On Mon, 2005-07-04 at 18:23 +0100, Philip Pemberton wrote: Most of the stuff I get (albeit for the museum, not personally) comes where the local population seem to know to chuck things this way. I've only recently joined the local freecycle group, so I'm not sure how good that'll be in terms of stuff yet. Landfill / scrapyards in the UK don't seem to be anything like their US counterparts according to what I've seen on this list - there just aren't items there for the taking. I suspect a *lot* of smaller machines are tucked away in lofts, but the big stuff's reasonably hard to come by over here - although we'll usually get offered one 19" rack-sized machine a month on average, sometimes from companies and sometimes from collectors (or former collectors) who want the space back. There is stuff out there anyway - you just need to give people a prod every once in a while and get yourself noticed as someone who can give this stuff a home. cheers Jules

At 01:20 AM 7/7/05 +0100, you wrote: You're right. The asshole SPAMMERS have virtually kiiled the news groups! But I've had some luck getting items for specific systems by posting on news-groups. I got a lot of offers for systems, manuals, etc when I posted on the Z-100 news groups. Blanket request for "old computers" or Ebay-able Altairs are meet with distain but if you show a real interest in a particular system you'll usually find someone willing to help or donate items. The other thing that helps is to set up a website and ask for unwanted systems on it. Again, blanket request for everything old are generaly ignored but if you show a strong interest in something and ask for specific systems you'll get offers. I got three of my Intel MDSs that way. Also I offer to BUY the things that I'm interested and didn't pretend to be museum and ask for the stuff for free. I'm amazed at the gall that some people display when they ask for valuable systems and not only want me to give it to them but also expect me to pay to ship it to them!!! A good example is the guy in Hawaii that bugged me for months wanting me to GIVE him my IBM 5100 and pay the shipping (by air!) from Florida to Hawaii! Recycling is a big thing here in the US. You should push that aspect to the businesses and universities. But you need to do it on large batches and not just on the one or two computers that you may want. My buddy that owns the surplus store in Melbourne gets a LOT of his stuff for free from companies and individuals that want to see the stuff recycled instead of filling up landfills. He's just gotten a deal to get TONS of computers gets is modernish PC but I've gotten a LOT of goodies from him. He's the one that turned me onto the PDP-8 stuff that Thom had. He's also the one that I got the 20 or so Intel 830s with bubble memory from. And just last Tuesday I found a boxfull of DEC cards and a pile of Cromemco S-100 cards in his board scrap. I wasn't there to save the Cromemco but the cards are certainly worth getting. The important thing to keep in mind about places like his is that they don't keep the stuff around any longer than possible. It's common for stuff to come off the delivery trucks and go directly to tear down. Particularly the OLD stuff (the kind of stuff that we want!) So you have to check them FREQUENTLY. When it gets really busy (like it has been for the last three weeks) I go there everyday if at all possible. Even then things come in and get torn down before I find them! BTW this brings up an important point. I've gone out with a lot of different computer hunters and I was shocked to find out that most of you fail to look through the baskets of cables and old boards. I ALWAYS find lots of goodies in them! For example, I went with Gary Hildebrand to computer recycling place in Topeka Kansas and he had just been asking me for some 1Mb ICs for the Commodore Amiga computers. When we got the the recycler's we looked through all the computers (I found a black B&H Apple), then I went and looked through their board scrap and found not just the ICs that he wanted but they were also on original Amiga boards! Gary was shocked! He said that he'd been to this same place many times before but never thought to look in the board scrap! Besides computer cables, cable scrap almost always includes hings like logic analyzer pods and oscilloscope probes that make good trading material. In most places in the US you are NOT allowed to hunt for anything in the landfills and will be arrested if you take anything out. Yes they are VERY strict! The key to sucessful computer hunting is to find the companies that buy or are given old electronics for recycling (not the get-rich-quick 3rd party resellers, although you can OCCASIONALLY get a good deal from them). The recyclers tear the stuff down for the aluminium and other materials and they only get pennies per pound for scrap so they're frequently willing to sell the intact stuff for a reasonable price as long as it doesn't contain any **GOLD**. They get real protective over things like the old HP and Tektronics that contain very much visible gold or heavy aluminium. Joe

On 7/7/05, Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> wrote: Isn't there a list member who worked for HP or some other (non-Apple) Bay-area employer that passed up an Apple I, unassembled, in a baggie, for like $5 at a garage sale many years ago? the "non-Apple" is part of the story, because, ISTR, they passed it up _because_ it was an Apple and they worked for "the other guys". Ring any bells? -ethan

On 7/7/05, Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> wrote: Ow! -ethan

At 11:46 AM 7/7/05 -0500, you wrote: That wasn't me but about 15 or 20 years ago I saw an ad in a local newspaper (IIRC) for an Apple 1 for something like $75. I remember thinking that it was a real part of computer history and someone should buy it and save it. Now I wish I'd done it! Joe