My external ZIP 750MB drive. It was never used, came with all the packaging and with plenty disks (also new in packages).
Because I have only one, I might get used to it and when it decides to die on me, I will have a tough time replacing it.

I still use my ZIP 250MB drive though, because I think it looks cool and the ZIP 750 drive makes a sound I find more annoying.

I'm not absolutely sure I'll never use it though, but parts I have and will probably never use, include:
- Action Media II board (old TV card that doesn't even have drivers for 95. With daughterboard, without the RAM upgrade and without any of its original cabling)
- Most of my spare parts will never get used.

I have a small stack of Intel-branded Bt848 PCI video capture cards. Probably made for an OEM, as they have no tuner (only S-video and RCA inputs) and I could never find drivers for them for any version of Windows. I tried many Bt848 drivers but none recognize these cards - IIRC the PCI ID is slightly off. I was able to make them work (sorta) in Linux with generic v4l driver. I can't imagine a scenario where I'd need to use one to capture analog video (especially since I have a few branded Bt848 cards that do have drivers). But I also know that I'll never throw them away.

I always loved how cool Zip/Jaz drives looked when you stacked them on top of each other. When I got my first 100MB Zip drive, my entire hard drive amount to only 250MB.

A couple years ago I recovered files from my old disks including saves from games like Warcraft II and Quake. Gonna load them up and check them some day. Some day..

I have a Genoa 8500VL (Cirrus Logic VLB) and I don't own a single VLB mainboard. I suppose one day if circumstances change I may source the components for a 486 VLB system, but it's not looking like that will happen anytime soon.

Where did it come from? Last summer I visited my mom and found the card in my old bedroom. I obviously owned it at some point in my young adulthood. 😀

I hang onto it as a keepsake, plus you never know...

I guess the majority of my collection is likely to remain unused as i have crates and crates stored in many places. One of my original unused (now) retro items is my original 486DX2-50 chip from our first pc. I think the years of abuse it suffered (including an overclock to 80mhz) means its retirement is well deserved but i still keep it around 😀

My first Pentium processors 75-133, because I don`t have any board for them, but I keep them all and also anothers forever 😀 And I propably never use SoundBlaster 128 PCI, I don`t like AdLib emulation on that card.

I still have my original cartridge copy of Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt. However, this is the most fiddly NES cart in my entire collection and I can't get it to actually work. I have a separate copy that works reliably when I want to actually play the game 😀

But it is the first video game I owned, so it's nice to still have it.

I also have a 512 MB Memory stick Pro duo sitting around. It's lime green! It's... probably never going to get used 😁

I also have an original model Game Boy and a Game Boy Pocket to round out my handheld console collection. But I probably would only use the GBC or GBA to actually play Game Boy games.

And don't get me started on the cables drawer/parts basket. PS2 to AT keyboard adaptor? DVI to VGA? USB Device cables? Firewire? Telephone cable? I don't know why I keep some of this stuff.

I have an empty, and opened (but still mostly wrapped in plastic) box for River City Ransom for the NES.

I also have a graphics card collection. Lets face it... they are largely useless. As much as I enjoy collecting them, I could have maybe 6 or 8 cards and not be missing out on any games or features. Instead I have dozens. I plan to sell through them eventually, but they are just so cool to look and and hold. 😁

Speaking of firewire, I have a very early firewire PCI card from the 1995 era when the standard was not completely done; it has only 1 port and cannot transfer data at more than 100Mbps. I'll never use it again (especially now that firewire is practically dead) but I'm keeping it as a curiosity.

My first modem, a US robotics sportster 33.6 Modem, it has no practical purpose but it was the first one my family owned.

a handheld scanner w/ card! I procrastinated about using it for drawing (line importing since it was only 1-bit color) since 1994.

It is currently in storage, but I have one of those translucent blue Sony Memory Stick Pro cards (The full-size one, not the Duo). I never have and likely never will own a device that uses them. Instead, I grabbed it for the sole reason that it most closely resembles the Isolinear Chips from Star Trek, and it made my inner Trekker nerd happy. 🤣

Like others have said, it is Zip disks/drives for me too. I LOVED them back in the day, about 18 -20 years ago.

I always manage to convince myself that "this retro PC needs a ZIP drive" and "one day, I'll get to putting all of my necessity retro build files on ZIP disks - that will make it easy and cool".

I have dozens of disks, several have never been used, and I have an unopened 10-pack.

Meanwhile, here I am, burning CDs and using flash drives all the time. But the lure of the ZIPs is strong...

Netcomm 2400bps modem.

Was already 2nd hand when I got it, think 28.8 modems were around, 33.6 definitely were not though.
Used it on BBS's but main reason I'll hold onto it is because its a good Aussie brand and would have cost a packet originally.

I actually use my (external) ZIP/Jazz drives! Not often but every now and then to copy files between PC's if network, floppy, CD's are playing up

petro89 wrote:

Like others have said, it is Zip disks/drives for me too. I LOVED them back in the day, about 18 -20 years ago. […]
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Like others have said, it is Zip disks/drives for me too. I LOVED them back in the day, about 18 -20 years ago.

I always manage to convince myself that "this retro PC needs a ZIP drive" and "one day, I'll get to putting all of my necessity retro build files on ZIP disks - that will make it easy and cool".

I have dozens of disks, several have never been used, and I have an unopened 10-pack.

Meanwhile, here I am, burning CDs and using flash drives all the time. But the lure of the ZIPs is strong...

With the USB ones, I actually find it practical to use USB ZIP drives and ZIP disks over CDROM because they are erasable (I haven't bothered with rewritable CDROM for ages now) and are, to me, actually part of the experience! 😁

And most stuff will easily fit onto a 100MB or 250MB disk.

And this way I can keep using all my USB flash drives for my more modern computer-related stuff, so I won't even mix any up by accident.

Zip drives of any kind have been on my "do not touch with a 10-foot pole" list for more than 10 years. I have had really bad luck with them. I must have used at least 10 units (mostly at work, but I also owned 3 or 4 at home) of various types (parallel, IDE, SCSI). They all died, without exception, within 6 months with the click-of-death. And resulting in irreparable data loss in several cases. No zip drives for me ever again.

torindkflt wrote:

It is currently in storage, but I have one of those translucent blue Sony Memory Stick Pro cards (The full-size one, not the Duo). I never have and likely never will own a device that uses them.

I would grab a compact memory stick reader and start using them as general purpose USB drives.

I'd follow my own advice with my Memory Stick Pro Duo, except I have enough USB drives already 😐. And 512 MB isn't even enough for a Linux installer.

My Matrox E-VDP.

The idea of a 286 machine with a laserdisc player sounds cool and moreso when the onboard graphics allows for you to overlay the video output on the VGA signal and control it with a lightpen.
Two problems however. The first is that the super special video card isn't detected by the BIOS no matter how much I troubleshooted it so it has no proper video output. The second is that even when you kludge in another video card you'll discover the super proprietary software that you cannot find anywhere because Matrox denies they ever made this and I seem to own the second one still in existance is not actually on the hard drive. The drive is there and it works but it was formatted. Okay, so see what unformat does. Nope. Someone put a fresh install on the system and then a few junk programs like Family Tree Maker and Print Shop so the priceless things like the drivers and programs have long since been overwritten.

I have a SS7 MII 366-GP. I'll never use it because when I make a SS7 build I will likely use some variety of K6.

I have a 566MHz Coppermine-128 Celeron. Any S370 machines that I'll run that are capable of running CuMines will probably be running a Pentium III 1GHz or better.