VOGONS


Reply 40 of 49, by Hezus

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I've seen the occasional personal info and porn but what struck me the most was my (back then) girlfriends laptop. It was passed on to her from her aunt, who committed suicide. You could see all her research in her browser history on the ways she wanted to end it, including cyanide. Very confronting.. we wiped the entire thing afterwards.

Visit my YT Channel!

Reply 41 of 49, by Rikintosh

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I was a computer technician for many years, and I saw A LOT of things, I'll try to name the ones I remember right away:

- Once a lady brought me a desktop compaq K6, and said that the machine suddenly stopped working. When I opened the machine, there were firecracker capsules and fireworks. In conclusion, her children put the firecrackers and fireworks down the back of the case, and blew up the computer and claimed that it simply stopped working.

- I found a Pentium 4 2.3ghz which I believe was an engineering sample, the interesting thing is that the owner had no idea about it, he just bought the computer over the internet.

- A 486 came to me with the HD completely corrupted, I booted it with a boot disk and with the dir command, I got a screen full of artifacts instead of letters, the HD was really fucked up. So I opened the case to replace the HD, and to my surprise, the ide flat cable was gnawed, there was a mouse housing, and typical mouse nest dirt. The most impressive thing is that I don't really know how the mouse got there, there was only a small space of an isa slot that was open behind the machine, somehow the mouse got through there. The computer belonged to a small market/grocery store.

- There was also a case where a floppy drive didn't work, and there was a little Lego figure inside it.

- I got a computer once, it was from a boy who said that after upgrading, the computer didn't work anymore. So his mother bought him another one. When I opened it, I noticed that the DDR slot was scorched, and that the guy had managed to fit a DDR module backwards. He applied so much force that the module clicked and locked, when turning on the machine, there must have been a short circuit. The most amazing thing wasn't that, it was that after removing the module, even with the scorched and melted slot, the machine booted, and it only worked with the other slot!

- Once a computer came to me at the store where I worked, the guy asked to format and reinstall Windows XP, and asked me to save his files. The machine went to the shelf waiting for its turn, and a few minutes later the guy called saying that he didn't need to save his files anymore, but he speak in a strange way (with some fear), I was 16 years old at the time, and this ended up arousing my interest in the contents of the machine hd. It's unethical, but I figured maybe it had pictures of his wife naked or something (puberty). To my chagrin and despair, I found a folder full of pictures of children. I didn't know what to do, I told my boss, who immediately called the police. The cops advised to pretend that nothing happened, and call the owner to come get the computer, to prevent him from escaping, the cops went out and arranged with us, so that when he arrived and was at the store, one of us would turn on the facade light as a signal. Fortunately all went well, the guy was arrested, and more content was found in his house, including banned books.

Take a look at my blog: http://rikintosh.blogspot.com
My Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfRUbxkBmEihBEkIK32Hilg

Reply 42 of 49, by pentiumspeed

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

That 486, I had exact same thing happened except it was motherboard covered with pee from mouse. The slot was open.
Yes, mouse can fit through these slot easily. Here's a quote:

"An adolescent mouse can fit its body through a hole that is the size of a pen. An adult mouse can fit through a hole the size of a dime. If there is a gap in your foundation, or a space around your gas pipes that is the size of a nickel, you will definitely be sharing your breakfast with a mouse."

And same with cats, if their head can go through, they can fit through too! I seen that few times on online videos except for fat cats. 😁

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 43 of 49, by weedeewee

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

recently encountered a 37 pin D connector on the back of a computer
I got excited, hoping it would be some esoteric hardware.

Sadly it was connected to a sweex front panel connection extender.
so disappointing.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 44 of 49, by BinaryDemon

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I had purchased a computer of EBay that had its hard drive intact that was obviously used as a photo editing/development kiosk in a retail store. None of the photos were particularly scandalous but just the massive quantity of different photos was interesting.

Check out DOSBox Distro:

https://sites.google.com/site/dosboxdistro/ [*]

a lightweight Linux distro (tinycore) which boots off a usb flash drive and goes straight to DOSBox.

Make your dos retrogaming experience portable!

Reply 46 of 49, by RandomStranger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I don't know if I should be bothered that people still don't protect their sensitive data with full disk encryption and don't know how to erase their data properly or be glad pedos are so dumb they can't even reinstall their Windows.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 47 of 49, by BEEN_Nath_58

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

The entire thread can be turned into a Youtube episode

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 48 of 49, by Rikintosh

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Sphere478 wrote on 2022-06-09, 06:33:
Rikintosh wrote on 2022-06-02, 20:27:

including banned books.

What kind of banned books? What country are you in?

Books that advocate this practice. I live in Brazil. Until that day, I didn't even know there were books about it. When I found out, I assumed they were Nazi books or something.

Take a look at my blog: http://rikintosh.blogspot.com
My Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfRUbxkBmEihBEkIK32Hilg

Reply 49 of 49, by Sphere478

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Rikintosh wrote on 2022-06-09, 16:46:
Sphere478 wrote on 2022-06-09, 06:33:
Rikintosh wrote on 2022-06-02, 20:27:

including banned books.

What kind of banned books? What country are you in?

Books that advocate this practice. I live in Brazil. Until that day, I didn't even know there were books about it. When I found out, I assumed they were Nazi books or something.

Yikes.

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)