True Tales of Tech Hoarding 268
Recently some member of my household forced me to watch several episodes of A&E's Hoarders. This led to several *ahem* discussions about hoarding tendencies and the closet of cables, wires, boxes and parts in my basement. But I'm not doing bad compared to some of these tech hoarders. My favorite is the guy using a stack of 9 VA rack machines as an end table.
You call that hoarding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:2)
I've got one box of cables, neatly organized in gallon freezer bags by type. I've got another box with a few spare parts I might actually need. I used to have many, many more boxes of parts and wires I never used, but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:2)
Possible replies:
1. Make a list of all her clothes and shoes and when she wears any of them. If she ever wants to throw something away, tell her she hasn't used clothes/shoes x in y days and that therefore she should throw those out.
2. How long before you're thrown away? /duck
3. Don't ever tell her you don't want kids!!!
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:2)
Possible replies:
1. Make a list of all her clothes and shoes and when she wears any of them. If she ever wants to throw something away, tell her she hasn't used clothes/shoes x in y days and that therefore she should throw those out.
2. How long before you're thrown away? /duck
3. Don't ever tell her you don't want kids!!!
1. She already does this. If she hasn't worn it in a year, it goes to Goodwill. You thought she was power-tripping with the clutter removal? Nope, it's damn near a compulsion.
2. Ah, but I continue to be useful. ;)
3.) She hates clutter, remember? Kids are clutter to her. Neither of us want kids.
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:3, Interesting)
We have an open marriage. I'm useful to her not because I satisfy her sexually, though I do at least as well in that regard as anyone who has been married for ten years, but rather, because we have each other's back, because we have the same moral center, and because our strengths complement each other's weaknesses.
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:4, Funny)
Funny thing is, I was a slight tech hoarder and my wife is a shoe/old clothes hoarder. If the clothes are wearable....even if they are more fit for a teenager....she keeps them. I harassed her to get rid of some of the stuff and she pointed out my collection of garbage. I decided to set a good example and one day started throwing out/selling/giving away/hitting with a bat most of the stuff in my tech pile. It was actually quite liberating. It is not longer difficult to find the actual USEFUL things that I rarely use amidst the piles of stuff I never used.
Never did get the wife to throw away the old clothes though. Oh well. At least it ensures that she keeps the school girl skirt. ;)
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:3, Funny)
Not coffee?
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:4, Interesting)
My 'tech closet' is very similar, although not so neatly organized. I have a big box of random video/audio cables, and another box of PC parts, ranging from expansion cards for things like SATA when SATA wasn't integrated, and video capture cards. The rest consists of old optical drives, old IDE/SATA drives, Motherboards, old video cards, etc. Every few years I go through and throw out items that I'm not likely to need anymore (simm's, ISA cards, 10MB NIC's, etc). Although I can see things getting very messy, I do have a sig other to keep things in perspective. I would only hope that others who keep a similar stash have someone else to keep them in line from time to time.
I do occasionally have to defend the value of my tech closet. I have saved friends and family some significant cash over the years just by recycling parts from there. I probably re-use maybe 30-40 percent and the rest gets tossed, but better some reuse/value than none at all.
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:2)
I have a small toybox of useful stuff (spare mice, HDDs, keyboard, cables, etc). Anything that's obsolete or broken is in a second box (along with other broken electronics, light bulbs, etc). About once a year (or if I move house) I take the contents of the second box to the recycling centre.
At my parents' place I have a few old Acorn Archimedes PCs and some spares. They're underneath a bed and very difficult to access, but at some point I'll put most of them on eBay.
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to have many, many more boxes of parts and wires I never used, but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.
My wife used to try that. Then she ended up needing a few cables or such. I told her to go to BestBuy to price them. Then I'd go to my closet and pull out a few, or make one up from others. She learned real quick that my stash is not just a random collection of wires.
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Eventually, your wife will discover monoprice.com, call you out on both misleading her AND hoarding useless shit, and make you get rid of it all again. Seriously-- when any cable you can conceive of is like $4 shipped, there just isn't a point to keeping an entire attic full of them "just in case".
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can they ship the cables to my house in less than the 5 minutes it takes to dig the cable out of the box in my closet?
Sometimes you need parts NOW, and I have been desperate enough on several occasions to get ripped off by the local stores.
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't even know this was a thing until now. My room mate came up to me the other day and casually told me "My cousin thinks we have a very geeky house" and I replied, "How come?", to which he responded, "Well, we've got 4 desktops here in our living room/kitchen, only 2 of which actually get any use. This doesn't include the laptops you and I normally use, and Mike has HIS own desktop in his bedroom. Not to mention the pile of 10 or so Programming books stacked on the coffee table here, and the remaining pieces of that printer we took apart for fun last weekend. We've got posters on the walls with cheeky jokes about what you've learned from video games."
And I told him, "Yeah, I guess its a bit messy, but I mean, I don't know if its all that geeky. I mean, what do other people have lying around?"
To which he replied, "Well my cousin has posters of girls in bikini's along his wall, and many many more empty pizza boxes. His X-box has Modern Warfare 2 in the tray, ours has the movie cube2:hypercube. Where we have our router, he keeps his stereo. There is no computer in visible sight, they are all tucked away into each others bedrooms. His coffee table is littered with empty beer bottles and plastic cups, one of which has a sticky ping pong ball in it. When people come over to play Age of Empires 2, he has chicks over, and probably bones them all."
So I retorted, "Your cousin sounds like a douche"
Anyways. Anecdotes aside, my house has about as much junk as that entire article shows, except for the last 2 pictures (which are of course the most impressive, I can't keep stuff that organized)
Re:You call that hoarding? (Score:2)
Oh and the photo of the lamp on the stack--sure made my day--and if he had a girlfriend/wife, I'm sure SHE won the argument, See? THAT'S what this table is for! but as soon as she turned away, the guy put it back and adamantly proclaimed: 'and THAT'S what this stack is for!!' (spoken in a whisper though).
I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this week. (Score:4, Interesting)
Took out the hard drives... maybe... maybe... I'll mount them and extract them.
Took out the memory (???? who is going to use the old memory- why did I do that?)
Threw two away- put the other on the curb (it felt like a super high quality case someone might want).
Entire box of random cables (sorted through it and kept 5 "special" cables but tossed the rest.
When in doubt, watch an episode of Hoarders.
Trying to get my house in decent shape for a party this weekend.
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:5, Informative)
Here are some links:
news article [bby.com]
recycle information [bestbuy.com]
Also note that if it has a screen they will charge you $10 to recycle it; however they give you a $10 gift card to use in the store as well - so it is a wash.
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:2)
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:2)
No, it sounds to me like you're still out $10.
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:2)
Took out the hard drives... maybe... maybe... I'll mount them and extract them.
Took out the memory (???? who is going to use the old memory- why did I do that?)
A good Ask Slashdot... how does one quickly and securely wipe a pile of hard drives? As for the old memory, one can make money on it if their timing is right. Good old Rambus RAM sold for a pretty penny when the 5 people still using those machines wanted more RAM.
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:2)
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:3, Informative)
be sure to salvage the strong magnets out of there as well. they're very useful. i took the two magnets from an old harddrive and used them to make a super strong money clip. it can securely hold 25 bills folded in half (50 layers!)
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:2)
how does one quickly and securely wipe a pile of hard drives?
In my area that's a 'fun trip to the rifle range' A few holes through the platter and you're good.
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:3, Insightful)
Fe2O3+2Al
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:2)
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:2)
The amiga was awesome.
My first computer virus
Tank Wars
I wrote and sold a game for it (made about $900).
Played endless hours of Battletech (so sweet-- and the new versions do not duplicate the experience- they always get their egos involved and try to make it "better" and drop something that was cool for something which is stupid). We made our own mechs, had our own fleets, had our own pilots and occasionally watched them die on a failed eject. Played ridiculous numbers of games of hours and hours and hours.
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that my significant other is moving in with me, some "adjustments" have been made to my single-Engineer lifestyle..
This past week I delivered unto the philistine clutches of the local Electronics Recycler:
Six Amiga 1200 Computers; [14 MHz MC68EC020/2MB/120MB EIDE HDD]
Four Amiga 3000 Computers; [16 and 25 MHz MC68030/18MB/105 to 400 MB SCSI HDD's]
Two Amiga 4000 Computers; [25 MHz MC68040/18MB/250MB SCSI HDD's]
Five Amiga 4000T PCBA's;
Two VideoToasters;
1 Moniterm Monitor;
Are you bragging or trying to piss people off? I have an empty shelf in my hoarding room just crying for an A4000 and 1200. I can't even win one on eBay and you're tossing them out....
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:3, Insightful)
Why... why would you do this? The recycler? Hell, I've sold things like "grab-bag of untested PC cables i found in my garage" on ebay for money. Functional Amigas could have at least earned you several good dinners out with the wife if you hadn't just dumped 'em... and selling to somebody who will use the gear is ALWAYS a better option than recycling, which should be your option of last resort. People on ebay will buy ANYTHING, and pay you to ship it to them.
Start in on your video game collection next. It's just a waste, sitting there unplayed-- people will pay you to play those games. Your easiest option is probably a swap service like goozex.com-- just get on and list your collection, and requests will start to roll in. It's taken most of a year for my old games to gradually disappear, since the older ones are not requested frequently-- but it's pretty low-effort.
Re:I painfully threw away three P.C.s just this we (Score:2)
Took out the memory (???? who is going to use the old memory- why did I do that?)
Old memory can actually be fairly valuable since they don't manufacture it anymore. I recently sold a 64MB DDR SO-DIMM for $25.
But, but, (Score:5, Funny)
I use a MicroVAX for an end table, you insensitive clod!
Re:But, but, (Score:2)
At least the new tech is small (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:At least the new tech is small (Score:2)
I do stuff like that on a much smaller scale. I have an old acoustic modem sitting next to a 1960s phone in my office. Both the phone and the modem are busted -- but it looks just too damn cool.
At home, I have an Atari 1030 sitting under my bedroom phone. I also turned an old dual mobo server case in to a small chilled wine cellar (it's about the size of a small fridge anyway).
Re:At least the new tech is small (Score:2)
Lovable stuff. I'm still hunting for a 1970's Payphone from Entel (The phone company at the time in Argentina).
They were fucking amazing, this is what they looked like:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EbEIPrrCAnI/SMp_6IqeRlI/AAAAAAAAAYg/lOe9ImQ8Jjw/s320/tel+publico+entel.jpg [blogspot.com]
They came in a variety of colors. Fucking amazing!
Re:At least the new tech is small (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:At least the new tech is small (Score:2)
Perhaps he's referring to Bernoulli Disk Technology [wikipedia.org] where the drives spun on a cushion of air.
I haven't heard of them being the size of washing machines, though.
bah, so many amateurs (Score:3)
The pictures sent in weren't worth their price in bits. I've got three crates of cables (those clear 12-gallon ones) in my room, and probably four computers that aren't turned on. And this is my light load. At one point I had four IBM RT/PC model 135s at work, and about 11 Apollo workstations in my apartment. *shudder* DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. At least I sold my 4/260 and my Cat 5k when they were still worth some money.
I have a friend... (Score:2)
When his soon to be wife and kid moved in to his trailer, she made him throw out 4 full computer systems and a dozen CRT monitors. Why? because there was no room in the kitchen cupboards for trivial things like food and dishes.
Re:I have a friend... (Score:2)
I'm sorry, it sounded like you said a tech nerd lived in a trailer.
AtariAge (Score:5, Informative)
You think that's bad, you should check out some of the collections [atariage.com] at AtariAge. People who have a dozen spare 800XLs "just in case". I've got to say this [atariage.com] shit is impressive. This [atariage.com] too.
Re:AtariAge (Score:2)
Re:AtariAge (Score:2)
Re:AtariAge (Score:2, Insightful)
I also don't keep extras of anything, just one of each. I simply don't have the room for backups and spares. Eventually my goal is to have everything setup like a museum of sorts.
>>Strangely, I don't imagine any chicks hanging around.
I think my wife would disagree with that statement.
G5 PowerMac tower - Hot (Score:2)
I'm sorry but that G5 PowerMac tower is still one of the most attractive towers ever built. I still find it amazing looking and I wouldn't bin it either.
I too hoard wires, but they often come in handy. I just recently needed an old-style pre-USB printer cable ... Which I had... Four of...
Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot (Score:2, Funny)
old-style pre-USB printer cable
And you don't even know what they're called?
Re:G5 PowerMac tower - Hot (Score:2)
Which name would you like me to use? And would anyone else know what I was talking about?
- "Printer Cable"
- "Parallel cable" (which could be one of dozens of things!)
- 25 pin D-SUB
- 36-Cen cable
- "serial cable" (very vague - and inaccurate)
Pre-USB Printer cable makes sense, everyone knows what I mean, and it doesn't allow people to think I don't know what a USB cable is...
PowerMac G5 towers (Score:2)
Still sell for quite a bit on eBay/Craigslist.
I've taken a couple old PM cases, gutted them, hacked in modern components and had some funny reactions from Apple guys.
I think I'm going to try it again, only this time, I want to change the finish from alu to gold or bronze to fit in more with Art Nouveau/Deco style of projects I've been going with. Anyone got any ideas how to do that?
I used to do this (Score:2)
Until I realized how much of a pain in the ass it was to move everything. At this point, I'm 26, and likely will only move a couple more times, but when I was younger moving was a fairly normal occurrence...and I definitely didn't want to deal with all that stuff.
Re:I used to do this (Score:2)
I read somewhere that the avg. 'Merican (I am assuming you are one) moves about every 2-3 years. So consider that. Moving a couple of times is prob. a low estimate. I lived so that all I needed fitted into my van until I was in my early 30's, following tech jobs across the country. The bad part was I had *ahem* 3 bicycles (commuter, road, and mountain) and 2 sets of skis.
I used to "rent" furniture from the Salvation Army. I would buy some cheap, but nice looking and serviceable furniture from them. When I moved again I would return them as a donation. The cost was in the range of 100-200 USD.
HTH. Seriously, I hope it does help you.
Re:I used to do this (Score:3, Interesting)
When my marriage broke up and I lost the house, I had a half dozen computers and a whole bunch of other stuff. I moved into a tiny apartment with my then-teenaged daughter, and left most of it at the old house the bank was taking. First, there just wasn't room (I had to rent a storage shed for the stuff I did keep), and second, moving all my junk just became too painful. I still have all (well, most) of my cables, though, and the woman who's staying with me now bitches because I'm a hoarder.
So very guilty and not sure why (Score:2)
I have so much junk around and in the attic. My old gateway from 1992 is up there. The PC we got back in 86 is up there. Part of it is sentimental value. Part of it is "hey...I may get bored and fire that up" someday. It has of course yet to happen, but you never know when a VLB video card will be needed. Or I may need to get data off that old MFM drive.
Part of it is the initial cost of the stuff makes it hard to get rid of. Part of it is knowing that it's not good for the landfill. But my wife says most of it is my nature, given you can also find toys from when I worked at Burger King in the 80's up there as well. Sigh.
Re:So very guilty and not sure why (Score:2)
That's nice... I don't have a lot of stuff (for some values of "a lot"), but all of my friends know that before they (or someone they know) throw out an old device (especially old audio equipment - tape recorders etc) they should call me and most of the time I take it.
The oldest working computer device that I have is a dot matrix printer made in ~1985 (Robotron CM 6329.01M), I use it as a backup if my primary printer (also old, but not that old HP PSC 2500CM) stops working. I also have an old MFM hard drive, but somebody took out a chip before giving it to me, so I think that some day I'll buy a Microscience HH725 hard drive, connect the electronics card to the one I have and try to pull out the data.
And my saying is "empty space is wasted space", for now there is enough air outside, so I do not need to stash it inside my house...
value (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be interesting to find out if the reason why some of us are so attached to old hardware just might be that it was not long ago that that hardware was mind boggingly expensive. My brother sometimes took a IBM model 5155 [oldcomputers.net] home and let me play nethack on it. At that time you could buy a nice car for that money instead of such a beast.
More than 10 years later I got my hands on one of these, but sadly parted with it under the influence of my wife at the time. (Yup, we divorced.). Seeing a picture of it still fills me with awe thinking how expensive this machine once was. Maybe that awe combined with a but-it-still-works attitude makes us think twice about throwing such stuff away?
Now who will save the world? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now who will save the world? (Score:2, Funny)
Skynet will plug a single 4Mb/s card in, the whole ring will slow down from 16Mb/s to accommodate it, and you'll spend all fucking day running around the building trying to find it.
(Wow, I'm old.)
Re:Now who will save the world? (Score:2)
One of the many disadvantages (along with reliability) of networks that directly connect end devices together.
Thank god for modern switched ethernet.
Different direction (Score:5, Funny)
NO! I can't throw away my old Token Ring cards and cables! What happens when the world goes post apocalyptic and I have to connect to a legacy system to save the world from Skynet?
I totally thought you were going to say you couldn't just throw the Token Ring cards away because you had to make sure they were disposed of properly in Mt Doom.
first sign of trouble (Score:5, Insightful)
The second sign: an intervention by way of watching a tv show devoted to your disease.
Take it from a former hoarder: just throw everything away (donate, trash, etc). There are way
more important things in life than, well, "things". Once you start spending as much time, energy,
and care for the people in and around your life, I doubt you will ever hoard again.
-sent from my cray-
Murphy's Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Murphy's Law (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Murphy's Law (Score:2)
I needed that... (Score:2)
Whew! You know when I think about all the boxes full of crapola I've hoarded over the years it reminds me that I should just send that stuff to the electronics recycling centre instead of having it take up my precious living space.
The small stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
In my electronics box I found:
* Disk labels for an Apple ][e
* PC/XT to PS/2 keyboard converters
* PS/2 to USB keyboard converters
* A 14.4k modem
* A chip extractor tool
* A laplink cable
Archaic, but small enough to overlook for another decade. I put it all back of course.
That's not hoarding... (Score:5, Funny)
Bah. Pikers! Look at those photos, you can clearly see the floor in some of them! No tech hoarder worthy of the title still has a visible floor.
Re:That's not hoarding... (Score:2)
No kidding, that collection is for babby. I've got old SGIs laying around, stacks of ZIP drives, spare scanners (3) in case I need them, about eight laptops, eight different kinds of Macs, including a working SE with SCSI network adapter(!) I've got two RS-6000's that are too expensive to run. About ten towers of various builds. I've got a Windows NT4-Alpha machine for kicks.
My friends bring their friends over to stare in awe at the fruits of a life wasted on old junk, and that's not even to speak of the video game collection :-)
Re:That's not hoarding... (Score:2)
Well, some of us make sure to "forget" large chunks of our collections in our parents' garage every time we move (just make sure there's a gap of a few days between moving out from your old place and moving in to your new place, your parents will happily let you put your stuff in the garage "over the weekend"). And despite this sneaky move I still have a 10 m^2 storage room connected to my apartment that's a deathtrap due to all the stuff I've piled in there.
The only problem with my storage method is that I occasionally spend a few hours going through the pile I have at home only to realize that I left the Indigo^2 workstations in my parents' garage and I'll have to ask them to ship one to me.
Just mention "shoes" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just mention "shoes" (Score:2)
You do realize clothing designers rummage threw the trash to make popular whatever statistics show that people throw out in a significant amount.
IBM System/36 (Score:4, Funny)
I recently was forced to part with my old IBM System 36 and corresponding hard drive that was 350lbs and the size of a dishwasher. The system 36 was the original 700lb model 5630. They were used as end tables but didn't fit with my wife's tastes. I am proud to say that I was able to get the box up, with connected terminal and actually pulled data off of it (printed) in 2005. I was challenged by some friends to make it work to show it could still be put to use and damn it, the yellow paged manuals I still had made it easy.
My tech hoarding earned me some extra income as I won the bet making it work. So don't throw it out, your tech buddies will pay good money to watch you fight with 20 year old tech.
Toxic waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that much of tech gadgets contain toxic waste, usually in the form of heavy metals, reusing them as furniture isn't a bad idea. It beats dumping them into a landfill or paying for recycling.
The tech industry is a filthy industry. Esp. when you factor in the planned obsolescence.
Re:Toxic waste (Score:2)
Some old processors have a lot of copper in the heat sinks. On the London Metal Exchange looks to be about 3.5 dollars a pound.
You can usually get a good price for those, and the rare earth magnets in hard drives also sell for a pretty penny.
If anyone is going through their stack right now (Score:2)
Please be on the lookout for this old soundcard (Innovation SSI 2001) [yvan256.net], as well as AdLib Gold (or its echo/reverb modules), anything by Covox (especially Sound Master 1, Speech Thing), Roland (MT-32, CM-32L, CM-64, LAPC-1), and the old Creative Game Blaster.
I'd buy the SSI 2001 and AdLib Gold modules, the rest should still be a pretty easy sell on eBay.
If you have anything that can be classified as "Sound Blaster or compatible", it's not worth anything unless of course you want to use it yourself in an old system to play old games.
Partial Reinforcement (Score:5, Interesting)
Any psych-turned-CS person will tell you that the hardest behaviors to break are partial reinforcement.
Behaviors that don't pay off all the time, but sometimes do.
Anyone who has saved hours of time by pulling out an obscure manual from the bottom of a pile, or recovered data with the help of a rare connector type from the junk closet, is getting partially reinforced.
And therefore, will continue to collect.
Re:Partial Reinforcement (Score:3, Interesting)
Right; if I give something away, I know I'm going to need it in the next 6 to 12 months.
I gave away my last AGP video card a couple of years back. 4 weeks later, my fileserver went down with bad capacitors on its AGP video card.
I gave away my solderless breadboards. I've since had to replace them....
Power supplies... RAM DIMMs... you name it.
(Part of this is because I'm the fix-it guy for a small start-up and all my friends, especially the ones with "restricted finances" let's say.)
Anything that's truly not needed, I can't give away: QIC 150 SCSI tape drive, for example, or 3X CD-ROM caddy-loading drives.
So I'll stick with organizing things instead of trying to get rid of them. If I do get a new technology X, it's best to try and sell the old one right away. Don't wait a year or two until it's beyond obsolete, but not a classic.
Re:Partial Reinforcement (Score:4, Insightful)
It a cost-benefit thing.
Keeping a few things that you might need is sensible. Keeping everything you've ever had isn't.
Hans Reiser . . . is that you . . . ? (Score:2)
Isn't that what sunk Hans Reiser's excuse for chucking out the back seat of his car?
I saw some guy on the TV who said, "What a lie! Everyone knows that geeks *never* throw anything away. Even if it is broken and useless!"
He should have followed that up with, "Tip the veal! Try the waitress . . . etc."
I am not a hoarder (Score:2)
I don't have all that much computer equipment. Just five 1U servers, a 2U server, my old machine that was replaced by by new machine, my laptop, a few switches and routers, a butt-load of network cables, a bunch of spare power cables, a couple of UPSes, and 170 SCSI drives (73G, 15K RPM).
University Labs (Score:2)
I spent the past year clearing two physics spaces out. Forty years worth of leaky vacuum pumps, x-ray transformers, copper, stainless steel, botched and long-forgotten projects, a Heathkit PDP-8 rack, Hercules graphics cards....
Comment removed (Score:2)
Retrocomputing! (Score:2)
I agree that throwing old hardware all over the room is excessive, but some of us "collect" these old machines. I collect them for a mixture of history and as a way to remind myself "Don't do THAT again!" I even write about them and their history: http://codeslave9000.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com] for anyone interested in following along at home. Parts is parts, but keeping old machines in running order is much more challenging and rewarding.
It gets better... (Score:5, Funny)
My favorite is the guy using a stack of 9 VA rack machines as an end table.
The best part is that if you look past the stack of machines he's using as an end table, you'll see the original wooden end table shoved ignominiously into the corner.
Which is more responsible (Score:2)
Now my wife has a different opinion of course, but it seems to me that keeping your clutter around you self limits your acquisitions of more clutter. Those people that buy, use discard, buy use discard are filling up the common landfills with toxic waste whereas I keep my toxic waste close at hand and out of the ground water.
I do have several Sinclair 1000 systems and a few 5 1/4 drives and maybe a few computers that can use them. But I think my wife got my box of punch cards and tossed them. I am still trying to forgive her for that. Individual punch cards are fetching a good price. My Master thesis in cards might just pay for my tuition back then. IBM Selectric, wired for computure control anyone?
An uncluttered house just means a cluttered landfill, out of sight out of mind, but not out of ground water.
Viva Nostalgia.
I wish... (Score:2)
I've got as much crap laying around as anyone but I do wish I had one more piece--a big purple SGI deskside, I think like this one [questier.com] that really would have been a perfect end table. Unfortunately, I didn't have room for it at the time it was available, and by the time I did, the guy who had it moved away and the machine had been tossed.
Digital hoarder (Score:2)
I've been moving around quite a bit for the past five years - I teach internationally and live on what I can fit in two checked bags and a carry-on. And this includes a bicycle.
I've managed to shed nearly all of my tech equipment that's not currently in use - I'm down to laptop, monitor and a small gym bag of cables, media, and crap.
However, when measured digitally, I've become quite the hoarder, with about 10 TB of crap split between my four 2.5" external HD's (Now in 1TB!), and a video server I run for an old roommate.
At one point (2006) I had about four years of 'The Daily Show' in my collection.
Until 2008 I never deleted an email, and then, only spam.
At about the same time I stopped saving / archiving everything downloaded into my browser downloads folder.
Not to mention every application / utility installer file dating back to 1988. Apple's switch to Intel chips finally allowed me to delete those archives.
I know that there are many out there who are much worse.
But using the typical metric of 'hoarder', I'm hardly a blip.
Guilty as Charged. (Score:2)
I would suspect most tech folks have to some degree or another hoarding of old technology.
I know myself I have an embarrassing amount of crap I should throw away.
I think I have an IPC Pentium I 120Mhz system, a Dell PIII 800 system, and a custom built BP6 dual 466Mhz Celerons. I am sure other people have a lot more.
What is worse is all the crap that goes along with that. Cables, spare parts, etc... About the only rational for keeping them is because you still have the systems. Some of the stuff isn't even compatible technology anymore. I know I was cleaning out some of my Dad's tech junk telling him what to keep and what to toss, and was laughing at him for having 51/4" floppy disks still as well as an old serial keyboard, until I realized that I probably have a serial keyboard as well for my old Pentium system myself.
Some are curiosities, that are just unnecessary anymore, like a 4 port Hub NIC, or like an FM PCI card (FM radio for your PC!)... Probably worse is the hundreds and hundreds of floppy disks and CD's now, that I have absolutely no intention of trying to figure out what is on them all. Likely Pirated games from the mid 90's...
Maybe this spring I will try and dump the really old stuff like the Pentium and friends... The BP6 I got to keep around because it is still pretty cool, and can run a decent Linux still. I know a couple of years ago I went through my hard drives to see what was still working, and was surprised that some had died while not even in use anymore. However I remember I still had a tank of a HD, a 6GB fujitsu drive that just refuses to die. Kind of useless seeing as I can get a thumb drive bigger than that for like 10$ but whatever...
Sun Ultra Enterprise 4000 (Score:2)
My one even functioned as a computer last time I tried powering it up
NASA needs it (Score:2)
The Hubble telescope runs off Intel 486 chips.
I remember reading somewhere that NASA scours resale shops for electronics to keep the shuttle flying.
You never know, hoarding could mean you have the "Right Stuff" for space exploration.
Cleanliness (Score:2)
Re:Guilty (Score:2)
I usually pry off the CPUs of any processor I don't have in my collection. I've got everything from 8088 to present. A few flavors of 6800x, 650x, to name a frew. I even have an 8186 pulled from an old palmtop.
Everything else goes in a pile which twice a year goes to the e-dump which rotates around our city collecting toxic chemicals and e-waste.
Re:Guilty (Score:2)
Re:Guilty (Score:2)
Yeah... I pull those, too. LOVE the magnets.
Re:Guilty (Score:2)
No! Not the old motherboards!!!
I've got a HUGE stash ... Including some nice stuff like 4 (1 fully functional) commodores, 1 Talent MSX, or an Apple Powerbook 140 from 1992.
Dozens of HDs, from 10 MB 5 1/4 models from my old XTs and 286, all the way to 4 GB Quantum BigFoot. {2,3,4,5}86 and Pentium{I,II,III,IIII} mobos. I've got a box full with dead processors from all times. I've even got a few Hercules displays. Shitloads of ISA, EISA, PCI, and other cards. Several boxes full of cables. A motherfucking GeekPort together with a box full of crap I did with it. Shitloads of software, including one opened OS/2 Box, and one unopened OS/2 Disk+Licenses+Manual in it's original envelope, several DOS boxes, all from IBM, including IBM DOS 5.0 + DOSShell. A few cubic meters of 5 1/4 in Floppies with soft and games. Another box with just GNU/Linux distros in 3 1/2 Floppies.
Yes, I Hoard technology. I love it. And I'm not throwing it away anytime soon.
Re:I don't hoard, I repurpose (Score:2)
Behold. The prototypical Slashdotter. The only contact he has with women is when mom tells him that dinner is ready.
Rejoice in your tiny, warm world. It will get lots more complicated.
Re:I don't hoard, I repurpose (Score:2)
Did you really use "stylish" in there?... O_o (also, you probably wanted to write "blood-stained bookmarks")
Re:Never fails (Score:5, Funny)
What I need is a real-life OS X trash can or the Windows Recycle Bin, so I can recover things right after I trash them.
I have one of those, only the other half prefers to refer to it as a "garage". Mind you, when it fills up the seek times are horrendous.
Re:Never fails (Score:3, Funny)
That's why I "partitioned" that storage medium. On the first partition My wife has installed Volkswagen 2.0, which a lot like Apple products only does about 3 things, but she seems happy. However lately, she keeps making me format and re size the partition map so that she has more room, eventually I may have to use public storage to save things "in the cloud".
Re:Whatever. (Score:2)
Re:Whatever. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I do the opposite of hoarding (Score:2)
Your sick!
Re:I do the opposite of hoarding (Score:5, Funny)
I like to arrange them next to each other—only with one slightly higher, so you get a two-level effect with a little path running down the middle.