They have product key stickers.
This is what the lady told me when I asked.
Am I dumb? Am I missing something? Or am I correct when I say...
World's foremost 486 enjoyer.
sounds like something an employee dreamed up and got spun into a local legend, probably 100% not a real policy driver
Every once in a while the Salvation Army close to me has a computer... but they always want way too much for what it is.
At some of the other thrift stores I regularly see small LCD monitors and sometimes some Pentium 4 systems but really nothing older.
I haven't seen anything older than P4 stuff as far as systems go for probably 5-6 years in the thrift stores where I am at.
I did find a Sound Blaster 2.0 box with manuals and software for like $5 a while ago and I do find old game CDs fairly often.
I thrift maybe 3x a month and hit up 4 or 5 stores each trip. I haven't come across many full PC's. At Salvation Army, I have only come across an iMac G3 that was pretty beat up for $35 and passed on it. At Goodwill, I came across a few crap-standard Dell Optiplex GX280's for $60 and passed on them. Other than that, I only see scratched up LCD monitors, external CD/DVD drives, and random newer PC games in the DVD-style cases. Tons of loose CD-ROM games though in a jewel case -- I don't collect them because I'd rather have the big box. I've found way better stuff by the curb just driving around on trash night. But I'm always hopeful that I'll walk into a thrift store and find something good, because you never know. My last trip to Goodwill, I did see a CRT TV, but it was some garbage Sanyo 13".. it excited me for a second when I saw it sitting in the electronics section. 🤣
The reason local local charities don't sell retro computers is because "nobody buys them". I've asked about it many times over the years and always get the same response. Luckily the local recycling center is still selling them and just a few weeks ago came across this:
https://pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=586
That being said, they ask 50€ for it (and it's still unsold) which is absurd and only a desperate collector would pay something like that. They also had an external HDD for Macintosh for some obscene price, but then again sell untested GPU's for 1€. What still puzzles me is how on earth are people still uncovering these 30-40 year old machines? I've bought like four IBM 5150's in the past 2-3 years alone, monitors included!
Most thrift stores in California do not re-sell electronics.
They ask that you take them to an electronics recycler.
And I think the electronic recyclers re-sell parts on ebay.
Goodwill store re-sells computers on ebay
and Green e-waste computer recyclers.
HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7
wrote:The reason local local charities don't sell retro computers is because "nobody buys them". I've asked about it many times over the years and always get the same response. Luckily the local recycling center is still selling them and just a few weeks ago came across this:
https://pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=586
That being said, they ask 50€ for it (and it's still unsold) which is absurd and only a desperate collector would pay something like that. They also had an external HDD for Macintosh for some obscene price, but then again sell untested GPU's for 1€. What still puzzles me is how on earth are people still uncovering these 30-40 year old machines? I've bought like four IBM 5150's in the past 2-3 years alone, monitors included!
50 EUR is VERY reasonable for a 486 laptop with an active matrix display.
