Compaq Deskpro boards/hard drives from the late 1990s

[Kevin Anderson]

For a time I had quite a few Compaq Deskpro towers that had acquired (for free) from my employer after they updated to a newer HP Compaq model.  These Compaq Deskpros were the white-boxed variety with Pentium III the like processors that date to the later part of the 1990s and into the 2000s.  They interested me because they were able to work with the flavors of Linux that were becoming plentiful and useful at the time (like Mandrake, etc.) Anyway, the desktops themselves are gone, as well as the PC keyboards and the monitors that went with them, with this paragraph just setting the scene....

But at the same time I also acquired (pulled) from these same computers and their siblings a whole bunch of wired Ethernet network cards, one or two video cards, a whole bunch of the IDE/PATA 5.25-inch desktop CD drives, and a whole bunch(!) of 10- and 20-GByte IDE/PATA 5.25-inch desktop hard drives.  I believe the vintage makes them all PCI cards for the network and video cards. For some reason I must have had it in my head that I would all need these extra cards (and more) to keep these boxes (and other desktops) going into the future when the apocalypse came <grin> !

Now I have no need for any of these parts. I don't want to chuck them to a recycler either, but it is tempting just to get the stuff out of the house (as I need to seriously downsize prior to retirement).

Is there a market for any of this that is worth pursing, or is this all too generic and plentiful to worry about?  Giving shipping and that, I am not sure how much of this I'd care to deal with this through resale (eBay or privately) versus just dropping it all at the electronics recycling shop (which fortunately I have locally).

Just starting to sort this out...I've been meaning to send this e-mail for awhile now.  Your collective thoughts?  I know most of this is too new for most of your interests...

Kevin Anderson, Dubuque, Iowa