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Dumpster diving: Osborne 1

Where on earth do you guys find these dumpsters? We have an aggressive e-cycling program here, so almost nothing makes it into the regular trash.

It also pushes the price of the old stuff something silly. I just ran across a local CL add for a Slot-1 440BX motherboard; no CPU or memory. $150 asking.
 
We used to have (in the nearest City) a once (or a times twice) per year "junk pickup" where things not meant for normal trash pickup could be put on the curb and collected by the trash collection service. For reasons I never quite understood, everyone would deliberately put these things out one to three weeks in advance, which was a boon for people like me who would go out and collect all the valuable items. I acquired a lot of what is now collectable computer equipment this way. Unfortunately a large amount of it was still worthless when I got it, so for reasons of storage space, I ended up "recycling" most of it in dumpsters anyway, eventually. Anything with an Intel or Zilog processor ended up that way, save one C128 which I still have ..
 
The CL around here has mostly listings for items I can buy and get shipped from Ebay cheaper or sometimes new from Newegg. Not sure who the market is targeting for that stuff other then clueless suckers.

Personally I have never seen anything computer related that was worthwhile to snag from a curb on trash day. You pretty much have to have connections with recyclers to get anything vintage that is decent.
 
Chicagoland's an absolute suckfest for that kind of thing, somehow. At any rate, let me know how the cleanup goes! I've been working on a Osborne 1 myself, though it's the newer revision while you've got an older one.
 
What is considered a "low" serial number for an Osborne 1? I was surprised that this one was under 500.
 
Unknown_K said:
The CL around here has mostly listings for items I can buy and get shipped from Ebay cheaper or sometimes new from Newegg. Not sure who the market is targeting for that stuff other then clueless suckers.

Personally I have never seen anything computer related that was worthwhile to snag from a curb on trash day. You pretty much have to have connections with recyclers to get anything vintage that is decent.
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I think we all have experienced the 'how much is this thing? oh, its listed for $150 on ebay, so let me price it for $150 on CL because I don't understand ebay and don't want to pay fees.. More Profit!!!'. It is what it is.

As for the curb stuff, I don't know about other peoples locations, but I pretty much feel that any 'computers' would just be put in bins. Generally the trash trucks won't pick up anything that isn't in a bin, so if you left it on the curb it's only because you want feel like someone might want the item, not that you're actually trying to throw it away. Plus, people get angry when "junk" is left on the streets.
 
I'd love to see the motherboard in this one. I'm curious if it has the oddball board mine has. They are close enough in serial number.
 
I'd love to see the motherboard in this one. I'm curious if it has the oddball board mine has. They are close enough in serial number.
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If you post a picture of the feature you're interested in, I'll try to get a similar shot of mine.
 
You’ve got yourself a great little machine there. Osborne 1s are awesome. Does it have the double-density upgrade installed?

Also, I’d like to see some of the date codes on the chips inside of it. My serial A4344 unit has parts from late ‘81 and early ‘82.

There is also a filter cap that likes to blow in the power supply. Make sure to at least remove that before using it.

Edit: I see that you have the 80-column Screen-PAC option installed (you can tell because of the composite video connector next to the “BATT” connector), so you probably have the double-density board as well.
 
Where does the Exmon pack into all this, out of curiosity? Mine's got DD, but doesn't have integrated composite out (only on the Exmon dongle). I also can't get external video at all (though control-arrow key panning works) - am I missing a key combo?
 
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