it to the storage bin for it? Not trying to be critical... Just reviewing my justification for NOT collecting those things. Maybe I'm wrong. --- James. {Quote hidden}> -----Original Message----- > From: spam_OUTpiclist-bouncesTakeThisOuTmit.edu > [.....piclist-bouncesKILLspam@spam@mit.edu] On Behalf Of David Van Horn > Sent: 2005 Oct 13, Thu 12:53 > To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. > Subject: RE: [OT]: Junk or useful? > > > > Those little black jumpers go for $0.10 each, and the nuts > that hold serial and parallel cables on are obscenely > expensive. I pull them from every card I pitch. > > > -

You are probably right, but us pack-rats are uncomfortable without a certain level of junk around us! Of course, the level varies from individual, and you can deduce something since I still have this stuff... John Ferrell http://DixieNC.US {Original Message removed}

> And you wash and re-use zip lock bags? What is your hourly rate? How long > does it take you to pull one of them and take it to the storage bin for > it? > > Not trying to be critical... Just reviewing my justification for NOT > collecting those things. Maybe I'm wrong. There are times when every waking hour is potentially billable time. Then there are times when I'm not that busy. I put aside things that will take "tinker time" for those times. I also have kids that can do this kind of thing, and even enjoy it.

On 13 Oct 2005, at 20:20, Patrick Murphy wrote: {Quote hidden}> Hi John, > > Wednesday, October 12, 2005, 2:40:30 PM, you wrote: > >> Can anyone offer a reason to keep any of the following: >> MFM hard drives? >> PC XT? >> PS2 M80? >> Any ISA parts? > > The hard drives likely have strong magnets in them - I've pulled a few > from > dead drives; they are fun to play with, even if you cannot find > anything useful > to do with them. I have a hard time prying them off of my filing > cabinet - they > have to be slid off the edge. > > I don't know how many boards you would need to justify trying to > extract the > gold, but IIRC, Nuts & Volts had an article on what was involved in > reclaiming > the gold at home. > > Then there are the floppy drive motors.... > > -- > Best regards, > Patrick Murphy > James Valley Colony > --

So you've thrown away hundreds of those little black jumpers,(even the ones with the fancy pull tabs) then you have to buy some at ten cents each, ten or a hundred times what they are worth. Don't you get that feeling like ground glass in your stomach? :) D James Newtons Massmind wrote: > And you wash and re-use zip lock bags? What is your hourly rate? How long > does it take you to pull one of them and take it to the storage bin for it? > > Not trying to be critical... Just reviewing my justification for NOT > collecting those things. Maybe I'm wrong. > --- > James.

> > Not trying to be critical... Just reviewing my justification > > for NOT collecting those things. Maybe I'm wrong. > > There are times when every waking hour is potentially billable > time. Then there are times when I'm not that busy. I put aside > things that will take "tinker time" for those times I find the TV news hour is a good time, those 1/2 days when you just can't concentrate on or apply yourself to anything, or even when on the phone. A little forethought is all you need to have little things that need doing handy to do as the opportunity arises