School auctions

[Mike Richardson]

Got about 20 AIO G3 Macs

5 QuickSilver G4s

5 DELL PCs

Few off brand PCs

2 DELL Monitors

More than 5 Blue G3s

14 iMacs

At least 25 Design keyboards and mice

Entire box of power cables

 

[Temetka]

Nice.

Now off to e-bay you go.

 

[Christopher]

There's a Jr. High by me that still uses 5260 AIO's.

 

[mac2geezer]

How much for ADB mice?

 

[defor]

(removed) apparently I didn't get the point...

 

[Mike Richardson]

So let me get this straight.. you complain about a company buying lots of school sale equipment only to resell them on ebay, then you plan to do the same yourself? (unless you can come up with a good reason you need 20 g3's)

They are a recycler. They are probably recycling the Macs. They have NO track record of reselling Macs on eBay. I would have no problem with the company reselling the Macs.

 

[iamdigitalman]

how much for one of the quicksilvers? PM me please.

The G3 AIOs are beasts, are they not? I have one now, gonna go get another one. they are also very finicky. Like cats...

-digital

 

[Torbar]

How much would you want for a b&w g3?

 

[Christopher]

No man, its mine! As soon as I can get him a decent G4 system.

 

[Mike Richardson]

How much would you want for a b&w g3?

They have the slower processors, maybe $20 or so + shipping? I'll put a little extra RAM in it. I have a few available I can sell, PM me.

I also have a really sad broken one. It's missing two handles at least and it's scratched. $10 for that one.

PM me if interested.

 

[Mike Richardson]

How much for ADB mice?

Couple dollars each, PM me if you're interested.

 

[Cory5412]

So let me get this straight.. you complain about a company buying lots of school sale equipment only to resell them on ebay, then you plan to do the same yourself? (unless you can come up with a good reason you need 20 g3's)

They are a recycler. They are probably recycling the Macs. They have NO track record of reselling Macs on eBay. I would have no problem with the company reselling the Macs.

Except that both companies were known e-bay sellers with currently happening Mac auctions, on eBay.

Somewhere, we have to get the resources to build new electronics, and some of that simply has to come from the recycling of old electronics.

Sure, we don't have to destroy every 5260 in the name of progress -- but we also don't need to preserve every Mac ever made, purely because they're Macs. That's just like saying we need to preserve every Dell computer ever made, purely because they're Dells.

 

[Mike Richardson]

Sure, we don't have to destroy every 5260 in the name of progress -- but we also don't need to preserve every Mac ever made, purely because they're Macs. That's just like saying we need to preserve every Dell computer ever made, purely because they're Dells.

Crush all the CRTs you want - we definitely have a glut of those. Most of the time, pallets of monitors only go for $5 or $10 each on the auctions. Get some metals out of those.

We are talking about entire useful computers though - you can use them to type and draw and e-mail and maybe even a little bit of web browsing, you can play old games on them, if someone just takes the time to load a bit of software you can have a super cheap useful computer! The Power Mac 5xxx, used to go for so cheap that I could buy a pallet of them, with keyboard and mice and power cables and sell ENTIRE systems for $5 each, with AppleWorks or something like that loaded on them, useful system you can buy for spare change you have lying around. A useful computer, that's a lot better than a bunch of crappy metal, or even worse the computers going to India or China so little kids can breathe in some f'ked up smoke.

I have the knowledge and desire to take the Power Macs and make them into useful systems that people will gladly buy and enjoy, but instead this recycler is buying them up so he can make $5.

 

[LCGuy]

The problem is though, is that no matter what, its simply not possible to save every computer. The thing is, recycling is very good for the planet, much better than harvesting it for more raw materials. And on top of that, if he crushes say, 10,000 5260's, there's still several hundred thousand more of the things still out there.

 

[Mike Richardson]

The problem is though, is that no matter what, its simply not possible to save every computer. The thing is, recycling is very good for the planet, much better than harvesting it for more raw materials. And on top of that, if he crushes say, 10,000 5260's, there's still several hundred thousand more of the things still out there.

Overall, yes. But we are talking right here, right now, I could have these Power Macs in my hand right now, and putting together systems, and selling those systems to people that can use them. Maybe in another city that's not possible and the only practical choice is to recycle the computers, but right now I have the means to repurpose those computers and I can't.

 

[Cory5412]

It sounds like both of you are out to make a buck -- it's just that the recyclers have got bucks that are scaled up a little bit.

Honestly? There's a certain point at which you shouldn't expect someone to be able to use an older computer simply because they're "low-income" or because they're younger than a certain age. (Although I'm an advocate of good old-fashioned education that puts a focus on the actual concepts that are to be learned, and not "using a computer for everything we can.")

A low-income household doesn't need an old slow machine for typing or drawing, they need something with which they can keep up on the news and with which they can hunt for a job, or communicate with potential employers.

Old computers are great to have around as a hobby, for someone who already has a modern computer, and who has time to play older computers. But there are a lot of situations too where it's simply silly to have a modern computer as well as an older computer. I'll be the first to admit that about half of what I do on my computer could be done on the 840av.

But the 840av (or just about any other non-newworld Mac) on its own uses twice as much electricity as my iMac, and the other half of what I do is so impossible on the 840av, it's not even funny to think about it. Plus I live in a dorm, and the fewer things I have to shuffle around to get to the very limited space on my desk, the better.

 

[Unknown_K]

There are tons of 3 year old PCs that can be usefull systems but get recycled, I don't think 10 year old systems are any better then the 3 year old PCs because they happen to be Macs.

I don't agree with the crush all the CRTs you want comment, there are plenty of proprietary monitors out there that are needed to keep old systems running correctly (special refresh rates, connector types, recolutions, scan rates etc).

Most of what we are talking about here are for collectors, not people who want a 10 year old machine to get on the net. Freecycle has plenty of more modern items free, craigslist has plenty of newer items cheap. The cost of brand new machines is under $500 with monitor.

 

[Cory5412]

Yeah, and for $300-400, you can get a really nice brand new computer, complete system. That's the biggest reason I think we should stop trying to afflict the "low income" and the children with old Macs. (Especially the low income. The children should get lego bricks, or crayons and paper.)

Sure, those cheap computers are a form of e-waste, eventually they'll get recycled and make new e-waste.

There's a justification in here somewhere for discontinuing all budget PCs and only selling computers we know will last awhile. But that's like, contrary to the American Dream or something.

 

[iMac600]

Those older systems are ghastly at even light email and web browsing by todays spec, it's just simply too impractical to use them for work anymore (unless it's your hobby or passion).