Austin, Texas Computerworks Goodwill

The Goodwill asis store. There is one in Portland and one in Salem Oregon. It is worse than that. They fill bins of stuff, 3 foot by 8 foot on wheels. Everyone who can get close (20 or so people) lines up on both sides and at the given signal everything gets gone through, shredded almost immediatly. The stuff sits out about four hours and then they shovel the remainder into dumpsters, fill the bins and start over again. I think they rotate almost every bin twice a day, and this is in a huge warehouse at least 100 by 200. Most of it is clothing but they have four or five rows of misc and electronics. In the old store I once got a Tek 4112 Terminal and a Tek 4054 computer. They were ion the floor as they were too big to lift into the bin. I do check the new stores and do find items occasionally. A normal Computer bin may be full of monitors or Printers. If so the printers will be stripped of ink & toner carts almost immediatly, dismantling printers if need be, memory also. The few CPUs that make the bins are pulled apart for the cards and ram. It is very rare to find a whole computer within 20 minutes of being rolled out in the bin. Whole CPUs out of the bin are usually $5 because of the weight. So good ones dissappear in the first two minutes. I keep an eye out for commodore and apple stuff. It goes straight to the bins. However I don't make the asis stores as often as the regular ones. And then in Portland there is Free Geeks. I am a volunteer to get the 50 % discount in their thrift store, and to get my computer warehouse fix. However it is similar to any other recycling center. My 4 hours of volunteer work sometimes involve scrapping PC computers. I once pulled a Franklin Ace with drives out of the take apart pile and told them to put it in their collection. I have little confidence it survived though. Most of the people who work there are young and don't recognize old equipment. They do have a collection but not a museum. I bought an Intel IPDs from the thrift store there. It sat for months with me showing the only interest. I bought an Ultra one once but they wouldn't sell me the drives, pulled them right in front of me. At least I got the mounting screws and carriers. Mostly they build and sell linux boxes. Currently my favorite thrift store is NextStep in Eugene. They sell old software at reasonable prices. And have some older apple stuff. Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA