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Recycling store...

Chuck(G)

25k Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2007
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Location
Pacific Northwest, USA
A volunteer place near me that basically reduces PCs to junk for recycling has a storefront also. This being a university town, it's Mac-ville. Here's a bunch of vintage Macs for sale:

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And the sad pile of SGIs in the "closeout" section. According to the guy at the store, no one wants them:

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Bins full of expansion cards, piles of Zip drives, routers, you name it. I bought a NIB 5.25" floppy drive for $5.

Apparently, they don't hang onto vintage PCs, just Macs. There was a rack in the corner that held an HP 3000 system, but the contents had long gone to the great smelter in the sky.

Basically, if it's not a Mac or a late PC, the store personnel know nothing about it.
 

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oooh! I would pay for that yellow Elan badge on the Indigo. I lost mine a while ago. Care to do me a favor? ;)

When I'm back there, I'll have a look. Basically, the closeout area is "make us an offer". Bet I could get it for $10. Notice that there's another one just behind the one in front.

Not being an SGI fan myself, what can you do with one of these? Is the OS software readily available? Does it, say, run NetBSD?
 
How much do the Mac II series (big beige dektops with 2 floppy drives on the top right of the shelf) tend to go for?

Do they have some used 5.25" beige HH floppy drives cheap there (1.2MB)?
 
I could use a plain old clean mac II (not IIx or IIfx) if the shipping and price is not too crazy.

The 5.25" floppy drives are more realistic (easier to ship too).

I need to find a local place around here that stips old PCs.
 
When I'm back there, I'll have a look. Basically, the closeout area is "make us an offer". Bet I could get it for $10. Notice that there's another one just behind the one in front.

Not being an SGI fan myself, what can you do with one of these? Is the OS software readily available? Does it, say, run NetBSD?


If it's an R4k series Indigo you can max it out almost completely and mod in other things like an R4400. The later R4K series also are capable of running Irix 6.5 and considering you have an Elan badge, it will have elan graphics which is still enough to do stuff with.
Just PM me is you have more questions as I have one myself and use it from time to time.

BTW, there is still a fairly large community of Irix 6.5 users and freeware is still made for it.
 
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i see a color classic in there! i want one... too bad my mom won't let me keep it :(

EDIT: I can have one... just gotta wait till the end of the year :(
 
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Color Mac Classic

Color Mac Classic

Hi Chuck

Anyway you could hook me up with one of those Color Mac Classic's for $50 with shipping?

Thanks,
Dan
 
I'll ask and see what they say.

I found the trip kind of depressing. There were crates and crates full of interesting stuff mixed in with the Dells and E-machines. Like a really old Sony reel-to-reel portable tape recorder. Much of it's going to be stripped to nothing and used to make cheap jewelry, beer cans and washing machines. It really hurt--there was nothing intrinsically wrong with most of the stuff.

I didn't even bother looking over the laptops and notebooks--there were stacks of those.

I used to get the same feeling when I'd see CEs taking sledge hammers to old gear at CDC, by corporate fiat, reducing it to unsuable junk.
 
The only thing "wrong" with most of that stuff is the previous owner wanted something newer.

Just because it looks intact doesn't mean it works, or works reliably.
 
I'll ask and see what they say.

I found the trip kind of depressing. There were crates and crates full of interesting stuff mixed in with the Dells and E-machines. Like a really old Sony reel-to-reel portable tape recorder. Much of it's going to be stripped to nothing and used to make cheap jewelry, beer cans and washing machines. It really hurt--there was nothing intrinsically wrong with most of the stuff.

I didn't even bother looking over the laptops and notebooks--there were stacks of those.

I used to get the same feeling when I'd see CEs taking sledge hammers to old gear at CDC, by corporate fiat, reducing it to unsuable junk.
That brought tears to my eyes. :cry:

Could you please take a look at the notebooks and stuff and see if there are any GRiD items? I'm looking for a GRiD convertible tabled/laptop w/ Windows 3.1 for Pen.
 
The main thing I dislike about recycling centers is that they can sometimes be very aggressive regarding people like us who see a particularly valueable/rare computer and ask to take it off their hands or pay them a fee at least to do so.
Normally they don't like it as the hardware runs the risk of appearing on ebay or craigslist, thus meaning they lost money, or because there might be ~$40 in gold in it and we are taking that from them, again resulting in lost profits, even if we offer them money for it.
In every way it runs down to money.
I have said many times here that the recyclers where I live hate me. If they see me on the property with nothing for me to give them they know exactlywhat I am doing there and in the past, have not hesitated to phone the police on me. I feel like a f$*!%#g outlaw and I don't like it one bit.
I wish us collectors were more recognized in the recycling business in a positive way and normally not treated like profit-robbing criminals but hey, it's money.
 
I'd love to get one of the Color Classic models and one of the Classic carrying cases. Where is the store located at if you don't mind my asking?
 
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