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What should I set aside when scrapping computers at work?

It's mostly gonna be how common is it? VLB is harder to find and folks who need a VLB board if they find yours may be interested. ISA is probably safe to keep, 8-bit will be higher demand I would think but ISA in general is compatible with lots of the vintage computers folks are seeking. 5.25" floppy drives will be going up in demand but as others pointed out probably fetch $10-$15 at most. Motherboards I'm no good at deciding but there does seem to be a market now for 486 and prior systems. It's up to you if you want to test the waters with folks who grew up on pentiums and are just starting to relive their Windows 95 days.
 
I collect VLB, EISA and Nubus (Mac)cards, take a picture and I will let you know which ones I want.
 
And since posts apparently lock after 48 hours I can't just keep a rolling thread of finds... do I start a new thread for everything I sell? Hows that work?
 
Set up a google picassa picture site with what you have for sale. Make a thread with a link to the pictures, and then bump the thread when new batches come in. If you update it once a week that gives time for people to browse it and take orders.
 
True. Could just link to a photo album on photobucket.

I guess what I'll do is just that, then sit on the parts for a week or two. If they don't go, they go!
 
Out of curiosity, do you really get that many ISA based systems for recycling? I thought the vast majority of those already were recycled or at the home of some hoarder or collector who never will let them go.
 
We service many towns so we have a LOT of traffic through this shop! People are always looking to get rid of some old electronic junk or knows someone who is. So yes, I see at least two ISA systems a week.
 
When you start an eBay store you will sell many things (especially when you ship internationally). When you limit your sales to this community I doubt you will see high volumes and I expect prices will be lower as well (although your final profit might be more or less the same as eBay and PayPal charges are high).
 
I'm not really worried about getting the maximum amount for anything. Just nice to save some old parts, help out some old friends (see many names from the OCH on here :)) and make a little for the trouble!

I sell a lot on ebay but haven't made the step to a store yet. The monthly fees are worth it but it's just one more level of workload for me!
 
Who's "Heather"? :huh:

The best I can do on this:

[FONT=&quot]The motherboard has one on board serial port on the back and a connector that allows you to add a second or additional serial port. That connector is called “heather”.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Let me know if you have any other questions.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Best Regards,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Nicolas Szczedrin[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NIXSYS, Inc.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]nicolas@nixsys.com[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot](714) 435-9610 x 801[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]www.nixsys.com[/FONT]
 
I sell a lot on ebay but haven't made the step to a store yet. The monthly fees are worth it but it's just one more level of workload for me!

When you have sufficient volume you can always hire a part time employee for it: a college student who wants to make some $ for instance. :)
 
Already hired one of those for all the Quickbooks I don't want to do :p
 
The best I can do on this:

[FONT=&quot]The motherboard has one on board serial port on the back and a connector that allows you to add a second or additional serial port. That connector is called “heather”.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Let me know if you have any other questions.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Best Regards,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Nicolas Szczedrin[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NIXSYS, Inc.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]nicolas@nixsys.com[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot](714) 435-9610 x 801[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]www.nixsys.com[/FONT]

My suspicion is that it's a mis-heard rendition of the word "header". :)

That is, a row (single or double) row of pins meant to mate with a connector.
 
Should I save every hard drive if it works 100%? Or only sub-1gb drives?
2.1GB and below. That's the maximum size allowed by MS-DOS and early versions of Win95. IDE laptop drives that are larger than that are also valuable.

Also, if you should happen to find an internal IDE CD-ROM drive that exactly matches the color of the 5¼" and Colorado Backup drives in the second photo of the second post of this thread, I would be very much interested in buying it.
 
From my personal experience it should be relatively easy to find old cases in NL. People generally have a lot stashed away in their attics, closets, garages, spare rooms et cetera. Just a matter of spending time locating items. There are also many flea markets where I would expect you would find items. Then there is www.marktplaats.nl, www.speurders.nl, www.helpmij.nl, www.tweakers.net and so on. :) Also, the EU's largest market for vintage equipment is right next door: www.ebay.de and so on.

Actually, I haven't seen a single AT case for sale on Queensday in Amsterdam and everyone I know tossed them a few years ago.
Things were different even only 3 to 4 years ago, then you could still find AT cases in second hand stores locally.
Now even if you find one, people want money for them while back then (3 to 4 years ago) you could get a complete untested AT computer for like €5.

The attics seem to have run dry of AT cases nowdays.

Edit:For crying out loud, most of my reply is gone -_-

Edit2:Rewrite

Problem is the amount of volume I move through here every week. I must scrap at least 10 boxes; some weeks (like last) it's closer to 30!

I see everything from IBM 5150's to Core2 systems for dissassembly. I keep the stuff I know I can resell (3GHz P4 stuff and up) but the rest, till now, has been going to scrap (aside from the XT stuff of course).

I'll set some things aside now and then but I really still don't know what's worth keeping.

-snip-!

No way I'm keeping cases, sorry guys! Unless someone needs a specific one that I can look out for.

You get the idea!
Ok, here I go again lol, since my last reply got messed up :(


Should I save every hard drive if it works 100%? Or only sub-1gb drives?
I'd keep the REALLY old and BIIIG heavy ones predating IDE.
When it comes to IDE it's often easier to just use an old CF card. The CF card is also much faster and more silent then an old harddrive.
Not sure about the SCSI ones though, but keeping <1GB SCSI drives seems somewhat pointless to me if you can as easily use a 9GB 50p SCSI drive using the same controller.

ISA cards... save them all? Save only video? 8bit?
There've been a wide variety of ISA cards made. Many may be near-valueless while others seem to be more expensive now then back when they were new!
Some ISA cards are definitely worth keeping like the Mach64, Roland and a couple other cards. ISA controller cards may also be of interest here, especially the more high-end ones
ISA had a very long run and many very odd cards were made like, for instance, computer-on-a-card cards.
Check all your ISA sound cards for daughterboards!

VLB cards... anyone use these at all?
Same as ISA, except that VLB was around for much shorter so you shouldn't find as many exotic cards made for that bus. Keep the higher end ones (Mach64 and certain controller cards).
There have been a few very unique VLB boards made, including a (flopped) 3D card.

5.25" floppy drives... aside from the full height stuff?
I'd say: keep!!
These can basically only go up in value

Motherboards... 486 and back? P1 and back?
Keep the 486 and older boards. If the board has bad battery corrosion, scavenge for parts (CPU, cache modules etc etc) and toss the rest.
Most AT P1 boards are of very little interest, but there are exceptions. The Super 7 AT boards (like ASUS P5A-B) and AT Slot 1 boards (particularly BX) might hold some value, as might P1 VLB boards.
Also imo the Socket 4 boards should be worth keeping as it's the very 1st Pentium ever made and actually rarer then 486 VLB boards.
Keep all Socket 8 AT boards unless they are obviously broken. Also keep the weird ones like Nexgen, Alpha etc.
Boards with upgradeable CPU sockets are always preferred to soldered chips, unless the board is 486 or older.
Most P1 boards however are the all too common VX, TX and non-AGP 3rd party chipsetted ones. Toss those.

Laptops... we get tons of P1/PII laptops. Sometimes older but not often. Worth bothering with?
If they are broken, don't bother with them.
If the laptop works but is missing it's harddrive and harddrive bay, toss em. If the laptop harddrive bay is missing, it will be virtually impossible to find a replacement as those laptops often use proprietary hardware.
If you want to strip the laptops of parts, there usually isn't much to salvage. The harddrives I would strip. The laptop CPU's generally aren't as interesting, unless it's some kind of uncommon chip or a desktop replacement chip.
You could try selling the laptop CPU's on cpu-world.com, but last time I checked laptop CPU's aren't going for that much. And salvaging laptops for parts takes a lot of time (unlike desktop computers which can be pulled apart in under 10 minutes or so easily).

Well, hope that helps! ;)

Edit2:I just wanted to point out 2 more things that came to my mind after posting.

1)When I mention AT board 486 and older, I was referring to standard AT (or more often, baby-AT) boards. Prior to that theres no telling if a board you have is proprietary or not. If it is proprietary, you will find a hard time finding a buyer wanting your particular board.
2)If you scrap a board, always remove the CPU's (and 486 cache modules) before binning and sell those on www.cpu-world.com. With those old chips, even if noone buys them, you can sell the CPU's for scrap as they contain a lot of gold.

Edit3:
And 3)Keep all the standard PC 2.88MB floppy drives!
and internal SCSI ZIP drives and internal 750MB ZIP drives, along with USB ZIP/LS-120 and internal LS-120/240 drives.
Also keep SCSI optical drives
 
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Since you have so much, why not have shelves for the stuff? Do you? Sounds like an organizational nightmare.

Yeah, that's what I do.

After I got rid of all the cases (OK, I have a few AT style and a few ATX style around) except for the branded stuff, like Aptivas, I went out and bought a bunch of shelving units, broke everything down into parts and boxed them all.

On any given day, I'll grab a random box and start repairing and/or testing them. Today, for example, I grabbed a box of Tandy Model I boards, just CPU boards and E/I boards, no cases, no keyboards to be sold as replacement boards for dead units.

Every once in a while, I'll spend a weekend putting them up on my site and then back in the box, now marked "tested and On Site" and wait for them to sell.

I have a LOT of room, so, I can afford to keep them for years.
 
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