17 Dec
2000
17 Dec
'00
10:13 a.m.
It was "blue tag" day at the thrift store - 50% off. I found this black box
with a 9" crt, telephone and floppy drive. There was a bit of thermal fax
paper hanging out the back and the top lifted off to reveal a paper input
hopper. The whole thing seems to be a piece of office equipment, c. 1990,
consisting of an integrated phone, fax and 8086-based PC.
Locating and removing the kilogram of metric screws reveals a 40-pin drive
interface (with a Fuji FK311X-50R drive attached), a 720K Sony floppy, a bunch
of 64K DRAM zips, an externally accessible 27C1024 EPROM and the general sorts
of things one finds in an 80x6-based box.
Does anyone have any information on this guy? Web searching for keywords
like Sanyo and Navigator comes up with *lots* of hits, but none useful.
One problem with this unit - the crt has a collapsed display - all the video
signal is shown one pixel tall. I know it's likely to be a very simple fix,
but I'm not an awesome TV repair dude. The interface between the CRT and the
CPU is a single, proprietary cable. Other than the lack of video, the box
seems to boot. The hard disk makes proper sorts of noises and the caps lock,
scroll lock and num lock keys all make the lights go on and off.
Thanks for any hints,
-ethan
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The original webpage address is still going away. The
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See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
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17 Dec
17 Dec
12:10 p.m.
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8:07 p.m.
On Sun, 17 Dec 2000, Ethan Dicks wrote:
It was "blue tag" day at the thrift store -
50% off. I found this black box
with a 9" crt, telephone and floppy drive. There was a bit of thermal fax
paper hanging out the back and the top lifted off to reveal a paper input
hopper. The whole thing seems to be a piece of office equipment, c. 1990,
consisting of an integrated phone, fax and 8086-based PC.
As a quick aside, I have a thrift store like the one you describe in my
area that has a 50% discount each week based on the color of the price
tag. So if the price tag is blue and the week's color is blue then you
get 50% off. These stores seem to be everywhere, as I also found some
when I was doing lots of work in Raleigh, NC.
So the reason I'm bringing this up is I'm wondering how a chain thrift
store like this operates. They don't seem to be contributing to any
charitable cause, and as far as I can tell, they are just resellers of
people's discarded crap.
Does anyone know how these guys operate?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
18 Dec
18 Dec
5:48 a.m.
On Sun, 17 Dec 2000, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I just picked up a Mitromac 40 external SCSI HD for $1.50 on the
same sort of deal at a local Goodwill.
TMK Goodwills only charitable contribution is providing jobs. They
claim it is job-training for the unskilled but it doesn't take much
training to sort boxes and operate a cash-register. At one time they
did do some repair on used items requiring at least repair skills,
but now they just sell everything with an as-is sticker making it
non-returnable.
Here they've even managed to get into a provincialy subsidized
work for welfare program so they have even less than the minimum
wage rates to pay. By that criteria even Walmart is a charitable
organization. There are some other thifts that actually do some
charitable return and others that make no pretense about not
having a bottom line. It would be interesting to see Goodwills
dispersions. I imagine the upper execs do quite well, thankyou.
ciao larry
program
Reply to:
lgwalker(a)look.ca
It was "blue tag" day at the thrift
store - 50% off. I found this
black box with a 9" crt, telephone and floppy drive. There was a
bit of thermal fax paper hanging out the back and the top lifted off
to reveal a paper input hopper. The whole thing seems to be a piece
of office equipment, c. 1990, consisting of an integrated phone, fax
and 8086-based PC.
As a quick aside, I have a thrift store like the one you describe in
my area that has a 50% discount each week based on the color of the
price tag. So if the price tag is blue and the week's color is blue
then you get 50% off. These stores seem to be everywhere, as I also
found some when I was doing lots of work in Raleigh, NC.
So the reason I'm bringing this up is I'm wondering how a chain thrift
store like this operates. They don't seem to be contributing to any
charitable cause, and as far as I can tell, they are just resellers of
people's discarded crap.
Does anyone know how these guys operate?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival 
10:09 p.m.
TMK Goodwills only charitable contribution is
providing jobs. They
Goodwill isn't just ONE operation. Goodwill Industries is an employer of
moderate to fairly severly handicaped people, who do jobs like pack
products, and very simple inspection and/or assembly (gift baskets).
Typically some kind of corporate "sponsor" is also envolved, ie Paul Newman
used them for gift baskets last year for his line of food products. This is
the face of Goodwill I have the most respect for.
12:56 p.m.
New subject: Non charity thrift stores
So the reason I'm bringing this up is I'm
wondering how a chain thrift
store like this operates. They don't seem to be contributing to any
charitable cause, and as far as I can tell, they are just resellers of
people's discarded crap.
Does anyone know how these guys operate?
Duh! they are wholesale buyers from legitimate charity stores. The big
Goodwill near me has a LARGE auction every morning except Sunday. Every
charity I know of has a backdoor wholesale operation as well as the store
front retail sales. Storage unit auctions is another source.
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com -
foo＠siconic.com -
lgwalker＠look.ca -
mikeford＠socal.rr.com