One conquest leads to another...

[MacMan]

I was away visiting friends the other day and during the evening we decided to do a bit of skip-raking (ie. "dumpster diving"). This produced an original Apple Extended Keyboard, two AppleDesign keyboards, one ADB mouse and a Performa 5260! All attention was on the 5260 but when we got it home it wouldn't start at all. I re-seated the SIMMs, re-set the motherboard and checked all the connections but the 5260 was still a lemon. So I stripped it down of all parts and decided to throw away the remaining carcass/CRT.

So anyway, the really juicy bit! Yesterday I took the dead 5260 to the local dump and dropped it off in the TV/CRT disposal area (basically a large shipping container). Naturally I had a look at what was there and it was mostly old beige PC CRTs and TVs. I was about to leave when something caught my eye: a graphite iMac G3! It was buried under a couple of CRTs but I dug it out and stuck it in the car. Got it back to the house and it works: it's a 400MHz machine with 256MB RAM, 12GB hard drive and OS X Jaguar installed. I decided to give it to the guy who's house I was staying in as he had been talking about buying a G3 iMac off eBay for a while. He bought a wireless USB keyboard and mouse for it and is delighted!

My personal haul from all this were the keyboards and I'm especially keen to get the Extended keyboard cleaned up and established somewhere in my collection.

 

[Mike Richardson]

I wish we had a CRT disposal area here, where you could actually take things out of it. I think any place that accepts CRTs here, someone takes it away into a back room or something never to be seen. So many useful iMacs, etc. could be gotten that way.

 

[Byrd]

Cool score, was the iMac damaged in anyway from being shoved under a pile of crappy old PC CRTs?

JB

 

[funkytoad]

very nice!

Places like that can often be a good find.

 

[Christopher]

I know of a place near me that charges $2 to dispose of CRT's.

 

[Temetka]

Nice.

Glad to see the iMac go to someone who will enjoy it.

 

[MacMan]

The iMac was in perfect condition despite having had two 15" CRTs sitting on top of it. Fortunately the shipping container was set up so people could carefully carry stuff inside without throwing it so everything in there was in pretty good condition. The attendants of the dump said they don't mind if folks take things away as it is better than the stuff going to landfill.

I had a swift look at the other stuff there but there wasn't anything interesting. There was an electronics bin nearby but it was mostly full of old printers, kettles and toasters.

 

[aphetica]

I really really wish we had something like that around here.

My roommate works at a Staples, she says they charge like $10 to dispose of your old electronics. Apparently they have a whole room of unwanted computers/etc and no one is allowed to take them. I wonder what fate they will suffer?