Scrapping and re-use (was Re: Talking of old IBM systems)

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:30 AM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: DEC had a problem in the 1980s with parts and machines that had been scrapped ending back in the sales stream. The big problems for them were maintaining the perception of quality (much of what got scrapped had failed some aspect of the testing process) and the tax issue of claiming that an item was scrapped but still out in the world. I was told one source of this was the recyclers picking through the bins of scrap coming from DEC and reselling things that were deemed resellable. They were paying by the pound for precious and ferrous metal scrap but making much more from the occasional gem. As the story goes, DEC bought a large shredder (large enough to accept 19" racks!), ensuring that re-use would not be feasible. We had a similar issue at Software Results - obsolete (prototypes and Rev 0 boards) and unrepairable boards were lying around after they'd been scrapped - we couldn't repair them since they'd been written off, so since they were large and green (because of the solder mask), one of our student employees nailed a bunch of them to a wooden frame in an irregular isosceles triangle pattern and made a "COMBOARD Christmas Tree" (using 9-track write rings as ornaments and tractor-feed tearoffs as garlands). Because the boards were rendered more unusable (as computer peripherals) by drilling nail holes in them, it was considered an acceptable re-use. I wish I had a picture of it still. -ethan