Oh I Wish I Worked for a School!

[cinemafia]

Or otherwise a non-profit...because then I could go after this!

Actually, I have two relatives who are either teachers or in some part of the school system, but they're a bit of a ways to make claiming it logistical...that and it would be another case of 'how do I move all of this and where do I put it'.

:-/

 

[Bolle]

OH MY GOD!!

 

[MultiFinder]

OH MY GOD!!

8-o :O 8-o :O 8-o :O 8-o :O 8-o

 

[Bunsen]

GHAAAH!!

 

[aftermac]

8-o

 

[MacTCP]

;D

 

[Quadraman]

I'd form a 501©3 corporation just to get those if I could pick them up.

 

[Unknown_K]

Yea, I would not mind one of those systems.

So when nobody goes for it (they must be looking for a huge tax write off since the gear is worth little these days), what will they do with the items?

 

[cinemafia]

Yeah, you could start your own filmmaking school with these...heck, ten years ago when I started at CalArts, we only had two machines that we're setup with Avid hardware.

 

[The Macster]

How much must all that have cost new I wonder...stuff like that reminds you just how depressing the depreciation of computer equipment is! :'( The Macs alone would surely have cost an absolute fortune...

 

[cinemafia]

Well, assuming they got them around 10-12 years ago, each system would have been literally tens of thousands (US$) with all the Avid stuff...multiply that out and include all the spares, and you're probably approaching a quarter Mil...maybe even more.

 

[Patrickool93]

Shall I break out the 1995/1996 issues of MacWorld and start price checking?

 

[4seasonphoto]

During a previous career in broadcast television back in the early 1990s, I sat in on an Avid demonstration, and I recall our station's chief engineer inquiring about the price, being told that it was "around $50,000", and him replying "not bad".

But all video sources at the time, even D2 digital video tape, required REAL TIME analog transfer into Avid! No such thing as direct data transfers via Firewire in those days!

Today, I look at $800 Panasonic consumer camcorders you can carry in the palm of your hand, yet they boast 3 CCDs and 1080i high definition video and I think how amazing that is.

 

[Quadraman]

I wonder if any of them are Mach V's?

 

[funkytoad]

See, I work for a school.

If they were anywhere near Seattle, I would pick 'em up and distribute them on the MLA. Let me know if you see anything like this in Seattle.

 

[QuadSix50]

I also work for our school district in Miami (I'm a shared tech at two elementary schools). Because most of those items usually tend to be tagged by the property control department for our district (usually if the purchase was $1000 or greater), they not only stay within the system forever but they still hold their original value in the eyes of the property control department. They even count the tagged items from before when the limit was $750 or greater).

So yes, an Apple II would still probably be worth over $1K in the eyes of the property control department. All items that are surveyed out end up in a warehouse where they're either reused by other schools/departments or recycled.

Yes, 'tis a shame. :/

 

[Patrickool93]

My districts does basically the same thing, but what makes it worse is that I know there is a barn full of Apple //e's and various service parts that will either be recycled in the next few years or tossed in the dumpster (Which at that point I can take them) or kept sitting in the barn. I see them from time to time, and it seems the 1st and second rows have a little water damage (they're stacked) but there is literally hundreds of them :'(

/me writes a very nice letter to the Superintendent, who sold him his Volkswagen...

 

[Mike Richardson]

The districts here in Texas are different I guess. Old computers, be it Macs or PCs, are rounded up into pallets and sold through online auctions at http://www.lemonsauctioneers.com/online.html . Basically every Houston district and many other southeast Texas districts participate there. The auctions are similar to eBay except you must have a $100 deposit on file with Lemons Auctions before you can bid. When you win the item, you have to go to the district's warehouse with a truck to collect the pallet(s). The districts understand that the computers depreciate and that they won't get a huge amount for them.

I think this method is stupid though. Instead why don't they sell packages of a CPU, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers, and maybe a printer, directly to the public? It would benefit low income families who could get a very cheap computer; a lot of the PCs they sell off now are actually not bad, like Pentium 4s which would do fine on the internet.

Recently Humble ISD sold off a huge stock of AIO Macs. I placed $5 bids on a bunch of the pallets and won 3 of them.

 

[Unknown_K]

Post is gone, wonder if somebody picked it up?