spring clean out

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Three Valves
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Re: spring clean out

Post by Three Valves »

If I ain’t used it or wore it in the last two years, out it goes!!

But not the wife. :roll:
I am committed to the advancement of civil rights, minus the Marxist intimidation and thuggery of BLM.
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roweenie
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Re: spring clean out

Post by roweenie »

Public Displays of Affection?
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day".
WC8KCY
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Re: spring clean out

Post by WC8KCY »

nworbekim wrote:i have pulled all the hard drives from the old computers and i was looking for a way to delete the data... i can't remember what's there, but i'm sure passwords and accounts would be available if someone were smart enough to get into them...

a little research tells me a good way is to take them to the drill press and put a few holes through them... those little fellers are TOUGH!!! i put 3 in each one.

i don't know if anyone would take time to go thru a dump to find stuff like that, but one never knows...
One of my sidelines is vintage computer repair and restoration. Most Windows users do not bother to encrypt any of their files, and it is astonishingly easy to recover data from these systems, even if Windows is "password protected" or so corrupted as to be unusable.

There is a cottage industry of people who comb through dumps, thrift stores, and the like to collect old computers and recover the gold from the circuit boards. If the hard drive looks intact, they WILL plug it into a functional computer to see if anything was left on it. Never, ever assume that a functional hard drive won't ever be accessed again if you simply throw away the computer it's housed in.
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Matt G
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Re: spring clean out

Post by Matt G »

Degaussing is your friend! (Says the guy with a stack of hard drives.)

The feeling of cleaning out stuff is absolutely cathartic. Enjoy the feeling and the freedom.
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WC8KCY
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Re: spring clean out

Post by WC8KCY »

nworbekim wrote:That's one reason I never sell old computers... Just store them. These went back to the 90's... I pulled the drives and drilled them. I can't think they'd be readable. I have a half dozen more that I want to look at before I drill. I bought an interface that allows several different versions of HD's to be attached via USB. I used to be a file swapper and have tons of stuff from the pirate cove...

Vintage computer repair and restorer... I just tossed 2 big boxes of 80/90's Tandy Color computer I & II and maybe a III with peripherals... And a couple of Atari ST's with peripherals. One of the Coco's was a gray. It was a 16K computer when I bought it and I upgraded it myself to 64K. That kicked off my 30 year hobby as a computer hardware hacker. I did really almost shed a tear for that one... But I let it go.

I wondered if those would be valuable to someone. I can still go pull them out but I think my wife would kill me. I still kept an MC10 back. I have an original IBM pc green screen display I'm going to keep back.

Is there any value in software for the vintage computers? I tossed several hundred 3.5 floppy disks, i noticed a set of win 3.1 and 95 disks. Foxpro, gosh, I don't know what all...
Check eBay Sold Item listings and you will be shocked at what the Color Computer 3 and Atari ST sell for these days. The other Color Computers also fetch surprisingly strong values, as do many of the Program Pak cartridges.

My second computer was a Color Computer 2 which I also upgraded myself to 64K. Used Color Scripsit 2 to prepare my college papers for my first two years of college and used Spectaculator to manage my finances. I couldn't afford a diskette drive, so my work was all saved on cassette tapes.

Vintage PC and Mac games on diskettes can also be very valuable. Windows 3.1 and 95 diskette sets go for about 10 bucks. The version of 95 that comes on diskette is awful and deserves to be in a dumpster...
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MaryAnn
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Re: spring clean out

Post by MaryAnn »

I have a friend who is trying to do what you're doing, but he IS a hoarder and is having a hell of a time. Also has OCD, so he can't do anything unless it is perfect. He has two unlivable houses, just rented a condo to live in while he tries to get the junk out of the houses, but he has to look carefully at every single thing before he can decide what to do with it. And.....six weeks and he still has not slept in the condo because it's not set up perfectly yet. But I bet there are starting to be piles of stuff in there. I feel very sorry for this guy, who has a JD and a BA in Mus Ed, and lives like a bum. So bravo to you for getting on the stick and managing to do what you're doing.
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