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A thrist store problem.

C

Computer Collector

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Im not sure what its like where you live, but around here we have a lot of thrift stores called Goodwill. A few years ago these stores were real interesting, I could go in and find all sorts of vintage stuff. But lately they have been going a bad direction around here. I spoke with a manager and my suspicion is confirmed: They dont sell any computer stuff anymore. They automatically throw it away. Although I have rescued some of it from the dumpster (some nice and perfectly good working stuff, by the way) utimately, this is a problem. I cant make it out to the dumpsters of all the stores every day, and who knows what they are throwing away; TRS-80s, Wangs, who knows? They have changed the appearance of their stores. now all the Goodwills around here want to be pristene consgnment clothing stores. They try to keep the stores neat and clean and dont want to sell computers. The problem is, some of the stores fence off their dumpster and I cant get to the computers that are doomed.
They ought to sell it so that I can go in and buy the stuff. I bet all sorts of good old Commodore software has been thrown out. The people just keep giving the stuff to them! I think Im going to make an advertisement that says "dont give your old computer to a thrift store that will just throw it away. Give it to me - free pickup" :D
 
Re: A thrist store problem.

Computer Collector said:
Im not sure what its like where you live, but around here we have a lot of thrift stores called Goodwill. A few years ago these stores were real interesting, I could go in and find all sorts of vintage stuff. But lately they have been going a bad direction around here. I spoke with a manager and my suspicion is confirmed: They don't sell any computer stuff anymore.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how Goodwill works here, but lately I've given them a bunch of stuff.

I do know how the Salvation Army works; they have a store where folks can buy stuff, but they also have auctions where they sell the leftover stuff that doesn't make it to the store. I used to go to their auctions before my space disappeared.
 
They ought to sell it so that I can go in and buy the stuff. I bet all sorts of good old Commodore software has been thrown out. The people just keep giving the stuff to them!
Click to expand...

yep, i know how you feel.

the goodwill near my place now only accepts 486's and up, although they used to be a gold mine for finding all kinds of older goodies.

any older machines they chuck in the bin.

i wish they held auctions like that sally-ann does near barryp's place.

thankfully the goodwill still displays any computer books they get their hands on.

i try and grab any comp. book that looks neat, even if i don't think i will have a use for it, since i can hopefully give some away to other vint. comp. people.

chris
 
WELL THE GOODWILLS NEAR ME DITCH ALL COMPUTERS. LIKE, ITS THEIR POLICY TO NOT SELL THEM. SO GUESS WHAT I FOUND IN THE DUMPSTER TONIGHT?

I FOUND A NEW HP PAVILION CPMUTER WITH A 50.9GB HARD DRIVE AND PENTIUM 4 PROCESSOR AND WINDOWS XP. IT ALSO PLAYS DVDS AND HAS LIKE 6 SLOTS TO PLUG IN MEMORY STICKS.

I LITERALLY JUST MADE OUT WITH A PERFECTLY FINE WORKING NEW COMPUTER FOR FREE!

MY WIFE AND I JUST WATCHED MY DUKES OF HAZZARD DVD ON IT.

ITS ACTUALLY BETTER THAN MY REGULAT COMPUTER (THAT IM USING NOW)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Sounds like a nice score.

I used to really like Goodwill. I discovered my first store after a friend of time told me about it, and I would go there about once a week to buy toys. After a while the sales people got to know me and when I would walk in, they'd tell me about things I might be interest in that had arrived during the week. I slowly found out about other stores, closer to home. At one point, there was a Goodwill almost literally around the corner from my house. But the stores were closing down, one by one. At first, they seemed just to be moving, but during the last year all the ones I knew have closed. I was down to one store. I had almost stopped going there because it was far and there were less and less "good things" there anymore. I was going to go over there last week, but something told me I should call ahead first; sure enough, the number was disconnected. There must be something going on. I wonder if it's gotten too expensive to have a store anymore? Or maybe they're not getting enough donations? I don't know.

I can tell you that most of the salespeople I met there wanted NOTHING to do with computers. They appeared to be genuinely fearful of them. It was as if clothes were okay because they were easy to understand. But computers were... well, the devil.

Having said that, I did manage to score a computer at Goodwill once, but by accident. One time, my friendly sales person asked me if I had "seen this game" and pushed something across the counter that looked alot like a laptop. I suppose he thought it was one of those kid's V-tech toy laptops. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was actually an HP OmniBook. It didn't have a power supply but there was enough of a charge on the battery that it would start the POST. So I asked how much. "Ten bucks". Uh... okay, I can do that. When I got it home, I rigged up a power supply (and of course this is one of the few laptops that takes TWENTY ONE VOLTS instead of the usual TWELVE) and the thing booted. Long story short, I was able to get a power supply on eBay and I still use the laptop occasionally. Sure it's only a 486DX50 but it runs DOS fine and in a pinch, it's a great serial terminal. (I may still hook it up as a lap counter for my slot car track).

The other day I discovered a Salvation Army "Family Store". There were computers in the side room with all the stereos and TVs, but really nothing to write home about. They were all recent vintage "white boxes", running XP.

I'm just curious - what part of the country are you in?
 
Over here, the goodwill - and 2nd hand - stores barely have any electronical stuff at all. Probably it takes more space than they can get money out of it. At best you find something on a flea market, but that is a different matter.

We have a recycling station - Återbruket - which I've mentioned before. You are not allowed to pick up or buy anything from the garbage other people dropped off, everything goes to recycling. However, earlier this year there was a petition to make the recycling station a reseller of dumped goods, and it would be up to each one dropping their stuff if they allowed it to be resold or recycled. I haven't heard about the matter for a while, but sometimes the stuff left to recycling looks perfectly fine, albeit a little outdated, so it could work. I respect people who don't want their personal belongings end up in someone else's house.
 
Goodwill and such.

Goodwill and such.

I've seen the same situation, Goodwill and their ilk just don't have the goodies they used to. They used to be an especially good place to buy calculators. I bought an HP 41c at a Salvation Army store for US$1.

-mikol
 
FYI, this article is from the March 21, 2005 issue of my Computer Collector Newsletter ( http://news.computercollector.com ):

---------------------------------

Recently there's been discussion of finding vintage computers at Goodwill stores, via the classiccmp.org's cctalk mailing list. How can we as collectors ensure that significant items aren't disposed of?

Goodwill Industries International, the umbrella organization for 200 independent agencies, does not set master policies for the operations of its 1,874 stores in the U.S., 75 in Canada, and one online (the address is http://www.shopgoodwill.com, but it's up to each store to determine which items are posted). About two-thirds of the stores accept computers, although there is no master list of which stores specifically. The only way to find out is to contact the stores -- information is at http://locator.goodwill.org and (800)664-6577.

But what can computer collectors do to salvage, say, a pre-release prototype of an IBM 5100? "Shop early and shop often" is the approach taken by collectors of most sorts, spokeswoman Christine Bragale noted. Bargains for computer collectors are especially likely to be found at the Goodwill Computer Works stores in Santa Ana, Calif.
(http://www.ocgoodwill.org/computer_works/index.html) and Austin, Texas (http://www.austincomputerworks.org/contact.html) -- the Austin location even has its own computer museum slated to re-open in May.

Store managers are generally alert for valuables, at least since someone found an original Picasso etching in a $3 throwaway pile a few years ago, Bragale said. "The donations attendant who had sorted it saw a broken frame and a picture of a nude," hardly something Goodwill would normally carry, she explained. Luckily that was noticed in time and sold at auction, she said. Vintage computer hobbyists are encouraged to volunteer for sorting duty at their local stores.
 
I was dumpster diving last night and found the video "Close encounters",
a late 70s film about aliens coming to the U.S. It was my first time ever seeing the movie, alothough I have like 5 different versions of the the theme song on various records (have have hundreds of records from the 70s). Anway, my wife and I though the movie was very weird. but what I liked most about it was the computers! In the movie, you get to see some old computers, and the big, old tape drives, etc. This just made me want to get a super computer even more! their probably close to impossible to find these days, though.
 
I haven't made any great finds on old computer at a Salvation Army but some of the older software I've gotten is fantastic. Starflight with all the original disks, manual, map, etc. 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego' in the box, etc.

I did drop off a Commodore 64 one day (I have 3) but I deeply regret that. I suspect it ended up in the garbage.
 
Maybe some of you can help me here. About a month ago, at a thrift store I picked up an 17 inch IBM monitor. I was glad to have found it. Usually IBM monitors are good quality and all....brought it home only to find out it didn't have a standard 15 pin VGA cable.it had what seemed to be 3 parallele ports or 2 and a round weird thing in the middle of the other two .... anyone know what I'm talking about? My first thoughts were that this was a sparc station monitor...but I don't know for sure...I don't have the monitor right now so I can't tell you the model number.
 
Sounds like you're describing a 13W3.
(Google for "13W3", switch to "images" and see if that's what you have).
 
Nope...looking at those images it's really 3 seperate connectors on the back of the monitor...at least two look like parralele ports (maybe smaller in design but 25 pins each) and the other, in the middle is either smaller or just looks smaller because of the way they are layed out
_
\ /

but the angle woudl be more like 30 (more slanted) and same on the other side
 
MystikShadows said:
Nope...looking at those images it's really 3 seperate connectors on the back of the monitor...at least two look like parralele ports (maybe smaller in design but 25 pins each) and the other, in the middle is either smaller or just looks smaller because of the way they are layed out
_
\ /

but the angle woudl be more like 30 (more slanted) and same on the other side
Click to expand...

Could it be a terminal with two serial ports and one for the keyboard? (Are the 25-pin jacks male or female?)

--T
 
In the back of the monitor they are female. all of them. there's no symbol or drawings or labels to indicate what they are...:)
 
An image would defintely help. So there are two 25-pin DSUB or similar, and then a round (?) DSUB in the middle? The IBM 3192 terminal has a CRT which takes a 25-pin DSUB for video, but I doubt they made 17" CRTs to go with terminals..

I was also going to suggest 13W3 or some other odd connector with big "cannons" (I know some IBM RS/6000 used a DSUB-ish connector only consisting of three big ones), but this clearly is not the case.

Here are some other common pinouts:
http://pinouts.ru/pin_Video.shtml

I suppose your monitor also can not be related to AT&T PC6300, an old 286 which according to the page above uses 25-pin DSUB as well (?) as 8-pin (round) mini-DIN.
 
HaH. I love ressurecting old things (including threads), which is kind of the point here I guess.

Anyways, i've been volunteering @ our local Goodwill computer works (hopefully to be hired this upcoming year) and I found this dead system, I brought back to life (motherboard replacement, the new one barely fit), its not vintage, but its rare. Comes with everything you see here

on the subject of vintage, I found some nice old 8" floppies lying around haha. I'll keep my eyes open for older stuff, I know we have some pretty old stuff lying around. I already saw a commodore and Kaypro2, but thats no big deal to me as my family has already owned both of those, too bad we're missing some keys off the commodore
 

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