The warehouse is like the scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where they file away the artifact into a box to be placed alongside countless shelves of other artifacts. I wouldn't say it's filthy as much as I would say it's dark and cluttered- they can really use some more structured organization and inventory management. They get donations of really large equipment, and their first priority is that it has a place where it won't be scrapped. But they have a ton of stuff, a small staff and modest budget, so they do what they can.
One story they told me is that they are contacted by TV and movie production companies that need period-specific computers and props, so they'll pack up and send out various equipment and lease them out. They come back cleaned up and in better shape than when they sent them out.
I've worked in those rooms and data-centers decades after the fact. Just dirtier, cluttered, and the hardware's been replaced. Not always replaced though. There are always old relics squirreled away in an interstitial space or in plain sight holding up new equipment.
I've been remote for many years now and honestly, I kinda miss those abandoned corners of business/tech. Had a weird dystopian vibe. Existing in the rubble of a more advanced society.
I got too much crap, it's not just tech but, the tech is what I'm most conflicted about. My stash includes a Timex Sinclair, a couple of Atari 800s and Mac classics (no keyboards), a ColecoVision and a VIC 20, a Commodore 128 and quite a few Commodore 64s with associated 1541 drives and other supporting pieces/parts as well as numerous beige boxes from 386s on up
I know part of it is sentimental [0] since I ran a BBS or two on the C64s and some of the IBMs. My issue seems to stem from the tech still being operational (especially the Commodores) but not being useful besides a reflection of the past. [1] Its part sunk cost as well
I'm reaching out as a sanity check to see if there any ideas to utilize any of this besides the recycling bin. I do not want to become the Weird Stuff Warehouse [2] for my area but I'd rather not just chucking everything out if there's a better use that I haven't thought of or about
[0] Ask HN: Do you become emotionally attached to your old tech?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14844979
[1} Ask HN: What do you do with old technical books?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14595576
[2] The Weird Stuff Warehouse is where old tech goes to retire
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5777858
Even with an interested relative, sometimes there's just too much stuff. My father-in-law left a basement full of computer stuff. There was some Heathkit hardware, TRS-80s, a couple of AT&T 3B2's, tons of PCs, a Bell Labs MAC Tutor, old calculators, thousands of CDs and floppies, piles and piles of printouts of old code, plus books. Some of it was probably valuable to someone, somewhere, but it was a full room, chest deep with stuff, and just hauling it all out took several days. Nearly all of the hardware went to an electronics recycler.
In Texas (dunno about elsewhere), Goodwill has "Computer Works" stores that take older equipment in working or mostly-working condition. They assemble systems from donated components and sell them for pretty good prices. Behind the scenes, I gather it's a training opportunity. What can't be fixed or cobbled together and sold, gets donated onward, recycled, or disposed. I take all my old systems there, and I check in the shop from time to time. I've picked up all kinds of stuff... full-size racks, HP servers, oddball adapter cards, vintage stuff.
Occasionally I end up with a truckload of gear from things like that. The circumstances that saved it from shredding are usually something like Founding Engineer X couldn't stand to see all that nice workstation stuff go in the trash so he kept it in his garage for 25 years and now his kids are selling it.
I kinda wish this stuff was saved in a warehouse somewhere in a deep cave. In a post-apocalyptic world, even a z80 microprocessor can put our tech tree 1000 years forward.
Try getting all those old parts to a facility, test them, assemble a consistent product, and get it out the door. Their efficiency in doing that is their value proposition.
The equipment and furniture are either auctioned or liquidated.
If there's a corporation or formal payroll involved, then it's important to wind those down carefully for various legal reasons. So either the remaining assets or owners will have to pay for the paperwork wind down.
Typically with a small company of 50-60 employees, the office manager and 1-2 accountants wll stay on for a few months to wrap all that up.
I was the last eng. employee to leave Novafora/Transmeta, and attended the auction and bought some of the computer equipment.
The most expensive hardware items were the almost new espresso machine, the 3 Ghz scope and the bed of nails tester.
Intel bought most of the IP for a little more than peanuts.
That's a neat little stash then! Wonder where they got them. I used to frequent government surplus auctions and the weirdest stuff would turn up. 10 tons of spare parts for a Magirus-Deutz vehicle that hasn't seen active service since the 50's, five containers full of used army boots (but without the containers), a veritable mountain of laptops sans harddrive and with various unknown defects and so on. I would occasionally buy something and usually got something out of it (profit, some useful tool) but on the whole the quantities of the lots were such that only people with both lots of space and lots of money at the same time would be serious bidders on those lots.
Well, if they were in any way savvy (which I believe they are), they would sell a machine like that or donate it to another project. In this instance, I imagine, instead of selling/donating they repurposed.
This is pretty much what my room looked like, except the speaker boxes and hi-fi equipment were instead stacks of Pentium 2/3 mini towers, monitors, motherboards, hard disks, etc. I used to go around the loca streets on council hard junk pickup night and salvage desktops etc that people had thrown out due to maybe one broken component. Fix them up, build a working machine and give them away to people, while at the same time, souping up my own collection :-)
Friends of mine who work at a university suggest this sort of thing happens all the time - researchers wind up keeping old, interesting equipment in their offices to save them from being tossed.
I get the premise but sometimes you need to keep stuff you won't touch for years.
For example, I restore pinball machines and I have stacks of salvaged and spare parts from various games in my workspace. Since there's so many manufacturers, and I restore what happens to come my way via Craigslist, I might not touch a part for years, then suddenly have use of it for my next project.
Since most of the parts are manufacturer or machine specific, and most are decades old and not being produced anymore, the only source of parts is the pile. Also, shipping from the US (I'm in Canada) is prohibitively expensive, so just buying the parts I need for that one project doesn't always work.
If you're just dicking around, I suppose, it's good to de-clutter regularly. I do like to keep my workbenches clear by always cleaning up at the end of a session.
i know that there are some companies that set up contracts to, basically, buy them on the cheap, come pick them up in a van, and then go back home and sell them on ebay.
i've also seen huge storerooms full of old monitors and boxes. some companies just packrat it all away.
If you knew the manager of a big box electronics store in the 90's it was not hard to come by a large variety of computer parts.
The scene in 40 year old virgin where they destroy all the returns is pretty accurate to what is supposed to happen. What actually happens is they only destroy like a quarter of it.
One story they told me is that they are contacted by TV and movie production companies that need period-specific computers and props, so they'll pack up and send out various equipment and lease them out. They come back cleaned up and in better shape than when they sent them out.
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