Darshevo
Experienced Member
I've always had a go big or go home mentality. Last summer I started collecting console based video game stuff, now I have nearly an entire room of my home dedicated to it. About mid way through that I started dabbling in old computer stuff (commodore/amiga/apple ii type stuff) which led me inevitably here. After hours of reading the forums my horizons expanded and suddenly I find myself collecting 486 and older stuff. Then its Kaypros and Osbornes. A DEC 11/23+. Various incarnations of Macintosh and PPC stuff that I didn't even like when it was new.
I started out small. CL, local recyclers, word of mouth. It gained me a system here and a system there.
Unfortunately as I got more deeply involved with the recyclers 2 things happened. 1. I found I could trade newer stuff for old. Now I am paying virtually nothing for crappy, no name, probably never be worth a dime to anyone but me 286's, MAC LC's, 486sx's, etc. all of this because of 2. Once the vintage computing monkey ended up on my back I started looking for better outlets to hopefully find more obscure older stuff. Now I find myself buying lots of 20 pallets at a time because there is a couple (like literally 2 or 3 items) in the lot I want to add to my collection.
Obviously this puts me in a position to liquidate a ton of not vintage equipment. My 'collection' that was 10's of pieces is in a constant flux with my new business venture as a recycler with 100's of pieces in and out of my shop and flatbed on a weekly basis. I fix what I can of the P4's and sell them cheap, the rest get stripped and go to an ewaste outlet that (supposedly) is mandated by the state to see to it that they don't end up in a swamp or the bottom of the ocean.
Hoarding: I probably have stripped out 100 Gateway P3 866 this week alone. At what point does a person have to stop putting the 10,15,20 GB hard drives, TX100 network cards, PCI sound cards, super low memory VGA cards, etc on the shelf?
I am in this deep now. I basically am the goto guy for schools, businesses, etc that want to see that there cast off tech is either reintegrated to society or properly salvaged (I even pull mobo batteries because I don't trust the last person in the chain to see them properly handled)
As a side note, recycling computers is not my business, altho it quickly is becoming so. Between my regular scrap business and the computer sideline I don't know which end is up most days. Seems like everytime I blink 2 days have gone by.
Surely many of you have found yourself here, what did you do?
-Lance
I started out small. CL, local recyclers, word of mouth. It gained me a system here and a system there.
Unfortunately as I got more deeply involved with the recyclers 2 things happened. 1. I found I could trade newer stuff for old. Now I am paying virtually nothing for crappy, no name, probably never be worth a dime to anyone but me 286's, MAC LC's, 486sx's, etc. all of this because of 2. Once the vintage computing monkey ended up on my back I started looking for better outlets to hopefully find more obscure older stuff. Now I find myself buying lots of 20 pallets at a time because there is a couple (like literally 2 or 3 items) in the lot I want to add to my collection.
Obviously this puts me in a position to liquidate a ton of not vintage equipment. My 'collection' that was 10's of pieces is in a constant flux with my new business venture as a recycler with 100's of pieces in and out of my shop and flatbed on a weekly basis. I fix what I can of the P4's and sell them cheap, the rest get stripped and go to an ewaste outlet that (supposedly) is mandated by the state to see to it that they don't end up in a swamp or the bottom of the ocean.
Hoarding: I probably have stripped out 100 Gateway P3 866 this week alone. At what point does a person have to stop putting the 10,15,20 GB hard drives, TX100 network cards, PCI sound cards, super low memory VGA cards, etc on the shelf?
I am in this deep now. I basically am the goto guy for schools, businesses, etc that want to see that there cast off tech is either reintegrated to society or properly salvaged (I even pull mobo batteries because I don't trust the last person in the chain to see them properly handled)
As a side note, recycling computers is not my business, altho it quickly is becoming so. Between my regular scrap business and the computer sideline I don't know which end is up most days. Seems like everytime I blink 2 days have gone by.
Surely many of you have found yourself here, what did you do?
-Lance