31 Jan
1999
31 Jan
'99
4:56 p.m.
On Sun, 31 Jan 1999, Kirk Davis wrote:
Good point Doug. I *totally* agree. You know, if you
want to give me
a complete list of your sources - I'll be sure not to accidentally give
them out...
Really, AFAICT, Andrew Davie is the king of mining a variety of sources.
There are few machines I find interesting enough to weather the vagaries
of getting stuff out of Russia, for example.
For those in the SF Bay Area, there are a couple of web pages that not
only list many of the local sources, but also *rate* them. I'll leave
finding those web pages as an exercise for the reader :-)
Of course, the best sources are probably dumpsters and thrift store as-is
centers. Once you get up to the retail, surplus, or thrift store level of
the food chain, all of the really interesting "junk" has been dumpstered,
recycled, or stripped for parts.
So, if you're looking for machines that were used commercially, dive in
some of the dumpsters belonging to companies that have been established
for, say, 20 years or longer.
If you're looking for home micros, hit places like the Good Will as-is
center in your area (filled with the rejects after Good Will has selected
the "good" stuff for their retail stores).
I went to a swap meet in Orange County today, but it was rained out, so I
headed to a thrift store, and found some amazingly cool stuff: a Lego
MindStorms kit (complete with two accessory packs) and a programmable
Winnie the Pooh!
-- Doug