Zip Drive / Plethora of cables
Discussion
Cleared a few boxes out of the loft a while back, had a load of BNC token ring stuff, some PCI wireless cards, an AT power supply, loads of cables I don't even recognise... 
I think out of 2 large crates of IT stuff we kept about half a dozen cables, and we'll probably never need them.
I think out of 2 large crates of IT stuff we kept about half a dozen cables, and we'll probably never need them.RizzoTheRat said:
Cleared a few boxes out of the loft a while back, had a load of BNC token ring stuff, some PCI wireless cards, an AT power supply, loads of cables I don't even recognise... I think out of 2 large crates of IT stuff we kept about half a dozen cables, and we'll probably never need them.
+1, especially when most new cables are fairly standard, and 99p on fleabay I think out of 2 large crates of IT stuff we kept about half a dozen cables, and we'll probably never need them.
I recycled or threw away the scsi cards, 100mb hard drives and mini discs, but kept my 32mb SD cards, as used them to store serial numbers for my home insurance and pdfs of the house deeds etc
mcflurry said:
especially when most new cables are fairly standard, and 99p on fleabay
Yeah but usually when I want a cable for something I want it now rather than e-bay free postage times.Forgot about hard drives, I chucked a load a while back, think I had about half a dozen ranging from 40-420MB. On advice from here I drilled holes through them first though which was fun.
I've also still got a horrid USB ADSL Modem I got with my first broadband package. This was to broadband what winmodems were to dial-up (did I mention I still have a winmodem AND the now 10 year old Hayes modem I bought to replace it?). I eventually ditched it for a proper D-Link ADSL modem/router. Guess what, I've still got that as well, last used at least five years ago.
Moving house is the best nudge for clear outs. I binned a box of SCART leads that were brand new in wrappers, I'd kept them just in case FFS!! Old consoles sell but anything else is pretty much scrap. I wonder how much of the worlds resources are tied up in people garages & loft spaces.....
In the attic I have an AT keyboard and an LS120 plus discs.
Cables that are no use to anyone even me, I have a tape drive with 40+ tapes but only holds 320gb on each tape I think it is an LTO2 and the SCSI cards and cables.
Let alone the sonicwall etc other crap. 20 HDD ranging from 500gb to 1.5tb but some are dead.
But they might be useful one day?????????????????
I should clear it all out.
Cables that are no use to anyone even me, I have a tape drive with 40+ tapes but only holds 320gb on each tape I think it is an LTO2 and the SCSI cards and cables.
Let alone the sonicwall etc other crap. 20 HDD ranging from 500gb to 1.5tb but some are dead.
But they might be useful one day?????????????????
I should clear it all out.
I still use RS232 stuff but mainly for old radios. I also use old AT laptops again for radios as the software runs in DOS and the timing is done in software so will not run on a modern machine and a lot of these USB<->RS232 adapters are 0 to 5v rather than +/- 12v (ish).
But I will confess to having 3 sheds and a loft full of 'important' stuff.
But I will confess to having 3 sheds and a loft full of 'important' stuff.
The problem isn't the newish stuff, that either has obvious value or it's obvious junk & goes in the bin.
There's a few bits I've kept hold of as stuff has got scrapped; I have a whole sack of ceramic Pentiums with the idea of doing *something* with them; maybe tile a desk? Just didn't seem right to bin them. Other things like drives & PSUs have gone when there was nothing left to use them with.
The problem is when I look at the stuff that's properly old and/or rare and I've had for a while. It's basically useless, it's almost certain it'll never be powered up again but I wouldn't want to get rid of it.
Great example; Optimem 1000m WORM. Rack mount, 2.6GB per 12" disc, made circa 1985, cost a fortune new, and basically one of the original SCSI devices. Huge, heavy, taking shed space, last powered in the mid-90's and no real use for anything. But I'd hate to scrap it. The discs at least are shiny interesting looking things so have some decorative use.
But most of the rest of it - the old PCI cards and so on - can go in the scrap box with no problem at all. Just a matter of digging through and having a clear out.
There's a few bits I've kept hold of as stuff has got scrapped; I have a whole sack of ceramic Pentiums with the idea of doing *something* with them; maybe tile a desk? Just didn't seem right to bin them. Other things like drives & PSUs have gone when there was nothing left to use them with.
The problem is when I look at the stuff that's properly old and/or rare and I've had for a while. It's basically useless, it's almost certain it'll never be powered up again but I wouldn't want to get rid of it.
Great example; Optimem 1000m WORM. Rack mount, 2.6GB per 12" disc, made circa 1985, cost a fortune new, and basically one of the original SCSI devices. Huge, heavy, taking shed space, last powered in the mid-90's and no real use for anything. But I'd hate to scrap it. The discs at least are shiny interesting looking things so have some decorative use.
But most of the rest of it - the old PCI cards and so on - can go in the scrap box with no problem at all. Just a matter of digging through and having a clear out.
Morningside said:
I still have my original SCSI cd writer that cost me £50. I know it is dated but I just cannot bring myself to chuck it out.
Snap!And a collection of high voltage SCSI differential drives (and Adaptec card with cables for same).
Four of those made more noise than a fleet of 747s flying overhead.
It's good to see there are a few others.
I am not alone...
had a tidy up about a year ago, with child #2 imminent, i needed to clear out the study and turn it into a nursery.
now i'm in a pickle as I threw out an old samsung netbook with dead battery. I use this for Sensible soccer tournaments as it's zero faff carting it around.
since the advent of tablets, a tiny windows laptop with a vga port and 2 usb ports are thin on the ground.
learn from my mistake, chuck out nothing!!!
now i'm in a pickle as I threw out an old samsung netbook with dead battery. I use this for Sensible soccer tournaments as it's zero faff carting it around.
since the advent of tablets, a tiny windows laptop with a vga port and 2 usb ports are thin on the ground.
learn from my mistake, chuck out nothing!!!
If that's what you're after then there are quite a few Samsung N150 netbooks on fleabay at the moment. I use mine as a useful OBD interface to the cars.
I binned a Zip drive, a Jazz drive and a few other things earlier in the year.
I still have a 16 year old laptop (with 230MB hard drive!) and a 13 year old laptop piled in the corner - came in very useful recently when a friend needed some stuff retrieved from some floppy disks.
I binned a Zip drive, a Jazz drive and a few other things earlier in the year.
I still have a 16 year old laptop (with 230MB hard drive!) and a 13 year old laptop piled in the corner - came in very useful recently when a friend needed some stuff retrieved from some floppy disks.
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff