Cosmic wrote on 2022-04-17, 01:24:
Merovign wrote on 2022-04-16, 19:19:
I've been trying without much success to find out what Goodwill does with computers around here. I have found some parts and even a box of software or two, but I haven't seen an actual computer at Goodwill in probably 8-10 years.
I've been to at least 7 or 8 different Goodwill stores, both in the Midwest and Georgia, and none of them had any computers. Lots of LCDs, speakers, routers, and things close to computers... but no computers. I wonder why they seem to have stopped carrying them.
I've been told they basically centralized that at a few locations (like the one hundreds of miles away from me) because of some liability problems with people leaving personal and financial info on donated computers and not having/wanting to have IT people in every city cleaning up the mess.
I suspect from what was said about fresh windows installations that genuinely old hardware is either junked (GRRRRRRR) or sold separately to specialists in bulk.
The region where I live has been picked pretty dry. I don't really have the money right now to travel to places where they have better pickings.
It's not retro, really, but I did get 5x 16Gb thumb drives for $4.50 today, so there's that. I just tested a bunch of HDDs last night (PASSED) and I'm continuing to pare down what I'm willing to live with. I had been gathering and sorting hardware forever but I finally am putting together the *systems* one by one, I have a PII Win98 system and an i7 XP system set up. I'm seriously considering trying to find some cheap window ATX cases for putting AT boards in, just because I can't really find enough desktop AT cases and they're kind of too pricey for me shipped right now. I would love to find an Everex Step case or one of the many more stylish AT clone cases from the late 80s / early 90s, one day, for a 386 or 486 build - but if I can get compact, barely-bigger than SFF ATX cases that fit full-height cards... that might be good enough. I want to have the collection be a reasonable size so I can reclaim my Disused Computer Shop... I mean apartment.
Because I'm a complete weirdo, I keep thinking of multiple computers in one case to help solve the space problem. Originally it was a "retro rack" idea with TFX/SFX power supplies and drives under the board... I was thinking about multiple systems in one tower case but that seems extraordinarily hackish and requiring a lot of metal cutting. Or 3D printing. Or both. All that to get away from minitowers.