Computer Reset shop, liquidation. (USA)

[Guy Dunphy]

My net service dropped out yesterday, hence delayed reply. I did NOT expect that thread to take off.

At 10:14 PM 16/07/2019 -0700, Al Kossow wrote:
>> Exploring a MASSIVE Retro Computer Warehouse!
>
>old news, dredged up again because of a youtube jackass


Ah yes, now I see there was exactly one previous mention a month ago on 2019-06-12
  https://marc.info/?l=classiccmp&m=156035869326953&w=2       
  or
  http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2019-June/048024.html

Were there other discussions perhaps, that didn't mention the shop name?

Anyway maybe some may like to see the jackass's video of the huge collection, 
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvM82T3C2Ik
or perhaps go buy stuff to help out the invalid owners?


Btw Al did you have any sources for this?
 >And YOU didn't live through Crisis Computer's downsizing seeing literally a large
 >warehouse of HP hardware getting scrapped.
 >The fact that anyone 15+ years after that happened is still in business is a wonder in itself.

So that was 15 years ago? Are there any photos online? Just curious.

Btw, I have at least three times seen large warehouses full of tech treasure destroyed.
It's the standard routine in Australia. Literally. Because for a long time the government
charged import duty on everything brought into the country.  And there was a regulation that
in many cases that duty could be recovered by the importer, if they had the equipment
landfilled in the presence of a tax inspector.

Ha ha, I spent one Christmas eve stripping the laser optics and electronics out of about
20 laser disk players, that a video arcade company I did contract software for, had imported.
Then they discovered the players were unsuitable. So, to the tip with them, to be buried,
to recover the tax.
Except my employers were informal enough to think that was a waste, and ask me if I wanted to 
'modify' the players first. I had one evening to do it. Fortunately also a stack of bricks, to
make the units convincingly heavy after gutting them.


That tax insanity is now gone. Leaving the depreciation, insurance and tradein insanities in operation.

Depreciation: Company book keepers depreciate the value of capital investments, over the operating
life of the equipment. They get a yearly tax break for this 'expense.' Once the equipment reaches
end of depreciation period, theoretically it is worth zero.
At that point the company will have it destroyed. Because to sell it would imply it still has
value, and that would cast the bookkeeping proceedures (and the tax benefits) into doubt (according
to the accountants.) 
And they don't want to just give it away, because there are safety and liability issues with that.

Insurance: Typically when equipment is damaged and an insurance claim made, the equipment gets destroyed.
Because the insurance companies are afraid they might get scammed. So they insist on proof of destruction.

Tradein: Because Australia is a small tech-market and virtually everything is imported, companies
like HP, Tektronix DEC, etc (their local distributors) hated to see their products get loose into
the second hand market. So they offered very significant tradein deals on old stuff.
Which they would then generally destroy.  

Unless their staff made off with it first. For a while I worked around the corner from the HP Sydney office.
Dropped in and asked if they had any 2nd hand gear for sale. The engineer who spoke with me in the
front office made a show of explaining that all tradeins were destroyed. He was making sure his
superiors heard him toeing the company line. Later he offered me a few items via his car boot. 
All really old, valve stuff, though I did buy a couple. http://everist.org/NobLog/20140324_HP_relics.htm



This is why Australia is a desert in regards second hand computing and test equipment.


Guy