"Vintage" computer parts

[tomteriffic]

Up until maybe 6 years ago (that's about 300 in computer years) I was a pretty avid computer hobbyist and built a number of machines for distributed computing uses, etc. Those days are gone, and I parted out and cataloged the stuff for future use. The future never came and I'm left with scads and scads of parts. Motherboards, processors, memory, drives, cables etc. If you want to build a PII/PIII/Athlon machine, I've got the stuff.

But it's pretty useless now. My question is outside of e-Bay is there any sort of market for this stuff? I don't want to spend a whole lot of time, postage and effort to make a couple of bucks here and there, so I'm casting about for ideas. Otherwise, the local computer nerd shop will recycle it properly for free.

Ideas?

[JohnnyB]

Up until maybe 6 years ago (that's about 300 in computer years) I was a pretty avid computer hobbyist and built a number of machines for distributed computing uses, etc. Those days are gone, and I parted out and cataloged the stuff for future use. The future never came and I'm left with scads and scads of parts. Motherboards, processors, memory, drives, cables etc. If you want to build a PII/PIII/Athlon machine, I've got the stuff.

But it's pretty useless now. My question is outside of e-Bay is there any sort of market for this stuff? I don't want to spend a whole lot of time, postage and effort to make a couple of bucks here and there, so I'm casting about for ideas. Otherwise, the local computer nerd shop will recycle it properly for free.

Ideas?

I've seen this going on for nearly 30 years. I worked in Silicon Valley in the '80s. Seems I always knew some engineer or technician who was taking home scrap boards and chassis parts with the idea that some day they'd get around to putting together their own computer "for free." Thing is, the parts were scrap because they were already out of production, and by the time you build your own in your spare time, they're paleolithic.

Even if one of these guys had managed to put one together, it would have been horribly out of date, unacceptably slow (I remember when Zilog announced their upgraded Z-80 with a blistering 4.75 MHz clock), too little memory, tiny hard drives (5-10 MB). Then, if they got it together, it would have been a scramble to find a reliable and unsupported OS to run on it, and little to no app software. Oasis-86 anybody? How about Thoroughbred OS? Business Basic? No?

Then what's my bid on this lovely boat anchor?

So I say you're either going to have to find some sort of collector/historian or be glad that the one shop you found doesn't charge you to recycle the stuff. Even as spare parts for older computers, most owners and repair shops would see that as throwing good money after bad. By the time a personal computer has aged enough (say, 4 years) to need fixing, it needs replacing.

[tomteriffic]

Agreed. My local shop does have some call for some older memory types and processors for some industrial clients and that stuff may go there. While this stuff isn't that dated, it's pretty much in that category.

I was thinking of selling it by the pound :angry:

[JohnnyB]

While this stuff isn't that dated, it's pretty much in that category.

I guess we can thank Microsoft for this slowing down. It takes them 2-3 years of patches and update packages to get an OS version stabilized and usable, and when that's followed by a new OS version (e.g., Vista), many gun shy customers stick to their old OS's as long as they can, which delays demands on speed and memory required by a newer OS. My wife just recently got a company-issued laptop and projector for making offsite presentations, and the laptop is running Windows XP. I bought an XP machine in early 2004.

I guess we can also thank Apple for making machines and OS versions that are reliable and stable for 3-5 years. Back in my days in Si Valley, current configurations had a market window of about a year, and sometimes less if something radical was announced.

For example, in early 1985 many of us were puttering along with 16 Kb memory chips and 30-40 MB hard drives, and then all of a sudden Hitachi announced the 64 Kb memory chip and Maxxtor announced an unbelievable (at the time) 177 MB full height 5-1/4" hard drive. That made everything on the shelves obsolete within 6 months.

[stonge]

No real market for that stuff that I know of - there are a couple of fun uses for old gear:

-play Duke Nukem/Doom in all it's original DOS glory (if you have the old disks lying around for the O/S).

-bung together a backup server or print server using linux

-stick a Ubuntu linux install onto it for use as a web browser platform and donate to a nephew or niece (along with a Ubuntu Live re-install disk so they can learn to reformat/reinstall when they crash the machine lol)

-build a beowulf cluster just for the fun of it (still on my to-do list)

Linux runs pretty well on old hardware, so it's fairly easy if you want to resusitate a dinosaur (not to mention that a bootable linux disk can be a lifesaver when your Windows install brainfarts - boot into linux, scrape off your valuable files, then flush windows and reinstall). Might as well have a testbed handy.

I was bored one day, so I pulled a Pentium 60 out of the basement and set up a print server that ran off a floppy diskette. I gotta get some better hobbies lol.

[tomteriffic]

Did the Beowulf cluster for a while.

I'll probably kludge one or two together as a test bed and/or linux box. But I'm talking something like 50-55 cubic feet of stuff (not counting cases), so summa dis gots to go.

[zzdat]

I wonder about Atari 1040st and Amiga machines? Value?

cool beans

Gene

[mathman]

I wonder about Atari 1040st and Amiga machines? Value?

cool beans

Gene

There is interest in Amiga machines if they work. Still interest in Amiga in ENgland as far as I tell.

I still have a working A1200 and a A4000 with video toaster. I gave away tons of disks, magazines, sound digitizer, hand scanner and a a500 to a guy near Miami last summer. I probably could have sold some of it but the shipping is a killer for magazines and disks in volume.

There are still some amiga websites/forums.

http://www.amiga.com/news/2010-08-31-commodore-amiga-aio.php

http://www.amiga.org/

http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html retired but has links.

If you have some accelerators, they have value. Especially the later ones with the 060 and a PPC chip.

[jaberwock]

There are charities that are always looking for old computers; I've donated five year old PC's and notebooks which in reality are worth very little even if you can find some one who's interested.

I've been to orphanages in northern Thailand where they're using nine and ten year old PC's.

This is the time for giving.

[chewie37]

Not sure if this would be a practical idea or not, but what about finding a recycling center that would take them and also cut you a check for the gold and other high dollar metals that are in the circuit boards?

[Hbom]

If you run out of places to sell your parts you might try these folks for donations.

I think they're on the up & up and the PCs go to places where the older technology is still acceptable.

http://www.worldcomputerexchange.org/

D

[Frank]

When my last company replaced their obsolete computers, I scavenged parts we might need (CD drives, etc), killed the hard drives to prevent company info from getting out and took a pickup truck load of parts to my local computer store. He not only took them off my hands, but the next time I needed something, I got a discount.