Shadzilla wrote on 2024-02-26, 11:45:

What's the difference between collecting and stockpiling? I've accumulated 8 silver brushed aluminium Lian Li cases from the early 2000s, along with various matching Lian Li accessories. It all started because I had a PC-70 in 2001. I enjoy the hunt, especially finding bargains, and then cleaning/restoring them. I've got retro PCs built and running in 7 of them at the moment. Spare parts are hard to find now, as are cases in good condition, so making sure I have 'enough' is definitely part of it. I probably crossed that line 4 or 5 cases ago!

But no regrets. Friends think I'm losing it though 😅

The difference between collecting and stockpiling is pretty subjective, but I think we could come up with a few differences. For example, you could argue that a collector should use what they've collected regularly or at least display it. A hoarder or stockpiler would just keep a bunch of unused items in their garage or storage. A collection would ideally consist of rare or unique items. The collector should be able to tell you what's interesting about each item in their collection. A stockpiler might not know what they have in pile of hardware or would just tell you that it might come in handy some day. I think the number of items would also matter. If you have 50 copies of the same device, that's closer to stockpiling imo.

A collection would be analogous to a museum, whereas a stockpile would be analogous to a parts warehouse or even a junkyard. Of course there will be exceptions to those examples and many people would disagree with them, but I think most people would at least recognise what I'm getting at.

Personally, I have to make an effort to avoid hoarding stuff. Before I buy something, I need to ask myself if I would use it anytime soon and if I already have something similar in my collection? I don't see the point in buying hardware that will sit in my closet for years collecting dust. What's the point of that? While I expect prices to go up in the future, it would probably be cheaper to buy something at an inflated price in the future than to buy stuff now and never put it to use. I don't have a ton of storage space in my apartment either, so I don't want to keep a bunch of bulky computers lying around, especially if I'm not using them. I'm not judging anyone here for doing that, but I think it's an unhealthy behaviour that I try to avoid.

That aside, I think it's fine to have a few spares on hand, especially if they are becoming harder to find. For example, I allow myself to have a spare CRT monitor, as those are no longer being made. I also bend this rule for smaller stuff that I can get for cheap. For example, I recently bought a couple of new old stock IDE hard drives that might come in handy if I don't want to use flash storage.

I also hope that whenever I pass over a deal on some old hardware, that it allows other people to enjoy the hobby. This probably isn't true most of the time, as I would expect that most stuff is bought by people with large collections already, but I hope that some of this stuff gets picked up by people just getting into retro computers.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-27, 02:11:

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-02-26, 11:45:

What's the difference between collecting and stockpiling? I've accumulated 8 silver brushed aluminium Lian Li cases from the early 2000s, along with various matching Lian Li accessories. It all started because I had a PC-70 in 2001. I enjoy the hunt, especially finding bargains, and then cleaning/restoring them. I've got retro PCs built and running in 7 of them at the moment. Spare parts are hard to find now, as are cases in good condition, so making sure I have 'enough' is definitely part of it. I probably crossed that line 4 or 5 cases ago!

But no regrets. Friends think I'm losing it though 😅

The difference between collecting and stockpiling is pretty subjective, but I think we could come up with a few differences. For example, you could argue that a collector should use what they've collected regularly or at least display it. A hoarder or stockpiler would just keep a bunch of unused items in their garage or storage. A collection would ideally consist of rare or unique items. The collector should be able to tell you what's interesting about each item in their collection. A stockpiler might not know what they have in pile of hardware or would just tell you that it might come in handy some day. I think the number of items would also matter. If you have 50 copies of the same device, that's closer to stockpiling imo.

A collection would be analogous to a museum, whereas a stockpile would be analogous to a parts warehouse or even a junkyard. Of course there will be exceptions to those examples and many people would disagree with them, but I think most people would at least recognise what I'm getting at.

I'd say that's pretty much what I meant when creating this post.
Collect is what I go out of my way to find. Like a specific graphic card.
Stockpile (or indeed hoard) is when you come across something that you don't have any immediate use or plan for but hold onto it because you think you may need it in the future.

Collecting those Lian Li cases is probably somewhere in the middle but its all subjective.

I think Ensign Nemo has summed it up well. And it means I'm collecting and not stockpiling, which makes me feel a bit better 😁

"It's not hoarding if your shit's awesome"

chinny22 wrote on 2024-02-27, 02:37:

Collect is what I go out of my way to find. Like a specific graphic card.
Stockpile (or indeed hoard) is when you come across something that you don't have any immediate use or plan for but hold onto it because you think you may need it in the future.

yes i think thats a good way to put it

i like these kinds of threads, the whole 'psychology' of collecting and stockpiling is kind of interesting i think 😀

you could think of it as reactive (I want a graphics card now for this project), proactive (I'm planning a build so I'll get this now) or speculative (I might use this so i'll get it now)

that last one is the one that tends to accumulation, there being no designated purpose to the acquisition other than to join a general stock of items that may (or may not) be needed at some point

so for many of us who have duplicates (functional duplicates if not exact ones) of components and/or whole PCs we'd have to consider it a hoard or a stockpile

some people would consider buying additional food an accumulation of a hoard too, but as its all for eating i think of it more as a kind of pro-active stockpiling, so maybe the difference is between planned actual use or speculative 'potential' use 😀

buying additional components that may never get used is a kind of hoarding, and we've discussed it a few times (for good reason), and its worth repeating the definition:

"Excessive acquisition, Perceived need to save possessions, Persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value, Intense urge to keep items and distress when getting rid of them." (taken from wikipedia...)

but even that seems ambiguous to me - i can imagine someone thinking that a computer enthusiast is suffering a hoarding disorder because they keep lots of low fiscal value components, don't put them all to use and don't want to throw them out - to me its only a problem if it starts making your life stressful all by itself (and not because someone else keeps telling you to throw it )

finally, anyone ever seen or known of an old man who has several old cars infront of their property - he is getting older and they are getting rustier but he never gets round to the various restoring projects he wanted to do and at the same time doesn't want to let go, because that means there is no future after all... kind of sad, in a smaller way it sometimes happens in all kinds of hobbies - where we store up future projects because it feels like we have things to do in the future

My ol' lady would prolly say that I've got too many monitors, keyboards, mice, MOBOs and cases. Oh, and guitars and guitar pedals, but that's for another topic on another forum 😉

Just got another batch of DDR500 sticks another 8 of them from the UK as surpus, they are also the right size for Win98 being 256Mb sticks.

Not sure what I will do with them but they are nice Corsair TwinX sticks so they may wing their way to new owners eventually.

Also got 10 80GB WD Caviar Sata 1 drives to add to my spinning rust store, wanted Sata 1 for compatibility with older motherboards and adapters, Sata 2 and 3 have backwards compatibility issues for some reason.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-01-20, 08:26:

Plastic motherboard stand offs for AT cases ....you wouldnt think the little plastic bastards are hard to buy but they are surprisingly difficult to source here in Australia.

Thankfully I bought 100 of them in packs of 10 a few years ago.

I was in the exact same situation. I ended up buying a bunch from AliExpress.

zuldan wrote on 2024-02-27, 10:00:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-01-20, 08:26:

Plastic motherboard stand offs for AT cases ....you wouldnt think the little plastic bastards are hard to buy but they are surprisingly difficult to source here in Australia.

Thankfully I bought 100 of them in packs of 10 a few years ago.

I was in the exact same situation. I ended up buying a bunch from AliExpress.

Got mine from TRS-80 Universe out of Victoria, a good collector that usually sells TRS-80 parts but does handle a good number of older PC bits, they are also where I got my reversed baby AT cases from.

They have an evilbay store but I cant provide links here to ebay.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-02-27, 10:03:

Got mine from TRS-80 Universe out of Victoria, a good collector that usually sells TRS-80 parts but does handle a good number of older PC bits, they are also where I got my reversed baby AT cases from.

They have an evilbay store but I cant provide links here to ebay.

I buy from TRS-80 Universe all the time. Great eBay seller. I bought a Abit AB-BE6 440BX for repair from him last week.

Currently after a 90’s 486 tower (baby or midi) with led turbo display (3 digits). If you come across one, let me know 😀

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-27, 02:11:

The difference between collecting and stockpiling is pretty subjective, but I think we could come up with a few differences. For example, you could argue that a collector should use what they've collected regularly or at least display it. A hoarder or stockpiler would just keep a bunch of unused items in their garage or storage. A collection would ideally consist of rare or unique items. The collector should be able to tell you what's interesting about each item in their collection. A stockpiler might not know what they have in pile of hardware or would just tell you that it might come in handy some day. I think the number of items would also matter. If you have 50 copies of the same device, that's closer to stockpiling imo.

That's an excellent way to put it, along with what gerry mentioned.

I'm definitely more of a hoarder/stockpiler than I am a collector. But in my case, most of the time I try to save only stuff that no one else wants or that would otherwise have gone to waste/trash, and only if I don't have to go too far out of my way (though the outlines of that last definition are a bit of gray area.) For example, I've bought A TON of GPUs from eBay that had bad caps / listed as non-working and that kept getting re-listed with no one trying to bid on. Don't know why, buy I find it very satisfying to restore broken stuff - sometimes even hardware that is considered "worthless junk". But then some of these "worthless junk"stuff has been a nice addition to my AGP video card collection over the years. 😉
Majority of stuff I've hoarded, however, has come from dumpsters / trash cans or Craigslist "curb alert" posts after the post has been stale for a few days (to give other people/hoarders a chance to take what they want/need before I show up. 😁 )

Because I dabble into many different areas of electronics repair, home improvement, and DIY, I tend to save A LOT of stuff that I don't have an immediate use for. If it's useless junk, like a TV with a smashed screen, I'll harvest all of the boards/PCBs out of it and save for repairing other TVs or electronic devices. When space allows, I even save the metal parts and other less worthwhile bits. Recently, I was actually planning on making a PC case out of a microwave chamber from a dead microwave. Sadly however, this idea only came to me a little too late. I had to move to a new place this year (been in the plans/works for a few years now), so I had to leave behind or recycle a lot of the scrap wood and metal I a had saved over the years. But not much of it went to waste. The contractors that came to work on the house after me picked up a lot of the scrap/leftover building materials that I had accumulated. And they also made a few bucks from bringing some of the metal to the metal recyclers. On the other hand, I did take all of the numerous scrap circuit boards I've harvested out of various broken electronics. Like kingcake, I don't like to have something sit open on my bench to wait on a part to ship from the other side of the world. By keeping numerous and various scrap parts around, I have a much higher chance of fixing something right away. It's not always the case, of course, but I'd say it has helped in at least 1/3 of the cases. Also a lot of my scrap circuits boards tend to have higher quality parts than what I can get on Ebay or AliExpress.

Missing screws are another pet-peeve of mine. But I run across devices with missing screws quite often, especially used desktop PCs. So hoarding/scraping broken junk has allowed me to stockpile on various types of screws.

When it comes to computers, I've come to my own conclusion now that it's best to take absolutely everything I run across (at least if it comes from a dumpster or trash can or would otherwise end up there), even if my space becomes limited (and on a side note, that has allowed me to become very creative with storage solutions and organizing.) If it's something fairly new and "un-exciting" but otherwise can be useful, I can usually re-purpose it either for family/friends, for myself (if I need it or can think of an immediate use for it), or donate after fixing. My parents, for example, haven't had to buy a computer since 2005 - I just keep finding "junk" / thrown out or old PCs that are better than what they have and replace theirs when the old one is no longer able to perform the functions it is needed for. As a bonus, this also provides somewhat decent data backup for them, since I take their old PC and keep it.
On the other hand, if I find something that will probably be considered too old by most "regular" folks for everyday use, I just keep it for myself. These are the PCs I either scavenge for parts to fix other computers or just plain keep in storage (hoard). What's funny is that now more than a decade later of doing this, this is how I ended up with some of the more "interesting" PCs in my retro collection.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-27, 02:24:

I also hope that whenever I pass over a deal on some old hardware, that it allows other people to enjoy the hobby.

Same here, and I've been doing that a lot more ever since the retro PC community picked up steam / popularity in the last few years.

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-02-26, 11:45:

But no regrets. Friends think I'm losing it though 😅

I'm in the same boat.

Then again, maybe I am?
I'd rather not say how many desktop PCs and CRT monitors I have.

Like you though, I have no regrets! 😀

liqmat wrote on 2024-02-27, 00:50:

red staplers

Haha, I see what you did there. 😁
My response: Only if it's Swingline brand. 😉

liqmat wrote on 2024-02-27, 00:50:

red staplers

I see you have a good geek culture 😁