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Hardware

Computer/Tech Flea Markets? 254

Posted by timothy from the the-bazaar-for-the-bazaar dept.
Spamlent Green asks: "The recent 'Cashing In On Antique Computers' thread, and the PBS Flea Market documentary made me all misty-eyed for the MIT Swap Fest. I moved from Cambridge to D.C. last year, and haven't been able to find anything like it down here, and I don't mean those bogus 'Comptuer Show and Sale and Monster Truck Rally' events advertised constantly on cheapo UHF stations. So I was curious -- do any DC-MD-No.VA-area Slashdot-ers know of events like this down here -- or anywhere else in the country for that matter? They must be out there ..."

There's something called First Saturday in Dallas, too, and a google search turned up a number of interesting possibilities. What recommendations can you make for the seeker of swap?
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Computer/Tech Flea Markets? More

Computer/Tech Flea Markets?

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  • I think what you are looking for is theARRL Swapfest Database [arrl.org]. Hamfests are no longer just radio gear.
  • Has anyone heard of something like this near Chicago (or even better, Ohio) ?

    • Re:Midwest (Score:2, Informative)

      by mdpowell ( 256664 )
      It's been a while since I've lived in Dayton,OH, but I still think they have the semiannual "Computerfest." One of them is normally in late August.

      They also have "Hamvention" in Dayton which is similar but with a focus toward Ham radio.

      Both events are usualy at Hara Arena.

      • Re:Midwest (Score:2, Informative)

        by Milalwi ( 134223 )
        Computerfest [computerfest.com] used to have a great flea market, but these days, it's mainly been taken over by the "professional" PC vendors. Kinda sad really. You used to really see some neat stuff. I remember someone selling a MicroVax II in the early 1990s. There's still a flea market, but less and less of the neat old stuff, although if you dig hard there's still things to be found.

        The next Computerfest is scheduled for August 25-26, 2001.

        Milalwi

    • Re:Midwest (Score:2, Informative)

      by Dingus ( 16752 )
      Actually the Hamfest in Dayton an awesome show (I didn't go this year) as was the Compufest, they were both held at the fairgrounds or something like that...

    • Computerfest, Dayton OH (Score:4, Informative)

      by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:26PM (#2151671) Homepage
      The 'cheap room' is about as close as you'll get to a swap meet that I've found.

      [managed to get a refurbed 21" trinitron for $300 a couple of years back, some APC 2200s for $600 each, etc.]

      For more info, see:
      http://www.computerfest.com/ [computerfest.com]
      (As it's coming up at the end of the month)

      I highly suggest getting there as early as you can on Saturday, and if you find a deal, go for it, as it might not still be there by the time you go around the entire place (it's a massive computer show).
  • No, not a festival of pork and bacon (I wish!), but the ever popular and never reproduced HAM Radio festivals. The main focus of these events isn't computers, but I've found a number of rare buys at these events. The people are rarely (as of about 5-6 years ago) companies set up selling you some crap PC they built on the way to the show. More often then not, they seem to be people that have bought stuff in the past and either have no need for it anymore or fixed it cause it was broken and hope to get a little return from it.

    And.... HAM fest people are just swank. Really cool. I mean their the bee's knees and all that. Really "wow, this tastes like butter" neat.
  • For those in Wisconsin, a good source of old and (mostly) cheap computer and techie bits is the University of Wisconsin SWAP shop. It's the surplus shop for the University and certain state agencies. One major plus is that their inventory is posted on the web here [wisc.edu].

    dreamword
    Proud owner of a 17" monochrome NeXT monitor that I have no idea what to do with, but couldn't pass up

  • For those few slashdotters living in southeast alaska, there's an excellent government surplus at the Subport here in Juneau. It's open every wednesday from 9am to 3pm. They have everything from coastguard uniforms to UPSs to rader guns to office furniture to servers to workstations to hubs/switches. Also a great source of paper weights 8)

    Maskirovka

  • BPAI: Computer surplus buyers in Baltimore.

    I bought a trunkfull of SparcStation LXs off these guys a while back for $35 each. Not too much intel hardware, but a ton of networking and workstation stuff. Gov't and corp surplus mostly. http://www.recycle.net/computer/ [recycle.net]

    There's also a computer junkyard in Geln Burnie, MD on Sundays, but it's been too long since I've been there to remember the details. Another surplus buyer/seller is in a white warehouse in Fredericksburg, VA, in front of the fairgrounds. For new stuff, there's always Market Pro [marketproshows.com]. These guys always haggle!

  • Try this (Score:3, Informative)

    by Blue Aardvark House ( 452974 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:04PM (#2116920)
    Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop [floridaswapshop.com]

    It's not in DC, but in Fort Lauderdale. It's a huge place, selling most anything on roughly 30 acres. Due to its sheer size, you'll probably find most anything you need, even though it does not specialize in computers or electronics.

    Come on down and check it out. At least it's in a good vacation town!
  • It's cool to look at these shows... I wish there were some in my area (southern Idaho), but I wanted to make the observation...

    I haven't seen one comment yet that says "but you can buy a new PC so cheap now, why mess with it."

    I think it's a sign of the times that we are (as a group) economizing a bit.

    doesn't bode will IMHO
  • 99.9% of the computer stuff at flea markets is junk, much of it overpriced junk (try explaining to an old guy that nobody's going to pay $500 for his beat up Packard Hell 486). As with most stuff at flea markets, the good deals were sold before you got there.
    Computer "shows" suck too, unless you're into stolen, broken, overpriced junk.
    Somebody mentioned hamfests. These are generally guys who are collecting and using AM radios made about 50 years ago, and still refer to equipment made this side of the last century as "solid state." These folks bring all sorts of computer junk, too, but you ain't getting any deals here either. These guys will calmly ask $250 for a Tandy 286 'cause it's still good for RTTY (radio teletype for those born within the last 30 years and/or having a life).
    If you're half-serious about picking up junk computers, watch around dumpsters in office parks and colleges. If you're really serious about collecting junk computers, buy a business phone and put an ad in the yellow pages offering to take away unwanted computers for free. But have your own dumpster handy (supplied by a company that collects demolition and/or doesn't look too close or ask too many questions), you'll need it.

  • Trenton Computer Festoval (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is a computer festival in northern NJ called the Trenton Computer Festival (it's actually held in Edison now). It has an outdoor computer flea market that used to be quite good, although the quantity of old computer equipment there has gone down in the past few years. http://www.tcf-nj.org/

  • Silicon Valley (Score:4, Informative)

    by AaronW ( 33736 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:37PM (#2121013) Homepage
    There are two good swap meets I know of in or around Silicon Valley. The first is at Foothill College on the second Saturday of the month. It's impossible to miss, just show up early.

    The other one is on the first Sunday of the month in Livermore at a college off of Airport Blvd (I forget the name).

    Of the two, the Foothill College one is the biggest. There's a lot of trailing-edge technology there as well. I've seen all sorts of things there. The last time I saw some HUGE CCDs for astronomy. A couple of times I've even seen electron microscopes there.
  • Check the local Military bases DRMO (ok, guess it's now DRMS - Defense Reutilization & Marketing Service)

    Or check their website: http://www.drms.dla.mil/newsales/ [dla.mil]

    Used to be a huge selection at Ft. George G. Meade (north side of DC) with everything from old 8088 Grid laptops to 27in' RGB monitors....

    Good Luck!
  • Here's the link to the Chantilly Expo Center, which called by its owners The Capital Expo Enter( http://www.capital-expo.com/ ). Looks like Market Pro has a show there every month. I also found some BigFlea shows that might be interesting. (I live just "around the corner" from this place.) It's easy to get to and from. Hope this helps. Have fun.
  • They have computer shows and sales regularly in south Jersey and King of Prussia (near philly)
    I've only gone twice, and haven't found anything worth buying.
  • This and other stores selling 2nd hand crap can be a decent place to look for parts. They also have no really set prices so you can bargain a bit. But they usually hate buying stuff from you.
  • I haven't seen a mention yet. Anyone know anything in, or around NYC aside from the annual at Trenton?
  • It rocks. They have all kinds of crazy stuff. Telescopes to Discover Card readers to light switches and fuses to.... just go check it out at http://www.sciplus.com/ If you're in Chicago, Milwaukee, or Geneva, you can experience the madness in person: http://www.sciplus.com/stores.cfm


  • I'm the maintainer of mitfleamarket.com [mitfleamarket.com]. If anyone has any pics of the flea or just suggestions of how to make the page more useful for people, throw me an email at jason@macross.com [mailto]. Thanks, Jason
  • Well, In Victoria anyway there is are swap meets every weekend, usually two or three each weekend in Melbourne anyway. Mostly new stuff, odds and ends, a few blasts from the past.

    And prices are way down on what you would pay retail anyway. It's good fun to look around and hear other peoples opinion on the new intel chip, or how nVidia are taking over the market with this next chip etc... One might even call it a learning experience

    And if you are lucky, there might even be somebody BBQ'ing food for ya all to munch on.

    A Grand Day Out.

    Trav

  • Look in local newspapers. The ones advertised at university/college campuses tend to have the following qualities:

    -LOTS of vendors selling slightly old/used computer books at good discounts
    -Hard to find and sometimes slightly older/used software that still retails for ultra-high prices can be found for maybe 1/2 or less of retail price
    -Enter draws to get tee-shirts and sometimes neat gadgets!
    -If you don't mid buying software with 'questionable' licenses, you can find many packages laballed 'to be sold only with a new computer' for $5-10.
    -Adult software sections you just don't find at the mainstream joints ;P
    -Demonstrations of technology from grad students that hasn't quite come to maturation yet, but is still very cool (for example, about eight [or so] years ago, I saw this really awesome robotics demonstration running on a state-of-the-art Intel 486 DX2/66 ... this student was later approached by various automakers for development in that industry.)

  • Dayton Hamvention [hamvention.org] It is a huge show that goes from Thursday through Sunday. It is primarily for ham radio equipment, but has tons of vintage/used/new/whatever computer equipment.
  • Last year I attended a Hamboree. Lots of ham radio enthusiasts were there with antennas sticking out of their hats, belts, and eyeglasses (I kid you not). They made the strange members of the local linux group seem fashionable in comparison :).
    The aisles had everything imaginable: PCs, hardware, radios, other electronics. I snagged a sound card and SiS AGP card for $5. The AGP card didn't work, but the PCI sound card did! I also got some other miscellaneous cables for about $1 apiece (SCSI, serial, etc).
  • For anyone in Colorado, the CU Boulder campus has surplus auctions about 3-4 times a year. Lots of mac and a fair amount of pc stuff usually goes for a bit under street value, but they also have older Sun and SGI equipment there. I picked up an Indigo there for $35 last time I went and after a system re-install it works fine. The next one is on the 18th of this month (see the link below for details)

    On a related note, the company they hire to actually run the auction is Dickensheet [dickensheet.com], and they have auctions with computer equipment atleast once a month. I just never have the money to spend.

  • Not a fest, but a store that is a good source for parts, old computers and old software in Northern Virginia is L&Y Electronics, 14824 Build America Dr. Woodbridge, VA. They are located on Route 1, near Potomac Mills. Not open on Sundays. They have plenty of PC and Mac equipment and occasionaly Suns and SGIs.
  • There are two really great ones that I know. These aren't really flea markets per-say, their surplus equipment dealer. They have a lot of other stuff, though.

    Sunnyvale, CA - WeirdStuff warehouse. It's at the end of Mathilda avenue, around the corner from the NASA Ames research labs. If you need a TRS-80 or an Apple II, then stop here. They are a "dumping ground" for the bay area tech companies. Their prices aren't that great, though.

    Ann Arbor, MI - University of Michigan property disposition. They have a ton of old computer junk there. It's the dumping ground for the entire University of Michigan system. It's on the U's North Campus. If you're lucky, you might even score a well-worn in Mammogram machine!
  • Ive got about 800 metric tons of computer crap in there. But Im in the dc area, and i dont know of anything like this either.
    • You might try looking for hamfests or amateur radio swap fests. Most are also computer flea markets and usually for about $15 you can get a table to sell your electronics/radios/computer related stuff. Go to the ARRL web site (http://www.arrl.org [arrl.org]) to search for one in your area.
    • On a similar note, if you are near a military housing area, check the yardsales on saturday and sunday mornings. My uncle does this at the Marine Base in Kaneohe, Hawaii, and has literally tons of computer stuff that the military people didnt want to ship to their new deployment. You can usually haggle the price down to almost nothing and get a lot of vintage stuff, and occasionally some very good stuff.
  • MarketPro [marketproshows.com], probably the one's you're seeing on tv, has shows [marketproshows.com] across the country. Some venues are better than others. Maryland State Fairgrounds is pretty large. Of course if the vendors decide not to go to that particular one, you're out of luck. The one at Ramada Conference & Exhibition Center in New Carrollton, MD, was pretty good the last time I was there.
  • there is the sciencenter's "Einstein's Attic Sale" usually in late September. They have cool computer stuff, science related electronics, labratory glassware, you name it! It's for a good cause and after 2pm the price on "stuff" drops to $25 a pickup truck load (they fill...sorry). They'll post the date of the sale on their site:

    http://www.sciencenter.org/ [sciencenter.org]

  • Hey if you are at Madison, WI, take a look at UW-Madison's surplus shop. I got a 17" Sun monitor for $17 USD, also they got zillion of Macs, each selling $10 to $20 USD, good for running NetBSD.

    Here is SWAP Shop Inventory [wisc.edu] website.

  • You can find good stuff at government auctions of excess property. In the Washington, D.C. area you might try NASA/GSFC in Greenbelt, Maryland. They usually have an auction every year to clear out the warehouse. Military bases are a good place to get stuff.
  • Ok, so its not VA, but for those of you in Ottawa Ontario who might be looking for this sort of thing, they happen every few months. The next 'computer garage sale' is on August 26th at a public school in Kanata (can't recall the name of it), and every 3 months or so at Kingsway United Church. I think its about $30 for vendors to get a good sized table, and $1 or so admission for everyone else (all proceeds go to help the school/church). Vendors vary, from people like myself just to get rid of stuff we dont need, or smaller retail stores trying to get a little exposure to the local computing community. Either way, theres always lots of geeky stuff there.

  • Los Angeles area: TRW swap meet (Score:3, Informative)

    by Xeger ( 20906 ) <slashdot@tracAAA ... inus threevowels> on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:04PM (#2146656) Homepage
    There is a largish swap meet that happens near the TRW building in the Manhattan Beach area on the last Saturday of every month. It's free admission, with effectively unlimited parking. It's located on the Northwest corner of Aviation and Marine.

    It's frequented by a lot of amateur radio operators and hardcore electronics specialists, so don't expect to find helpful salesmen ready to sell you a system fresh off the boat from China. Expect vaccum tubes, used parts, legacy hard drive controllers and random electronic components you've never heard of.

    More info at: http://www.csz.com/w6trw/swap.html
  • When I lived near Dallas (Arlington) there were fair deals to be had just outside of the Infomart in Dallas, on the 1st Saturday of every month. There was a small movement to get the market going every week, but I don't know how successful it's been.

    I went once or twice; some of what I found was wet from previous rainy 1st saturdays. I also bought a cyrix-200 & motherboard for about $130, when new ones would have cost ~$200. YMMV, of course. I just can't get excited about spending more than $200. on bare computer equipment that's served up outside.

    • I hit first Saturday faithfully every month with a big group of friends. Show up at midnight if you want to get the good deals. Last week we saw an IBM dual Pentium server for $20. Nice case, but too big for the space I have, or I would've bought it.

      One of the guys who I usually go with says First Saturday is bigger than the MIT swap meet. I wouldn't know, though. :)

      Interestingly, First Saturday started as a HAM radio swap meet, like other people have mentioned.

      If you go, be sure to have a bratwurst!

    • God, I miss First Saturday (I live in Tucson, AZ now.) I think that was the only thing that made me wake up excited at 5am

  • Ham Fests! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You want to find a repository for all sorts of obscure electronic devices and computers? Ham fests are definitely the place for it. Sure it's focussed on radio, but how many radio geeks do you know that aren't also computer geeks? :)

  • Try Hamfests! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bogusflow ( 470441 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:34PM (#2148646) Journal
    I know this is redundant, but I haven't seen the ARRL link posted yet:

    http://www.arrl.org/hamfests.html

    If you can't find it at a hamfest, it may not be worth finding at all! I have seen the following at hamfests:
    - piles of C-band satellite gear, $5 or so
    - DSS receivers and dishes for next to nothing
    - 286 and 386 desktop PC's, FREE! (sans monitor and keyboard)
    - old computer/language manuals of all descriptions
    Its not just radio stuff!

  • First Saturday is AMAZING (Score:4, Informative)

    by Mtgman ( 195502 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:38PM (#2148897)
    As a resident of the D/FW area and a regular at First Saturday I can attest to it's coolness on a first hand basis. It's been called "The largest open-air electronics sidewalk sale on the planet" and has had writeups in everything from local newspapers to the Wall Street Journal. Here's the scoop. On Friday night the vendors start to roll in, they sell all night and are gone by noon the next day. Mostly these are people who own computer shops throught the metroplex, but we get some of the larger vendors from further away too. Everyone pitches tents, sets up generators, cash registers, etc and sets tons, I mean TONS, of OEM and retail hardware on conference tables in the middle of a parking lot just west of the freeway. The prices are really amazing too. Every time I go to First Saturday I make it a point to go to Fry's the next day and browse for exactly the items I just bought off the street the night before. I've been stopped several times by people asking why I was laughing, and one time escorted from the store for laughing too hard at their prices. I've never paid more than half of what Fry's was asking for anything. Memory, motherboards, CPUs, CD burners, ANYTHING. Same brand names, same models, everything. I've never paid retail for any piece of hardware I've bought in any situation other than impulse buying. I've built three systems from parts purchased at First Saturday in the past four years and I intend to do it again as my current machine is over two years old. Cost me about 1200 bucks for the parts to build it at the time, and is just now starting to get a little behind the times. Think extreme bleeding edge two years ago for less than 1200 bucks.

    I've introduced people in the office to First Saturday. The last time my co-workers went they all came back with factory refurbished 21" Sony Trinitron monitors for $325 the first time and the next month the price was $275. They got business cards and three year warranties from the companies. One of them had problems with it, took it back to the shop and they gave him another. They have 15" flat-panel HP monitors with integrated sound for about $300. I got my 120 watt, powered, shielded speakers for my workstation at the office for $6. That's not a typo. Six dollars. They sound good too.

    I've also sold items there. My brother was a SA for a company who did a bunch of upgrades a while back and we hauled all the old desktop hardware out there and sold it out of the back of the company van. Good stuff, could have made some nice little BSD boxes, dirt cheap. Mix and match all the stuff you want. You want extra memory? Five bucks a stick for the simms you need.

    That having been said, I am kind of disappointed with First Saturday recently. It's been going on for 30+ years now and originally you could get anything, I mean anything, electronic there. From single resistors to full computer sets. I saw military codebooks and collections of Magic cards there too. Now it's shifting from component-oriented to package oriented. They'll sell you bare-bones systems for $575 for a nice MB and Athlon based system, but without any of the toys like a DVD-ROM(bought mine there about a year ago for $85 for a 6X, damn fine price, and a major brand name too) You can still buy the component level stuff, but it's not the emphasis anymore. I guess it's just the world that has changed. The resistor is no longer a component, the board is a component. Sigh, I'm showing my age apparently.

    Steven
    • The decline of First Saturday is a consequence
      of a number of factors.

      Consider why it was the obvious site for the swap meet to begin with: It was the parking lot of Heathkit. Heathkit is now a Mercedes Benz repair shop. Downtown Dallas grew east and that area became gentrified, "the Arts District" if you will. Buildings that were slated for demolition in that neighborhood are now $300,000 condos (Adam Hats building, etc.).
      It's not a neighborhood that is conducive to any underground-hacker type of activity like it was in the beginning (underground hardware hackers that is, the HAM scene remember?)
      Now that everything's digital, even the HAM's
      don't have so much homespun hardware; you no longer have to build your own power supplies,
      oh the times they are a changin etcetera.

      But the big one is that PC's are now highly commoditized. Since that happened, I'm recollecting around 1995, the vendors started being much less of a grass-roots independent variety, and much, much, more commonly people who ran PC shops like IMS or N2, who would bring a booth out to 1st saturday. It went from an open, friendly, monthly barter fair,
      to just another commercial marketplace for the same commodity hardware at generally the same prices that the hardware sold for in the vendors' shops.

      First Saturday rides on its reputation for being a good place to make good deals. There are still good deals to be made, I suppose. If you get there on Friday night. It started getting silly when people would be setting up
      at 6pm friday, and LEAVING around 8am Saturday... for what was supposed to be a day-long SATURDAY swapmeet? plain silly.

      Of course, I don't know of a better place to look for original copies of vintage stuff, like Win3.11 disks and so on...

    • Re:First Saturday is AMAZING (Score:4, Funny)

      by Gannoc ( 210256 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @02:11PM (#2151117)
      Every time I go to First Saturday I make it a point to go to Fry's the next day and browse for exactly the items I just bought off the street the night before. I've been stopped several times by people asking why I was laughing, and one time escorted from the store for laughing too hard at their prices.

      So you take a trip to Fry's to laugh hysterically at price tags? They probably make you leave the store because you were scaring the other customers.

      • So you take a trip to Fry's to laugh hysterically at price tags?

        Frankly I can see no other reason for going to Fry's at all.

        I was exaggerating a bit, I've never been actually tossed out, but I have gotten funny looks over the silly grin I wear on my face looking at the same hardware I just bought for over twice the price.

        Steven
    • Unless it has improved greatly, my experience with First Saturday has led me to writing it off. It used to be quite cool, but the last few times I went, there was nothing there that I couldn't get locally for an equal price on a daily basis.

      What made First Saturday great from my perspective was that they USED to have several users's group meetings. I could drive down, go to the meeting (the North Texas Linux Users Group had a great meeting, plus I liked going to the Atari UG meeting for nostalgia's sake) and do some shopping. But then the users' groups were kicked out of the building, and started having their meetings on other days.

      Perhaps it is still a good thing to go to if you live in the Dallas area. But I live in the Wichita area, which is five hours drive down, and five hours drive back. It got to the point where it just wasn't worth it to me.

      Perhaps things have changed for the better. I look forward to other posts on this - I'd like to hear it's worth it again.

  • Besides the obvious place (EBAY) (Score:4, Informative)

    by cybrthng ( 22291 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:02PM (#2148973) Homepage Journal
    (duhhh.. should you even have to say EBAY :)

    Not everyone has an MIT swapshop nearby, so why automatically phase out those computer shows that you diss.

    IF you actually KNOW your stuff about computers then you will get a better deal at a computer show because the vendors are there to make money and sell hardware. Build up relations with these vendors and they will get you anything you want at the best price and most likely support you better then anyone else.

  • Be careful (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nastard ( 124180 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:01PM (#2149054)
    Watch out for those shady "Pentiom Processor" dealers. And never buy a computer from the back of a monster truck. Ever.
  • In North Carolina there is the Shelby Hamfest. When I used to go it was the largest in the country. Really fun to walk around and see all the old stuff for sale. I really miss that...

    I know they still have it, maybe I should check it out again.

  • Trenton Computer Festival (Score:3, Informative)

    by Eric Sharkey ( 1717 ) <sharkey@lisaneric.org> on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:05PM (#2149197)
    New Jersey has the Trenton Computer Festival [tcf-nj.org] every year. The outdoor flea market there has just about everything imaginable. The latest hi-tech gadgets on one table, Commodore-64's on the next.
    • IMHO, it was much better when it was the Trenton State College computer fest (allegedly one of the oldest) and actually held in the school parking lot. It's very commercial now - used to be you could find all kinds of cool stuff there.
    • oh man. this years was just 3 months ago. :( 9 more months for the next one. this past year's speaker was Emmanuel Goldstein. /me sad.

      complex
  • The Greater Baltimore Hamboree and Computerfest, at the MD state fairgrounds is in April... Check here for details: http://www.gbhc.org/
  • ./
    Two hours north of you, the DuPont company is still dismantling itself. Their "excessed equipment" sales can be pretty great... although me and my buddies already picked through all the PC and mac stuff, you can still get old VAXen on occasion, and gigantic industrial robots.
    The only problem is you never know what is going to be there until you get there.
    And it's kind of disturbing how fast the more exotic animal-torturing equipment sells... I think the direct nerve stimulation devices lasted about 48 hours.
    --Charlie
  • Twice a year there is a serious "computer show" at Timonium Fairgrounds in Baltimore county. It isn't like the monster truck rallies you mention(I can hear the cheesy MarketPro ads now "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Come to the computer show and sale... Full computer, super VGA, CD-ROM...")

    They are not really swap-fests, but there is a whole lot of tailgating, plus the usual vendors, plus vendors selling electronic equipment, gadgets, and bizaare stuff. Often local computer groups or schools are there. Anybody else go to these things? Maybe we should turn them into something more like a swap-fest.

  • Computer Shows (Score:4, Informative)

    by skwang ( 174902 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @04:53PM (#2149684)

    Being from the DC area, if you want inexpensive computer components I would urge you to actually try the Market Pro Computer Show and Sale. You can find information about the shows at this link. [marketpro.com]

    Although they are advertised as you said "'Comptuer Show and Sale and Monster Truck Rally' events advertised constantly on cheapo UHF stations," they are mostly filled with local (DC/MD/VA) vendors and some out-of-area (PA/NY/NJ) sellers who sell computers and computer compenents. I would not recommend this show for any novice computer user. I do extensive research of the product(s) I want to buy before I go there; because the phrase caveat emptor is very appropriate.[1]

    However, since you mentioned you wanted more of a swap fest, this may not be for you. You might try...

    There are also fedral auctions at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) which sell many components. However, most of them are really old government surplus. My step-father once picked up three 9 inch floppy drives there (it was part of a pallet where he wanted the plotter). I don't know the URL of the auctions but you can goto the GSFC [nasa.gov] Website and search for it. Google may work as well.

    Finally there are HAMfests in the DC area you can go to. Not being a HAM operator/user I don't know of any. Once again, google may help.

    [1] My friend once claims that he bought a motherboard from a computer show that was not FCC compliant (made in China) and interfered with radio devices. I have only bought a bad harddisk once which the (local) vendor was happy to replace. Again, caveat emptor.

  • Well we used to have HAMFEST around here a lot. Haven't seen any advertisements for one lately, then again I haven't been looking. It's possible that the Marketpro shows (that you mentioned) muscled it out of the way. Walking around was fun at HAMFESTS, lot of cool tech junk.
  • I used to live in the DC area and there were plenty of really good hamfests, which always had tons of computer stuff. I live in Austin, TX now, and the local hamfest-type scene is *pathetic*.

    Look for the Hamfests in Bowie, Timonium and Manassas. The Gaithersburg hamfest (F.A.R.Fest) was the biggest I remember, but since I've left the area, I think it moved to Bowie. I remember plenty of smaller ones, but the smaller ones tended to be more oriented to amateur radio, and less cool technology junk.
  • The Core thing about the MIT Flea market is having a large and well developed technical community. They have some truly wild stuff. Where else could you get a Travelling Wave Amplifier Tube for your science project?

    So the thing would be to find out what are the major tech/science schools in the DC area. Approach them with the MIT model, and then, when the arrangements are made, promote it to all of those tech/science schools. You should be able to break even, and maybe even make a buck or to to help finance your other research projects.

    Heck, you might even wind up with tables of surplus spook gear.

  • I don't know if they still do it, but the University of Waterloo used to sell surplus junk on the first wednesday of each month. They usually had decent stuff.
  • They come around in these big hot air balloons that look like the moon. I think they hit all the major metropolitan areas.

  • University Surplus (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DickPhallus ( 472621 )
    At the university of waterloo here they have monthly surplus sales. I saw all kinds of great stuff while I was there... so check with the local universities...
    • Hi!

      The University of Maryland runs Terrapin Trader. See http://www.purchase.umd.edu/ttrader/.

      They had an old VAX for sale earlier this year. I was tempted to buy it, just to watch all the lights in my neighborhood dim when I turned it on.

      - Tim
  • We don't have much in that department. There are of course the Martket Pro shows [marketpro.com], which is where I get almost everything, but they just sell, no swaps. The only other close thing is a place called SmartCo, which is local to St Mary's county to my knowledge. It takes surplus and old computer equipment from the local naval base and has volunteers rebuild them for schools. The old policy also allowed you to scavenge for yourself on occasion if you volunteered enough.

    Due to the dismal lack of such things locally to my knowledge, I'm also much anticipating the results of this inquiry...
  • There is a baltimore area HAM club, which is part show and sale. I don't know the URL, though, but I belive it's part of ARRL and they show every year at Timonium Fair Grounds (From DC take a Amtrak Train from Union station to Baltimore Penn Station (unless MARC runs on the day you're there), then MTA Lightrail from Penn to Mt. Royale, then switch to the Hunt Valley light rail to go to Timonium fairgrounds).

    Market Pro Shows (http://www.marketproshos.com) does computer shows and sales, but they're for modern equipment. They have shows all over Maryland and Virginia. The closest to the DC area would be New Carrolton.

    I've been to both. The HAMfest is nalstolgic, and I been able to get a base for an old Compaq laptop there.

  • Hamfests (Score:3, Informative)

    by The Dev ( 19322 ) on Wednesday August 08, 2001 @01:43PM (#2151943)
    Ever since computers started invading Hamfests in
    the mid 80's, they have been a great place to buy
    new and used parts at the lowest possible prices.

    For a list see:

    http://www.arrl.org/hamfests.html#listing

  • Terrapin Trader (Score:2, Informative)

    by WeasBri ( 26511 )
    The University of Maryland in College Park runs the "Terrapin Trader", which has everything you could ever want. You can see some of their stuff here [umd.edu] (click on inventory, then Data Processing for the computer stuff). It wasn't so long ago that they were giving away Alphas! Looking at it now, I see a lot of Sparcstations and some older PCs. Worth a look.

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