I cleaned out my parts closet a year or so ago and got rid of a lot of stuff that went back a good many years. Stuff like two 3.2 gig drives, a flaky 80 meg laptop drive, a bunch of 33.6k and 56k modems and a barrel full of other antique crap like this.  I was just looking for something and found a Cyrix MII-333 CPU and heatsink neatly in a anti-static bag. That's stupid. Past 1998 what the hell did I think I was going to do with that? It's in the trash now.

I do the same, then I think, "It all fits in these 2,... I mean 3, boxes.  It's not taking up THAT much room. I'll throw it out next year."

Anyone else that doesn't throw out old computer parts that should have been gone a long time ago? Yes.

Since I started scrapping metal, I don't keep old broken stuff around

Yes, got a box full of stuff in the garage and a stack of old Dell Optiplex SFF.



It all belongs in the trash but as soon as I throw it out I'll need a part that I just threw out the other day.

Finally tossed a bunch of stuff dating all the way back to 486 days last summer.  Still have a collection of old stuff, though.  Ram, a few USB and FireWire expansion cards, and IDE hard drives mainly.  Comes in useful occasionally playing with misfit toys I pick up for free.

I'm pretty sure I win this one.

Pix or it didn't happen.


I have a box with 3 33.6 (or earlier) 8 bit modem cards. I'd throw them out, but I have all these AOL Discs with free hours....

Guys, DON'T just throw them away - donate them. Believe it or not some of the older CPU's have a donation value that is pretty high.

The following is from It's Deductible:

Filter:High ValueMedium Value

Processor Speed
1 GHz or More$72.00 $38.00
2 GHz or More$53.00 $34.00
2.5 GHz or More$80.00 $46.00
3 GHZ or More$137.00 $67.00
400 MHz or More$117.00 $60.00
700 MHz or More$72.00 $40.00
Less than 400MHz$115.00 $50.00
3.5 GHz or More$327.00 $123.00


Then take the deduction off the taxes.

Man... that hurts.  I've tossed a ton of old stuff over the years.  This makes me rethink that.

I would consider a recycler, but the only local recycler is a crooked, thieving POS.

This last go round the Salvation Army wouldn't take computers or peripherals (United way stopped years ago.) So call before you go.  But if you Google for thrift stores there are always some independents around, as well as some others.  I wound up dropping them off at Unique Thrift/Value Village, which is affiliated (at that store anyway) with Vietnam Veterans of America.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

I could probably retire if I reclaim all the gold in the stuff I have.  

You win!  I thought my Compaq Portable II and CBM 2001 PET with the tiny calculator looking keyboard gave me hoarder credit!  I just got the Portable II back up and running.  HP /Compaq still his BIOs config utilities and manuals available online.  I tried getting Win 3.1 to run on it, but it wants more than 640k to run.  I temporarily pulled the dual 5.25" floppy drives out to use a 3.5" floppy to get DR DOS 7.3 installed.  I have a 486/33 with a 3.5" and a5.25" drive, but I  had problems formatting 5.25" floppies with it.

Regarding other old stuff, I hate throwing out stuff that still works, however as stuff gets older, it's becoming less useful.   People give me their old stuff, asking if I can find a use for it, and I recycle what I can.  Other than the Compaq, the second oldest I use on a regular basis is an HP 667Mhz pc running Freedos.  Until recently the second oldest running was an AMD K6-266 I was using as a router.  It would boot up Coyote linux via floppy.  The rest of my useful stuff is Pentium 4/ AMD Athlon/ Sempron class machines.

I should toss my modem collection, since there's no longer a live land line in the house.

I've got a P3 Dell laptop with 98SE that gets booted fairly regularly. It's beginning to be superseded by a CF-28 Toughbook with FreeDos though.

DP'ed.