myne wrote on 2026-01-17, 03:24:

Inductors are more or less solid copper wire.
Worth the 3 seconds to cut off.
Not worth the several hours to attack the rest of the copper.

When you say worth, do you mean like as scrap?

Copper is worth less than $6 US per pound. If you're trimming one off every three seconds (and someone is actively feeding you boards loaded with inductors), it'd probably still take hours to get one pound of copper from inductors on motherboards.

Anyway, yeah... a lot of scrappers would probably still do that for some reason. I have seen some boards that were demolished in so many complicated ways it was baffling. It must take a tremendous amount of time and energy to destroy some of this stuff. On the other hand it would take minutes to just look for the biggest name\words\numbers printed on the thing and search for it on ebay... and they don't even have to sell on ebay. Just take the pile of valuable stuff, dump it on FB Marketplace as-is and sell it for 10-20% of the ebay price to be done with it. They'll save countless hours, make 10x as much money and not have to destroy their hands, tools or the boards themselves.

Makes my brain hurt... 😵

The retro market is smaller than you think

I stumbled on a site selling "gold scrap" CPUs by the tonne.

https://www.tradeindia.com/products/ceramic-c … ap-8146593.html

20 tonnes of motherboards, 100tonne/m available:
https://www.tradeindia.com/products/motherboa … p-c5059008.html

myne wrote on 2026-01-17, 06:14:

The retro market is smaller than you think […]
Show full quote

The retro market is smaller than you think

I stumbled on a site selling "gold scrap" CPUs by the tonne.

https://www.tradeindia.com/products/ceramic-c … ap-8146593.html

20 tonnes of motherboards, 100tonne/m available:
https://www.tradeindia.com/products/motherboa … p-c5059008.html

Not sure what you mean.

Clipping inductors off of a ton of motherboards would not be a very effective way to profit from them.

I don't doubt that the vintage vs scrap value is different in many parts of the world, but I have a hard time imagining it ever making sense to individually harvest anything other than components that contain precious metals (silver, gold, platinum, etc.). The rest is probably best just ground up and processed some other way.

Besides, the person talking about the inductor being cut off was in the USA. It definitely doesn't make sense to spend any amount of time harvesting such tiny amounts of copper here. You could spend that time mowing someone's grass and make several times as much per hour.

EDIT: Also... I wonder what it would be like to dig through tons of boards in an Indian scrap yard. Do you think they actually have a decent amount of vintage (20+ year old) consumer or gaming stuff or just tons and tons of office PC and communications junk from the past 10-20 years?

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-14, 22:31:

cyclone3d wrote on 2026-01-14, 22:19:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-14, 21:49:

Man... I think I got hosed on this one. […]
Show full quote

Man... I think I got hosed on this one.

I waited over three weeks for a seller to ship these, and I thought I was getting a good deal on a couple of little Hipath industrial boards that would have K6-III+ processors in them. He kept saying he'd ship it in a few days, over and over... but after a another whole week of silence I reported to ebay that I had not received them, and a day or two later the package was finally shipped out.

The boards arrived today and not only are the heatsinks adhered to the processors, I don't think there's any way that these are anything but plain old Socket 7 Pentiums. The listing didn't exactly give the impression that they knew what they were talking about, but it did say AMD K6 III+ 400 processors... sooo... yeah.

Anyone have any input or experience with these things? They are completely worthless to me if the processors are not what the listing said they would be. I don't think there's any way that these heatsinks could be shaped in such a way to hide the heat spreader on a K6-III+, and I highly doubt the chips are delidded with a cutout in the heatsink for the die. These are just flat ceramic socket 7 processors... and I can't think of any of those that would be worth anywhere near what I paid. 🙁

I'm ready to try to contact the seller, but I figured I'd ask for some input first.

Thanks guys.

Yeah, those are just plain Pentium 1 CPUs from the looks of it.

I agree. I just basically confirmed it by putting a Pentium next to a K6. I never realized how much thinner the ceramic is on K6 processors... but it's a dead giveaway, this is a Pentium. I just hope the seller doesn't fight me over it.

I'll come to terms with it being a complete waste of time dealing with this for a month and then having to ship them right back, but I would really rather not pay a cent for them if they don't even match the description.

You don't have to worry about the seller fighting you over it, just report to eBay as "item not as described" and they'll take it from there, and you will get your money back. You'll get a return shipping label at no charge to you and you just send it back. No need to over think it.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-17, 07:39:

It definitely doesn't make sense to spend any amount of time harvesting such tiny amounts of copper here. You could spend that time mowing someone's grass and make several times as much per hour.

The whole gold scrapping thing is pure get-rich-quick. Naturally it would attract people who do not think logically.

Brawndo wrote on 2026-01-17, 16:36:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-14, 22:31:

cyclone3d wrote on 2026-01-14, 22:19:

Yeah, those are just plain Pentium 1 CPUs from the looks of it.

I agree. I just basically confirmed it by putting a Pentium next to a K6. I never realized how much thinner the ceramic is on K6 processors... but it's a dead giveaway, this is a Pentium. I just hope the seller doesn't fight me over it.

I'll come to terms with it being a complete waste of time dealing with this for a month and then having to ship them right back, but I would really rather not pay a cent for them if they don't even match the description.

You don't have to worry about the seller fighting you over it, just report to eBay as "item not as described" and they'll take it from there, and you will get your money back. You'll get a return shipping label at no charge to you and you just send it back. No need to over think it.

Yeah... I was trying to avoid doing that. I am a seller myself and I know that mistakes can happen. This guy doesn't seem like he was being malicious, just very unfocused and seemingly not that experienced with these items because it looks like he copied and pasted the specs from some other site rather than just say that he didn't know what CPU the board had on it. I would rather have him agree to the return before having ebay come after him yet again (they had to to get it shipped out) so it doesn't hurt his account. But, it has now been a couple days and I haven't heard back so I will probably just file the not as described claim anyway.

In other news! I received some K6-2 processors from a lot today and while most ended up being rather uninteresting and not terribly useful K6-2 233AFR models, I was surprised to find a total of FOUR K6-2+ chips!

2x 450ACR (2.0v; 100Mhz FSB; apparently called K6-2E+ for embedded use)
1x 550ACZ (2.0v; 100Mhz FSB)

... and one rather unique 475ACZM. Not only does it have a funky 4-letter code at the end of the part number, it is a 95Mhz FSB chip with a 5x multi. I think these are pretty uncommon, even as far as K6-2+ chips go.

Haven't tested them yet, but I was able to get them cleaned up and get the pins straightened at least. The 550 had a decent sized section where the pins were really crushed flat but I managed to get them back in shape without any breakage.

So yeah, I ended up getting the processors I wanted from someone else out of sheer chance... actually, even better ones. 😅

myne wrote on 2026-01-17, 06:14:

The retro market is smaller than you think […]
Show full quote

The retro market is smaller than you think

I stumbled on a site selling "gold scrap" CPUs by the tonne.

https://www.tradeindia.com/products/ceramic-c … ap-8146593.html

20 tonnes of motherboards, 100tonne/m available:
https://www.tradeindia.com/products/motherboa … p-c5059008.html

I don't know what % of older hardware remains either in use or potentially useable after say 20 years or 30 years, but i suspect its very small indeed, i mean like 3% and 1% respectively wouldn't surprise me, less than that wouldn't surprise me. that's a guesstimate based on typical 'decay' rates applied to electronics in use and anecdotal experience of how quickly business cycle and scrap PCs, and people too

Bought a 31 year old never used battery for my Toshiba 1950.

Laptop didn't see it at all. Charged it slowly with 100 mA current. Now the Laptop can run with it 8 Minutes. Actually 8 Minutes are enough for my purposes. I kind of thought that the only usable part is gonna be its plastic case.
The only problem left is that the laptop doesn't recognize it properly. When switched off but power connected, it tries to charge it for ten seconds, and then gives up. When switched on, it immediately turns off the charging LED, but seems to charge it anyway. Don't know whether the logic circuit inside of the battery is damaged, or the Laptop PSU, or it's a normal behaviour for such a degraded Nickel-Metal battery.

Right now I'm trying to check whether it stops this hidden charging at some point. It would be a pity to kill the rest of the battery with overcharging. The doku says the trickle charge is about 48 hours, but then again it says that the charging LED must be on.

Are you seeing full voltage after trickling it? If it's 1.2 or more down, you may have had a cell die or reverse. Best way to treat "slightly functional" i.e. still getting full voltage NiCd and NiMh that don't have much apparent capacity, is to to a full charge at a tenth of the capacity rate, then discharge with an automotive bulb, then charge again, 3 times is the charm as they say, so do that 3x , if it hasn't recovered to 90% functionality by then, forget it, or rebuild with new cells.

edit: and oh yeah, just because new and taking a little charge, doesn't mean it's not already leaking internally. Keep an eye out for any white misting round the cracks and connectors, keep a nose out for any acrid smells.

editII: oh another thing to mention, recently saw a battery fault on a machine that was running off a power supply that was a volt lower than spec. I guess it wasn't quite getting fucll charge voltage to the batt and thus batt was not responding to what it thought it was putting into it. Therefore it's tiny brain thought the battery was going bad. Anyway, since there might be a deterioration in external or internal power on a well aged machine even if the original charger is used, that might be something to verify, that actual voltages being delivered are the ones it expects.

Bought yesterday:

- two PCs, one is a Socket 754 Sempron with a K8V-XE. ASUS' naming scheme is quite weird... what did they mean by XE?
- the other is a P2 400, Soyo 6VBA133 mobo, modem, Quantum Fireball HDD, Crystal CS4280 PCI soundcard... and an AGP 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000!
- also got a Zotac GTX260, the 216SP flavour. Solid card, might make a good and strong contender for a 775 build.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-19, 15:43:

Are you seeing full voltage after trickling it? If it's 1.2 or more down, you may have had a cell die or reverse.

Yes. Actually it's even slightly above the full voltage: it's 12.8V instead of 12.0.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-19, 15:43:

Best way to treat "slightly functional" i.e. still getting full voltage NiCd and NiMh that don't have much apparent capacity, is to to a full charge at a tenth of the capacity rate, then discharge with an automotive bulb, then charge again, 3 times is the charm as they say, so do that 3x , if it hasn't recovered to 90% functionality by then, forget it, or rebuild with new cells.

Yep, currently discharging. But with a lower current that an automotive lamp would produce. Do you think a current ~1.2 A won't make it worse? Also I haven't found any picture or video of opening a T19xx battery. Do you by any chance have an idea where to cut?

Received this earlier today, a mouse with an unusual design, Cardbus graphic card, two new hdd along with an empty Sony sata enclosure and a firewire/scsi adapter.

The mouse compared to a regular sized one:

lolo799 wrote on 2026-01-19, 20:12:

Received this earlier today, a mouse with an unusual design, Cardbus graphic card, two new hdd along with an empty Sony sata enc […]
Show full quote

Received this earlier today, a mouse with an unusual design, Cardbus graphic card, two new hdd along with an empty Sony sata enclosure and a firewire/scsi adapter.

The attachment cbmlx2_asciimouse.jpg is no longer available

The attachment exthdd_fwscsi.jpg is no longer available

The mouse compared to a regular sized one:

The attachment asciimouse.jpg is no longer available

Woa... is that mouse intended to be used as a mouse AND a trackball?

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-19, 20:47:

Woa... is that mouse intended to be used as a mouse AND a trackball?

No, it's purely aesthetic, the ball spot is covered with a transparent removable (to change the ball/clean the rollers) plastic layer.

Ascii were also in the business of selling replacement mouse balls of different colours and weights.
The box mentions the position of the ball at the front allows for larger movement using just your wrist.

lolo799 wrote on 2026-01-19, 21:28:

No, it's purely aesthetic, the ball spot is covered with a transparent removable (to change the ball/clean the rollers) plastic […]
Show full quote

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-19, 20:47:

Woa... is that mouse intended to be used as a mouse AND a trackball?

No, it's purely aesthetic, the ball spot is covered with a transparent removable (to change the ball/clean the rollers) plastic layer.

Ascii were also in the business of selling replacement mouse balls of different colours and weights.
The box mentions the position of the ball at the front allows for larger movement using just your wrist.

Interesting! I've never seen anything quite like that before. The first thing that came to mind when I saw it was one of those old drafting mice with the transparent section at the front with crosshairs.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-19, 20:47:

Woa... is that mouse intended to be used as a mouse AND a trackball?

That existed too. Trust circa 1998 have one that uses a trackball instead of a scroll wheel. Apple Mighty Mouse circa 2004 is similar with tiny ball the size of a nipple. And, modern trackball mouse is apparently a thing too.

lolo799 wrote on 2026-01-19, 21:28:

Ascii were also in the business of selling replacement mouse balls of different colours and weights.

That's weirdly cool. Can you share more details?

MattRocks wrote on 2026-01-19, 22:39:

That's weirdly cool. Can you share more details?

Some pictures from past and present auctions:

atar wrote on 2026-01-19, 17:32:

Yes. Actually it's even slightly above the full voltage: it's 12.8V instead of 12.0. […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-19, 15:43:

Are you seeing full voltage after trickling it? If it's 1.2 or more down, you may have had a cell die or reverse.

Yes. Actually it's even slightly above the full voltage: it's 12.8V instead of 12.0.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-19, 15:43:

Best way to treat "slightly functional" i.e. still getting full voltage NiCd and NiMh that don't have much apparent capacity, is to to a full charge at a tenth of the capacity rate, then discharge with an automotive bulb, then charge again, 3 times is the charm as they say, so do that 3x , if it hasn't recovered to 90% functionality by then, forget it, or rebuild with new cells.

Yep, currently discharging. But with a lower current that an automotive lamp would produce. Do you think a current ~1.2 A won't make it worse? Also I haven't found any picture or video of opening a T19xx battery. Do you by any chance have an idea where to cut?

Full voltage is promising, extra is probably a little surface charge that disappears under load.

Just load it how you can, I guess lower drain speed just tests your patience.

Getting into most battery packs also is a test of patience, in general find the seams and carefully work at them with a razor blade or Xacto knife, they are probably cemented with solvent but often only thoroughly at a few spots, you get those cracked and it's just like taking any modern electronics apart, tiny clips and latches, work around with a spudger.

MSI BX7 (MS6156) for a Viglen rebuild I'm thinking of doing...

Caps look good so hopefully working...