Sentimentality and old hardware

Andrew_McP

Andrew_McP

Andrew_McP

Soldato
Joined
21 Apr 2003
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South North West
I just got back from getting a lift to the tip. Two perfectly functional but unloved CRTs, no end of old PC-related odds & sods, and even my old Aztec soundcard from the days when real men rewrote config.sys twelve times before breakfast.

I also finally dumped my tape deck. That was... strange. I haven't used it for about ten years, so was probably never going to. But somehow it was saying goodbye to my distant youth and all those hours spent recording Friday Night Rock with Tommy Vance. And recording mate's albums, obviously. Piracy was slower back then.

Sigh. Nostalgia is a terrible thing. :-) The stupid thing is that if my flat had a garage I'd probably have kept all that stuff even longer! I mean, if there was a zombie apocalypse tomorrow any functioning tech would eventually become useful as mankind slowly sank into the New Dark Age.

As yet though I see no signs of the zombie apocalypse, except on benefits day at the Post Office.

Andrew McP

PS I couldn't bring myself to throw out my collection of old CPUs though, or some of my vid cards. One day I'll make them into... er... um... I'll mount them on... um.... I'll, er... well, throw them in landfill, I guess. But how could anyone throw out old friends like the Celeron 300A, the Hercules Stingray 64, or anything with 3DFX printed on it? It'd be like throwing out the family dog just because it had, er... died.

Come to think of it, I should have dumped the lot. Sentimentality sux. :-)
 
I took a load of stuff to the tip last week, including a box of old VHS tapes.

The VHS tapes are still in the back of my car. I don't know why, I have no means of playing them, I just couldn't bring myself to bin them.
 
I had to throw away an input/output board when I moved a while ago.

I was dead set against it until I realised that mobos that take them have all gone the way of the dinosaurs.

Still should have used it to fashion some kind of weapon for said zombie apocalypse though.
 
I was on a bit of a nostalgia trip but I finally had a clear out of old pc stuff a few years ago. The only thing I kept was a US Robotics Courier modem, the rest went for recycling. Which reminds me to have another clear out.
 
I actually have an old Pentium CPU with a copper heartsink attached that I want to turn into a keyring. But what I really want to do is frame my ATI 9700 pro, my favourite GFX card, and it still works!
 
Got to have a good spring clean too: I live in a small flat and have loads o' stuff; ranging from plumbing/electrical fittings and car stuff to old computers and clothes.

I'm a natural hoarder, which doesn't help ..... "that'll come in useful one day" etc ..... unfortunately, when that day comes along, I know that I have said item but can't find the bloody thing!!

Yeah, chuck it all out/give to charity shops etc and start again.

BE STRONG!
 
Tapes are now redundant? Oh, why didnt someone tell me.

But how would i go about making up mega cool albums full of youtube recorded tracks!
Yes i still have tape in my car, and its an 04 car.

I also bought 3 vhs video players from a car boot a while back, i still have tapes to play on them!
 
There's so much crap at my parents' house it's unreal.
Windows 3.1 laptops, desktops, a bunch of useless 95/98 machines, dot matrix printer, monitors, the lot.

Nobody's got round to chucking it out but it has to be done one day. It's a shame but they're just totally worthless :(

-edit, just saw the Zip drive haha, there's one of those up in the attic too :D
There's also boxes of floppies and VHS..
 
TheMagicPirate said:
The VHS tapes are still in the back of my car. I don't know why, I have no means of playing them
Click to expand...

You should have spoken up a couple of hours ago. I just dumped 3 VCRs which has been lurking at the back of a cupboard! One was dead, one had murdered several tapes, but one worked fine. However I threw out all my tapes last year when I realised I couldn't remember the last time I'd watched any of them.

It just feels so terribly wasteful. There probably aren't any people left who could actually make half this stuff again even if we wanted to.

Still, I console myself with the thought that one day some genius will come up with a way to "mine" our landfill sites, perhaps with specifically designed bacteria, and extract useful materials from them.

Of course then the housing estates built on top of them will collapse, but that's a minor detail which technology will also have a solution for, I'm sure.

Andrew McP

PS My excuse for my hoarding inclinations is not being a driver. I know that I'd keep a lot less junk for so long if I had a car, because I regularly get the urge to purge. But usually there's no easy means to satisfy that urge. Even the Council turn their noses up at collecting most of your junk these days, no matter how much cash you throw at them.
 
bushmins said:
Tapes are now redundant? Oh, why didnt someone tell me.
Click to expand...

Not at all. I still have my tapes. I just never play them, so don't need a player. ;-)

Actually I do still have another very old friend who serves as a kitchen radio. I'm not sure I'd feed him tapes any more though. He just spits them out after editing them into plastic spaghetti.


Sadly mine looks a lot more "loved" than that, and lost its extending aerials about 20 years ago.

Andrew McP

PS My other New Year's Resolution will be to try and remember to use multi-quote!
 
I still have a tape deck I cant bring myself to bin it still works and who knows I might need to do some High speed dubbing at some point in the future....
 
I find it really hard to clear out stuff but I said to myself I would not keep any computer or laptop under 2.5Ghz so I've sold all the rest at boot sales ;)

Also thrown away old hardware I would never use like old game port controllers and ball mice :p

The less stuff I seem to have the easier it is to manage!
 
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