I really Like your Collection Robin4.
I like how you go as far back as the XT and try to cover each periods with your systems.
Im planning to build a 286 this year, provided the board i scavenged works 😀

Thanks for the compliments, but iam still not there. There is much work to do. My main concern is to collect the parts that i need for building those computers.
If there are intressing parts, then its almost impossible to find them cheap.. Shipping for the USA to the netherlands can cost a lot of shipping costs. Iam beware of that. But i dont have other solutions, so i need to cope with that.. That really a fact!
But iam still happy if i can think that i have over time very beautiful systems i have build! There arent that much people that have those systems still running.. Iam very proud of that!

I only can say; its very hard to find very nice looking old AT cases with a less of yellowness , no damaged.
I hope when i go to the flea market next weekend that i find very nice cases!!

Getting vintage parts in the us is harder than you think and it is where you live that makes a huge difference. Worse there is a LOT of competition due to gold scrappers so cost is still high. The big cities, old folks, and older companies are usually the best source for good vintage parts. I am pretty happy that I got lucky on an old IBM Aptiva that is a slot A build but that was easy 😀 Anything older than a Pentium 1 is hard no matter where you live especially if it is pre 486 🙁

I do have a double clocked 386 from Cyrix (DLC) with orginal cooler and case badge.

Those gold scrappers... :@

MaxWar wrote:

Those gold scrappers... :@

Some of the stuff being sold as scrap would make you cry.

sliderider wrote:

MaxWar wrote:

Those gold scrappers... :@

Some of the stuff being sold as scrap would make you cry.

I once bought a box of video cards sold as "gold recovery scrap" for 10$

There was 4 fully working 3dfx video cards in the box. One banshee, two voodoo 3 and one voodoo 2.

I fucking hate gold scrappers. The E-waste program and hard drive shredding services are both bullshit scams.

What I find totally crazy are these people selling a few CPU's for hundreds of pounds for "gold recovery". Surely with the cost of recovering the gold, the value of even a bucket of CPU's can't really be that much. They are all scammers in my book. Should be a price on their heads, especially the ones selling working components as scrap. Wouldn't it be wonderful to win the lottery and be able to buy up as much old hardware as possible just in the interest of preserving it?

Is the process of extracting the gold expensive?

rgart wrote:

Is the process of extracting the gold expensive?

Not expensive but it can be dangerous. Bathing components in aqua regia is the usual method and aqua regia is highly corrosive and emits fumes. It's not something you want to do without proper safety equipment or in an enclosed space. I'd be surprised if doing this in your home didn't violate the law. The prices that the gold scrappers charge for the parts doesn't leave any room for a profit, either. They are basically charging the full value of the gold and then charging you shipping on top of it so it's not profitable to do in the first place unless gold takes a big jump after you buy the scrap for recycling.

Ive seen an auction where someone was selling a box of various PCB, motherboards and cards for "scrap" .
I looked at the picture and most of the boards were broken into smaller bits. I sent him a message asking him why all the boards were broken ( was just curious ).
He replied: "I smashed them with a hammer so I could fit more in the box"

It's truly sad about all the gold s'crapping. I recently decided I'd like to get an old 286 (my first PC) but at this rate, I'll probably never find one.

Maybe one day I can print one!

Grats to op!

It is around 90 euro for 1 kilo of cpu. I shopped by a scrapper in his bails of hardware and took with me 3x awe64, 2x soundblaster pro 2.0, 2x 3com 10mbit nic, 6x 40gb single platter maxtor, voodoo1, matrox g400max, quantum bigfoot, adaptec 2940uw, Some nice psu for 2 euro each.