gerry wrote on 2022-12-13, 09:22:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-10, 00:20:

Curbside find: a Dell Vostro 420. A Q8300 quad core, three gigs of DDR2 6400, and a dead hard drive. I blew out the dust and stuck a spare SSD and a GTS 250 in it and it works fine. An added "Bonus" - the REO Speedwagon greatest hits CD in the drive. Sadly, I was never really a fan, though they were definitely a very popular band when I was a teen.

some people have the best curbs!

Yeah, I've never found any good PCs at the curb in my area (though I have certainly put out a lot of junkers myself).

By far my best curb find has been the ~1997 JVC RX-817V receiver that my neighbor put out back in ~2014 or so. It turned out to be a beast, and I've been using it to power large speakers in my living room ever since (started with Pioneer CS99 set, then built my own big towers). About 6 years ago the volume pot broke and I was able to find identical brand new in-box replacement pots on Aliexpress for cheap, so I was able to fix it and keep it running. I know these are manufacturer specs, but if there's any truth to them they're quite solid: 105 watts per channel (stereo) at 20Hz-20Khz with 0.007% THD. Not bad for free! 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2022-12-13, 03:23:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-12-13, 00:39:

I'd guesstimate late 84 production going by chip date codes. Nice find.

I've never thought to actually look at those codes on chips, is that what they are? I'm thinking 8422B is 1984, week 22, SI8428 is 1984, week 28... is that how it works?

Yep, more or less, possibly the letters mean something to the manufacturer but that's hard to dig out. Normally just look at the 4 digits, year and week. Though most of the TI, Texas Instruments, chips there just seem to have 3 digit codes, last figure of year and week. Usually they should form a cluster of dates, and then any real outliers might be chips replaced in repairs. ... though covid might have screwed that up recently, might see boards mostly 1940 to 2006 marked chips then when they finally got out the door due to waiting on one part and have that in there 2240 or something and be going on the shelves right now. Though later on for high volume products the "date clouds" did tend to tighten up a lot. Also more just in time manufacturing and delivery kinda stuff going on.

Saved from the shredder.

libby wrote on 2022-12-14, 07:46:

Saved from the shredder.

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Wow, that's a really cool front bezel!

Nice find!

Now show us what is inside. 😁

Very nice looking case!

libby wrote on 2022-12-14, 07:46:

Saved from the shredder.

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Well done for saving this one - I don't think I've seen this model of case before. From the looks of it I get the impression it's probably one of these heavier cases with a thicker alloy

Amazing case, waiting to see what is inside 😉

Spotted the (incomplete) remains of a Dell Pentium 90 tower in the recycling bin at work, so I scavenged it for useful parts. SIMMs, CD and floppy drives, cables, Number 9 S3 Trio64 PCI video card, ISA 3Com Etherlink III card and an ISA parallel/serial card.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2022-12-13, 03:23:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-12-13, 00:39:

I'd guesstimate late 84 production going by chip date codes. Nice find.

I've never thought to actually look at those codes on chips, is that what they are? I'm thinking 8422B is 1984, week 22, SI8428 is 1984, week 28... is that how it works?

Exactly. Year, then week.

This CGA was made some time after the last chip installed on it was produced (unless it was replaced later). Also it's PCB could be created sooner. But it's what people refer to as "new CGA" - not that it really matters...

I always try to tell people I work for (usually PC repairs) that I am interested in older computers, just in case they have any, and the other day a guy I have worked for for years told me he had a whole bunch of stuff in his basement. His basement is nicer than my house (and about twice the sq footage) so I figured it'd be in good shape. Sure enough, the stuff was really nice! He probably has more, but the other day I managed to bring home:

A large custom built tower with an FIC VB-601 440BX motherboard and a 400Mhz PII, Rage Pro, AudioPCI and some other pretty standard components for the era. The neat thing is that he still had the FIC motherboard box that the shop gave him when he bought the computer. Inside the box is the manual, paperwork and even the "FIC Advantage Card" that resembles a real plastic credit card. I have seen boxes with pictures of these but I think this is the first actual card I've found. Also, the case the computer is in looks really nice and is the odd type where you unscrew a single thumb-screw from the center of the back of the top panel, slide that back, then the side panels slide upward for removal. I've never had one of these before either!

Along with this came an Optiquest Q71 CRT from 1999. It has some scuffs on it and it's missing the base for some reason, but it works FLAWLESSLY. It gives this really loud and very satisfying click-clunk which changing modes, which gives it a very old-school feel... and yet it has tons of options in the OSD, the geometry and color are very good, contrast is fantastic, and I managed to get it to do 1280x960@72Hz as a maximum 4:3 res, with 1024x768@85Hz and 800x600@100Hz being the more likely resolutions I'd use on it. It's basically a Viewsonic without the "birds", so it was a fantastic find and it has been in a climate controlled environment it's entire life. Not having the base kind of stinks, but it's not a huge deal.

He also gave me a late-90s IBM Aptiva tower I haven't opened up yet. It looks to be in decent shape but it has no cards installed aside from a modem so I doubt it'll have anything super interesting inside it.

He said he used to have a Commodore of some sort down there but we couldn't find it so it may be gone. He did say I could come back and get his old Klipsch floor speakers that were down there though. I don't know what model they are, but they look basically immaculate. If I had to guess I'd say they were either from the late 90s or early 2000s since that's when he moved to the area... but they could be older, I don't know. The grills prevented me from seeing the speaker layout and they were too close to the wall for me to see any labels. Once I can dream up some place to put them (Hah!) I'll get them, but for now the PC stuff was all I could take.

Mi wife work cleaning house. Last month she went to a apartment was used as office and she found this

thank god she did not trash and call me!!!!!!

theelf wrote on 2022-12-26, 11:48:

Mi wife work cleaning house. Last month she went to a apartment was used as office and she found this

thank god she did not trash and call me!!!!!!

Screenshot_2022-12-26-12-13-16-707_com.wallapop.png

Woa! Your wife found a complete IBM PS/1 left in an appartment? When did they stop using it as an office, 1995?? 🤣

What a find! I have never even seen a PS/1 or PS/2 in person, though I do own a complete in box IBM external 5.25" floppy drive for one that someone gave me a couple years ago.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2022-12-26, 17:39:

theelf wrote on 2022-12-26, 11:48:

Mi wife work cleaning house. Last month she went to a apartment was used as office and she found this

thank god she did not trash and call me!!!!!!

Screenshot_2022-12-26-12-13-16-707_com.wallapop.png

Woa! Your wife found a complete IBM PS/1 left in an appartment? When did they stop using it as an office, 1995?? 🤣

What a find! I have never even seen a PS/1 or PS/2 in person, though I do own a complete in box IBM external 5.25" floppy drive for one that someone gave me a couple years ago.

Hi, was not a office, was a psychiatric consultant office (i dont know is the correct spell in english), the psychiatric retire, and close the office. It seems he left a lot of old stuff, but most are just garbage, like old broken golf clubs, magazines, etc

In one wardrobe was the IBM in a box, it seems nobody used for looong time, still have manuals, and accesory. Sadly was not working, the PSU was dead, but i manage to fix , and i complete with DX4 overdrive, 40GB HDD, 24mb ram, CDRom, soundblaster, zip, and a lot of nice ISA cards

Is a amazing machine, im so happy to have

theelf wrote on 2022-12-26, 11:48:

Mi wife work cleaning house. Last month she went to a apartment was used as office and she found this

thank god she did not trash and call me!!!!!!

Screenshot_2022-12-26-12-13-16-707_com.wallapop.png

Awesome find!

pete8475 wrote on 2022-12-26, 18:13:

theelf wrote on 2022-12-26, 11:48:

Mi wife work cleaning house. Last month she went to a apartment was used as office and she found this

thank god she did not trash and call me!!!!!!

Screenshot_2022-12-26-12-13-16-707_com.wallapop.png

Awesome find!

Thanks a lot

is a beautiful machine, im incredible happy

Great find - and looks in really good shape as well 👍

Wow that's an incredible find!

Anybody else noticed this thread moves slower than years prior?

I feel like dumpster finds in general, much less of the age that this forum covers, are getting more rare. Illegal in alot of states to put this stuff on the curb, recyclers are less and less willing to let you buy from them due to liability and legal bs. Coworkers and acquaintances are more likely to hock them on eBay now that it seems scalping has entered the general mindspace, etc.

Kind of sad really.

In my city, you'll need permits. The last item I got for free in my neighborhood was the Dell PowerEdge 6300 server with dual Xeon 300s or 400s

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-12-27, 03:29:

Anybody else noticed this thread moves slower than years prior?

I haven't counted, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The circumstances can vary wildly depending on your location, but here in The Netherlands dumpster finds have been going downhill for a long while now. More people recycle and want to recycle, more awareness, more laws, more competition from others seeking old pc parts, more ways to successfully sell old parts, PCs last longer now and prices remain high longer before their almost inevitable dip, fewer people have a PC (mobiles etc have partially supplanted desktop PCs), it's quite a long list.

Iirc the last time I found a PC on the streets was somewhere last year.