Yah, I'd only grab stuff on top, arms length, not getting in there. Not a wise idea to do that casually in any case, whatever your tolerance for random biology is, should get safety boots and gloves, tough overalls in case there's random glass and other sharp objects.

Well, definition of "Dumpster find" may be off here, but I saved this decommissioned 386DX40 of our production facilities from getting there. I've tought our IT guys at work that they should never throw out anything without asking me first (nevertheless, I had to lift the VGA 4-way KVM switch from the electronics dumpster 🤣 )

This, however, never left the building before going to my trunk ...

It works - and boots into Wfw 3.11.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-11-08, 06:42:

I've tought our IT guys at work that they should never throw out anything without asking me first

What's your training method? I tried doing that but they never call me they have something, so the best I can do is keep my eyes open and snatch whatever I can before they come to pick up our junk. But this pretty much limits me to our own department and I know there are plenty of old PCs at other departments collecting dust ranging from 386 up to PIII.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-11-08, 06:42:

Well, definition of "Dumpster find" may be off here, but I saved this decommissioned 386DX40 of our production facilities from getting there. I've tought our IT guys at work that they should never throw out anything without asking me first (nevertheless, I had to lift the VGA 4-way KVM switch from the electronics dumpster 🤣 )

This, however, never left the building before going to my trunk ...

It works - and boots into Wfw 3.11.

Cool case with dual-color LED display. I had 3 or 4 of them, still have one in pristine condition, I'm keeping it for some special build.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-11-08, 06:42:

Well, definition of "Dumpster find" may be off here, but I saved this decommissioned 386DX40 of our production facilities from getting there. I've tought our IT guys at work that they should never throw out anything without asking me first (nevertheless, I had to lift the VGA 4-way KVM switch from the electronics dumpster 🤣 )

This, however, never left the building before going to my trunk ...

It works - and boots into Wfw 3.11.

That's a great find and a really nice looking case. Also nice work training your IT staff.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-08, 09:14:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-11-08, 06:42:

I've tought our IT guys at work that they should never throw out anything without asking me first

What's your training method? I tried doing that but they never call me they have something, so the best I can do is keep my eyes open and snatch whatever I can before they come to pick up our junk. But this pretty much limits me to our own department and I know there are plenty of old PCs at other departments collecting dust ranging from 386 up to PIII.

I think a company size with only 2 IT guys helps building relations. One of them also dug up 3 boxes of NOS 3.5 floppies 😁

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-11-08, 06:42:

Well, definition of "Dumpster find" may be off here, but...

Yes, I've always interpreted the title of this thread as 'proverbial dumpster find'.

Saved from a shameful death at a recycling centre. Of course, nothing unique, a regular slow LCD with 6,500 hours of operation, but 5:4 in a certain kind of beige, can always come in handy, not true?

It has integrated speakers. A great little workhorse and is perfectly capable of making beeps and boops. Fast twitch gameplay isn't as prevalent in DOS, so the slower display response won't be a problem either.

Newer LCDs have problems syncing to some older refresh rates and resolutions used by over video cards and some DOS games. I wonder if these panels are actually more compatible than something more modern.

As you write, the speakers are really only suitable for beeps and boops, nothing more can be expected from 1W small flat speakers. Vertical frequency has a range of 50-75 Hz, I think that's what most LCDs from that era had. For me, the biggest plus is that it's a beige color - I only have 1x silver-black LCD 19" and 2x 17" CRT in beige and silver-gray to assemble, so now the LCD:CRT score is even.

Not exactly a dumpster find, but after watching LGR latest thrifts episode, I remembered that I had this Samsung LCD TV stored away somewhere in our country house. So there it is LW15M23CP, 15 inch, 1024x768 matrix LCD. I hooked it to an old Thinkpad through VGA port and it works perfectly, bright, great scaling, no issues whatsoever. To the question of a good 3x4 LCD monitor...

I really love to clean old storage rooms at work, today two brand new HDD's (ST320430A and WD3200AAJB), nice 3Com LAN card and Diamond Edge 3D 2120 combo card.
Really hope that the last one works, not tested yet, but my hands tremble 😀

Saved this dual Socket 5 motherboard from a huge DELL server, but can't really find any information on it online.
Came with dual Pentium 100, removed one for the picture.
Original power was delivered via the riser slot but looks like one could solder a standard AT power connector to the board. It has integrated graphics and ATA so should just work without the riser.

A coworker planned to throw out a Compaq Deskpro 50M and I said not without me checking it out. Dirty with spots of dust here and there. I knew nothing about these PCs and hoped it'll be a 486 VLB system, since I'm planning to build one for a while I didn't want to pay the price of the mainboards that were available. Compaq however never disappoints when it comes to how disappointing it can be. I got my 486DX2, in an almost completely proprietary EISA PC.

And it doesn't boot. Seems to turn on, but no floppy drive self test or beeps, the hard drive (a Conner CP3301) spins up, but that's about it. Looks more trouble than it's worth. At best I can get a CPU, a stick of RAM, a sound card, a hard drive and an optical drive out of it, but all of that needs testing.

I've also picked up 5 boxes of 3.5" floppies and a still sealed OEM DOS.

I was given an opportunity to take the stuff from a "friend of a friend" basement in exchange for my time (he was about to go with this stuff throwing it into electronic waste). I think it's too good to just take it for free (I don't have much respect for people who are intentionally take advantage of others including under-paying and then brag about it) so I will give him some money for these items if they came out to be in a working condition. Beside the items on the pics I got many ISA and PCI cards not really worth mentioning. And that's only the starters as he has some more in his office.

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-16, 19:39:

A coworker planned to throw out a Compaq Deskpro 50M and I said not without me checking it out. Dirty with spots of dust here an […]
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A coworker planned to throw out a Compaq Deskpro 50M and I said not without me checking it out. Dirty with spots of dust here and there. I knew nothing about these PCs and hoped it'll be a 486 VLB system, since I'm planning to build one for a while I didn't want to pay the price of the mainboards that were available. Compaq however never disappoints when it comes to how disappointing it can be. I got my 486DX2, in an almost completely proprietary EISA PC.

IMG_20221116_143755.jpgIMG_20221116_134434.jpgIMG_20221116_135011.jpgIMG_20221116_134301.jpgIMG_20221116_134133.jpg

And it doesn't boot. Seems to turn on, but no floppy drive self test or beeps, the hard drive (a Conner CP3301) spins up, but that's about it. Looks more trouble than it's worth. At best I can get a CPU, a stick of RAM, a sound card, a hard drive and an optical drive out of it, but all of that needs testing.

I've also picked up 5 boxes of 3.5" floppies and a still sealed OEM DOS.

You got a good complete set of hardware in this Compaq Deskpro /M. Your issue is in power supply and unlike other power supply, power supply is a board replacement. Power supply spares is *Unobtainable* now. I had to buy another /M computer with intact power supply. In your case, you have to rebuild the power supply capacitors or use ATX power and 20 pin extension method.

During meantime, I researched and obtained a working pinout of the deskpro /M motherboard's power connector. It is same 20pin ATX plastic plug and I was able to power up /M using a male to female ATX harness by rearranging the pinout at female connector end and leave 3.3V off and use ATX power supply instead. Like this:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/185452130344?hash=ite … ABk9SR6DavJeWYQ

Here's the pinout from my article:

This is for Deskpro M series PSU pinout measured on the motherboard's.

*N/C X X pin 1 (one), still unknown purpose and has connection, no voltage.
-5V X X <---------Power Good signal.
GND X X -12V
GND X X GND
GND X X GND
GND X X GND
+5V X X +5V
+5V X X +5V
+5V X X +5V
+5V X X +12V
N/C X X +12V
N/C X X N/C

HanJammer wrote on 2022-11-25, 23:30:

I was given an opportunity to take the stuff from a "friend of a friend" basement in exchange for my time (he was about to go with this stuff throwing it into electronic waste). I think it's too good to just take it for free (I don't have much respect for people who are intentionally take advantage of others including under-paying and then brag about it) so I will give him some money for these items if they came out to be in a working condition. Beside the items on the pics I got many ISA and PCI cards not really worth mentioning. And that's only the starters as he has some more in his office.

1/3

I like the FIC 4386-VC. Hope it works ! The other boards are great too....

Horun wrote on 2022-11-26, 01:58:

HanJammer wrote on 2022-11-25, 23:30:

I was given an opportunity to take the stuff from a "friend of a friend" basement in exchange for my time (he was about to go with this stuff throwing it into electronic waste). I think it's too good to just take it for free (I don't have much respect for people who are intentionally take advantage of others including under-paying and then brag about it) so I will give him some money for these items if they came out to be in a working condition. Beside the items on the pics I got many ISA and PCI cards not really worth mentioning. And that's only the starters as he has some more in his office.

1/3

I like the FIC 4386-VC. Hope it works ! The other boards are great too....

Yeah, interesting board. I will test it over the weekend. This guy was a supplier of medical tech, I don't think he was going "economic" route with the computer stuff (and this particular model of the motherboard was used in some medical equipment). But to be honest I like the Model Ms the most. It's cool they came with these colored buttons too.