Here's an oddball find.

Coming back from voting at our federal elections today, came across this huge box of various ABS drive bay covers. There's got to be at least 200 of them in here in all different shades of beige, yellowed beige, sprinkled alongside a couple of black and silver, and even some oddball colours like gunmetal grey and blue. Also some various case feet and decoration, and a few useful things like 5.25" to 3.5" beige drive bay adapters.

I assume someone was stripping computers for scrap metal and these are the leftovers.

Hopefully I can find some nice, bright, matching covers for various cases of mine where they are missing or in bad condition.

As for what I'll do with the other couple of hundred... who knows. On the one hand it'd be a shame to throw them out again, on the other hand, why keep them?

If you have any 3.5” ones for Dell Dimension Xps D series (they are not standard) please let me know 😀

x0zm_ wrote:

As for what I'll do with the other couple of hundred... who knows. On the one hand it'd be a shame to throw them out again, on the other hand, why keep them?

I'm sure someone will give a reasonable price to take them off your hands, though it might take a little while to find them. On a good month I might. Not a great month unfortunately.

Some of those look like 90s Mac drive mounts, but it could be any primarily plastic case.

appiah4 wrote:

If you have any 3.5” ones for Dell Dimension Xps D series (they are not standard) please let me know 😀

Got any photo of the exact one you're after? I can try sort through it and see.

Merovign wrote:

I'm sure someone will give a reasonable price to take them off your hands, though it might take a little while to find them. On a good month I might. Not a great month unfortunately.

I wouldn't even bother selling it. Might just chuck it up on some local groups free pickup after I dig through what I want. We'll see. That's a job for another week.

In other news... I went back for round two!

This time it was later at night, there were less people around and I came out with more goodies.

Assuming it all came from the same individual, it all seems to indicate they may have ran a PC repair business.

I found four boxes full of peripherals and cables. However, with it being close to 10:00PM I didn't want to hang around outside this block of apartments too long. I did a quick sort through the boxes and put everything I was potentially interested in into one box to bring back home and sort out. What was left behind was a lot of USB, SATA, IDE, power, extension and VGA cables. Some PSUs (I don't trust outdoor PSUs at all. Also, no name brands.)

I've written it out as best I can, but I didn't take full note so just going off what's in the pictures without looking too closely.

The location:

The loot:

What was worth keeping:

First was a first gen Apple TV, which after booting we found it already had OpenElec/XBMC installed on it. It went to my partner in junk diving. He'll be installing OS X on it though, since that's something you can do apparently.

Next up was the PC stuff.

First in that list of goodies is RAM. A LOT of RAM. Mainly DDR, with some SDRAM & DDR2 sprinkled in.

That wasn't all of it. There was further RAM in the other boxes. Here's all the RAM combined. Some of the boxes are multi stacked. This is all mainly useless to me, so I'm not sure what I'll do with it. DDR is so cheap and common it isn't worth on-selling (exactly why it's probably in this trash pile 😵 )

Part of me says wall art, and part of me says that's terrible hardware abuse and I should be ashamed for even considering it.

Next up are a bunch of adapters. These are super handy and can go into my adapter box. Fantastic!

Left to right, top to bottom:

HDMI to VGA, SCART to RCA, PS/2 to Serial, PS/2 to Serial, Centronics/Printer to DB25
AT to PS/2, USB to PS/2, USB to PS/2, USB to PS/2, USB to PS/2, AT to PS/2, PS/2 to Serial, PS/2 to Serial
PS/2 to AT, DB9 to DB25, USB to PS/2, AT to PS/2, PS/2 to AT, PS/2 to DB9

Now for the cables. I'll throw away the Centronics cable since it is rusty. That's fine though.

Left to right, top to bottom:

DB9 Extender, DB9 to DIN (sweet!), Centronics to DB25, long AT extender, 2x Molex splitters
Long AT Extender, CD Audio, Some DB25 cable - see pics, DB25 to dual DB9 - no idea what this is for - see pics.

The yellow cable was Symantec PCAnywhere branded. I did see the book for that up there, but didn't bring it back. Going to take a wild guess and say it's a null modem cable. Multimeter will solve this later when I care enough about it. 🤣

Next is the blue cable. It's simply labelled "Serial" on one side of the DB25 port, with "Traveling Software" on the opposing side as shown below. I don't know anything else. Only took it because the colour caught my eye.

Now we'll get into the cards.

First up is a USB PCI addon card from mid 2002. Nice black PCB. Running an OPTi Firelink 82C861 chipset, which would make it a nice solution for older PCs that actually works. Score! It is also "NEW". Or was new. Who knows now.

Then we've got a little ASUS USB breakout board. Not much to say about it. Nice little board that I may find a use for. Likely too new for my P55T2P4, but I'll give it a shot if I can find the right length IDC connector somewhere (back in one of the boxes maybe? 😎 )

Then we have an all time classic - the MX440 DDR. Again, sweet black PCB. Also has S-video out.

Now we get into my favourite things!

"ST Lab" Sound Impact PCI Sound card - new(?) in box!

Wonderful cheap graphics and crap manual. It supposedly does everything too!

SB16 compatible? Sure thing. SB Pro? Absolutely. A3D compatible? Easy. MPU401 UART? No worries. OPL3? You betcha.

Not going to lie though. This solder mask is tops. Matte black. You rarely see that anymore! I love it. I wish there was more matte black solder mask in the world.

Running the Cmedia CMI8738SX chipset. It had the driver CD too, so that's handy.

Now for some of the best box art I've seen in awhile.

$25.00 for one ISA Parallel port? Beauty!

No immediate use to me. I just loved the box. It's so of the period, I had to have it.

Now we've got a used Matrox Mystique 220. Something I haven't personally had before, so that's a bit exciting. Made in the USA, of course.

Looks like the warranty expired back in June 1999. That's a shame.

Two other things that aren't worth writing about. A DLink USB 56k modem (for testing things), and a crappy VIA PCI USB card.

Outside the retro PC space, I also scored two sheets of stainless steel. Perfect for PC modding activities I've been undertaking while retro stuff has been packed away, those sheets are expensive!

If memory serves those blue Traveling Software cables shipped with LapLink.

x0zm_ wrote:

Here's an oddball find. […]
Show full quote

Here's an oddball find.

Coming back from voting at our federal elections today, came across this huge box of various ABS drive bay covers. There's got to be at least 200 of them in here in all different shades of beige, yellowed beige, sprinkled alongside a couple of black and silver, and even some oddball colours like gunmetal grey and blue. Also some various case feet and decoration, and a few useful things like 5.25" to 3.5" beige drive bay adapters.

I assume someone was stripping computers for scrap metal and these are the leftovers.

Hopefully I can find some nice, bright, matching covers for various cases of mine where they are missing or in bad condition.

As for what I'll do with the other couple of hundred... who knows. On the one hand it'd be a shame to throw them out again, on the other hand, why keep them?

I've got the same burden as you. Three boxes full of metal, plastic and tidbit case parts. Probably, in my case, will box it all up and give it to someone for the price of shipping. Most people would probably toss it, but there's always that time when someone is looking for that one small part to complete their build and...

gca wrote:

If memory serves those blue Traveling Software cables shipped with LapLink.

Fantastic, that seems to be it. Found the exact cable in their KB article. Good to know, will keep it then.

liqmat wrote:

I've got the same burden as you. Three boxes full of metal, plastic and tidbit case parts. Probably, in my case, will box it all up and give it to someone for the price of shipping. Most people would probably toss it, but there's always that time when someone is looking for that one small part to complete their build and...

Exactly this. I've been on the other end before. Something I want that got trashed. Felt bad.

Also, I went back for round three. I couldn't help myself.

The other three boxes of cables I left behind? Gone.

Yet somehow, after midnight there were still new things being added. It's almost like the suburbs unofficial dumping ground when this block of apartments does their cleanup.

Didn't come back with much this time. Just two items, in fact.

The first is a Windows 98 FE CD, non-upgrade version. CD key removed because legality, or something. Didn't have one of these so that's a cool find.

Second is an Aten Master View CS-122. Beautiful, heavy and looks the part for a nice mid 90s KVM. Online manual suggests it's from 1995, so that's spot on!

Couldn't find the power cable for it, but with it taking a fairly standard 9V supply, I'm sure I have one that'll work. I love a good powered KVM switch, and if this works, it'll be my switch for my retro setup when I move, no question about it. It just looks right.

Seems I'll be going back tomorrow. Who knows what else will be found. 😎

Dug up today a PCChips M912 V1.4 motheboard with AMD 486DX-40 CPU and SIMM30 memory at the same thicket where I've found IBM XT clone PC. Looks like it'll have to undergo some serious forensic examination 🤣

This post ^^^ made me -=LOL=. Damn kid, now that's dedication. We are only pretenders, you are the true archeologist.

@SSTV2: they make some pretty powerful metal detectors these days. Maybe you need to go treasure hunting.

Found an GeForce FX 5200 DDR 128MB and a Samsung 500GB HDD. Woo. 🤣

x0zm_ wrote:

Then we've got a little ASUS USB breakout board. Not much to say about it. Nice little board that I may find a use for. Likely too new for my P55T2P4, but I'll give it a shot if I can find the right length IDC connector somewhere (back in one of the boxes maybe? 😎 )

It's compatible with late ASUS AT boards like the TX97 series, super socket 7 boards, and such.

gdjacobs wrote:

It's compatible with late ASUS AT boards like the TX97 series, super socket 7 boards, and such.

Wonderful. I know where it's going then!

Trip number four, here's what I got. Just a singular thing this time, but a bloody awesome one:

IBM ThinkPad 600E!

It's in rough shape externally. The rubber has begun deteriorating and is sticky. There's some scratching on the top case. Internally though it's almost good as new. It does turn on, just using a power brick from another laptop I found around the house. It has Win2K loaded onto it.

This one is hopefully a keeper. I've always been a ThinkPad fan and am still using one to this day. However, I don't have much (read: any) experience in restoring them. The deteriorating rubber is the biggest issue, and I'm unsure what to do about that. The battery is seemingly dead too. The backlight is mildly flickery at max brightness. Seems like I've got some research to do this afternoon.

I don't want to sink too much money into it, but if I can fix it up for a reasonable cost, then it's a keeper. My only other retro "laptop" is the HP Internet Advisor, which doesn't really quality as a laptop. It would be nice to have one.

I'll be checking again tonight to see what else people have dropped off.

I love this apartment's throw out week. 😎

x0zm_ wrote:

This one is hopefully a keeper. I've always been a ThinkPad fan and am still using one to this day. However, I don't have much ( […]
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This one is hopefully a keeper. I've always been a ThinkPad fan and am still using one to this day. However, I don't have much (read: any) experience in restoring them. The deteriorating rubber is the biggest issue, and I'm unsure what to do about that. The battery is seemingly dead too. The backlight is mildly flickery at max brightness. Seems like I've got some research to do this afternoon.

I don't want to sink too much money into it, but if I can fix it up for a reasonable cost, then it's a keeper. My only other retro "laptop" is the HP Internet Advisor, which doesn't really quality as a laptop. It would be nice to have one.

I'll be checking again tonight to see what else people have dropped off.

I love this apartment's throw out week. 😎

You can remove that sticky rubber junk pretty easily. I've had to do the same with a bunch of different stuff with that crappy rubber gunk on it.

Here are some things that will break it down:
1. Citrus based furniture polish - spray it on a rag or on the plastic itself. Let it sit there for a few minutes and it should be able to be scrubbed off with a rag... Will have to repeat a few times to get it all the way off
2. Lemon essential oil - a lot stronger than the furniture polish but also more expensive. Should take it off quicker though. You will want to test with a small area though as it will melt certain types of plastic.
3. 90% Isopropyl rubbing alchohol. Probably can get up to ~92% depending on the store and brand. This is probably the cheapest option. Put some on a rag and wipe it around. Work in a small area at a time. Will have to go over it a few times to get all the sticky off.

In any of the scenarios, you will probably end up using 3-4 rags to get it all off. For something that big it will definitely take a while to clean up.

I really wish companies would stop using whatever that grippy rubber coating is made of. It tends to start breaking down after a few years and then has to be removed unless you don't care that it sticks to everything.

What kind of finish does that leave behind? I've been tempted to do my X24 which isn't bad yet, but definitely will be in the near future. (Thankfully the only "rubber" Thinkpad out of the three I own.) If it leaves a nice matte black plastic I'd be fine taking it off, but not if the finish underneath is un-dyed or uneven.

xjas wrote:

What kind of finish does that leave behind? I've been tempted to do my X24 which isn't bad yet, but definitely will be in the near future. (Thankfully the only "rubber" Thinkpad out of the three I own.) If it leaves a nice matte black plastic I'd be fine taking it off, but not if the finish underneath is un-dyed or uneven.

I've just finished removing the lid's rubber finish. Underneath it looks like any of my more modern ThinkPads. Clean, black, even plastic.

Here's quick pic. Took maybe 45 minutes.

When cleaning the crap off my hands afterwards, I found it came off really easily when using warm water, so I might try that for the next parts. I'll likely have to disassemble the whole thing and do panels individually, and I'll put that in a build log.

There's still patches here and there to remove, but the end result is nice. Even if it's a little bit scratched up, I'll take that over sticky, gloopy melting rubber texturing any day. Compared to the before pic it's night and day.

Here's hoping I can score some more stuff from there tonight. I think it's all getting collected tomorrow morning 🙁

gca wrote:

If memory serves those blue Traveling Software cables shipped with LapLink.

Correct. Although there were gray and beige ones too.
And if these DB25 cables have no DB9 fork, they are for parallel. Can be used for Intersvr/Interlink, NC etc as well.

cyclone3d wrote:

I really wish companies would stop using whatever that grippy rubber coating is made of. It tends to start breaking down after a few years and then has to be removed unless you don't care that it sticks to everything.

Couldn't agree more! Especially hate this on Logitech mice!

SSTV2 wrote:

Dug up today a PCChips M912 V1.4 motheboard with AMD 486DX-40 CPU and SIMM30 memory at the same thicket where I've found IBM XT clone PC. Looks like it'll have to undergo some serious forensic examination 🤣

1.jpg

2.jpg

Oh man, If that works and has real cache that's a great 486 board.

damn nice thiccpad bro