What some people throw away

[Stormcrow]

[Caution, long winded story ahead]

While out taking the garbage down to the dumpster, I notice an old beat up white case, the kind thats off white almost yellow, rust spots starting to form and half of the screws holding it together missing. You know the kind. Anyway, the entire thing seemed intact, like somebody finally got sick of the old thing hanging around and tossed it out. In hopes that it might still work or I can salvage something out of it, I scoop the thing up and bring it to my newly formed workbench.

To start, I'll admit, I've only been tinkering with computers for about 4 years now, and have really just started to sit down with the hardware and try and figure it out. So this relic was like a little treasure trove to me, as the oldest computer I've worked with is this socket 478 Dell I'm on now. First glance at the derelict case tells me I have something really old here, and a brief lookover the front panel reveals a 24x generic CD-ROM drive, and a 1.34 Floppy. Doesn't seem all that old, at first. No manufacturer label, and the beneath the power button there was a little button marked "Turbo" for what reason I hadn't the faintest idea at the time.

Inspecting the back, what immediately sticks out is the lack of PS/2 ports. No familiar Green and Purple input sockets..hmm. Further down, I see what appears to be a oversized S-video port, and that makes up the entirety of the I/O panel, which is welded to the case. Then the expansion slots, the first two are..some kind of connectors. The next I recognize as a serial port, wow for this thing to have to use an expansion card for the serial port it has to be up there in age. Next comes what I correctly thought was the VGA port, which means it must have a graphics card. Next a sound card interface, and dual dial-up modems, the speed unknown.

Now perplexed, I attempt to take the panel off to gaze inside. Except, there is no panel. Err..a quick look over shows the entire outer casing slides off, what a pain. Inside, the case is like a little rack mount, with everything having adequate support and rails. Spiffy. The PSU is some no name 230 watt deal, with only about an 8-pin main connector. The mobo is all glossy copper, as if rolled out before the days of colored PCB.

Glancing over, I gasp. An actual ISA slot, what luck! Above that, the familiar face of the PCI, and what appears to be a VLB in all its ripened glory. The first two expansion cards arent connected to a slot, instead plugged into the motherboard through mini IDE cables. I guess these to be the ancient mouse/keyboard serial ports of yore, and keep browsing. The hard drive, as I slide it out...a Western Digital 240 MB disc, oh how will they ever use so much space?! I finally find the RAM...and I had absolutely no idea what it is or what its capacity is. I quick search on google, and it matches best with something called SIMM, moving on...

Checking all the expansion cards, nothing seems to strike me as anything important (expect the sound card has a front panel connector, if these old ones can pull it off why can't Creative?). Being more of a graphics person, I unscrew the GPU, hoping to have something better (older) then my buddy's Rage 3D he stumbled across in the throwaway he found. Pulled it out, a quick check on the chipset and a squeal of delight. An actual, honest to goodness Trident GPU, caked in dust and with the sticker dangling off. What a find.

At last, I come to the processor. It's concealed beneath a tiny heatsink and fan, and after fumbling with the clips it pops off with a massive cloud of dust. No thermal compound holding it down? Looking down at the chip, I see the familiar Intel lettering, followed by Pentium. Doublecheck, nope, no III, or even II. Just Pentium. Great success.

What an adventure, and in 15 minutes with only a philips screw driver. Unfortunately, the system doesn't even power on, as I was hoping maybe I could load up Win95 for the hell of it, but just in the age of the parts alone it was great. I post this little story mainly out of boredom and insomnia, and in hopes that maybe somebody could give me a rough estimate of the age of the system. I think it should be in the 90's, but I don't know for sure

[Hitman]

Yup I would have thrown it away too. If you have never seen a computer of this age, check it out learn some stuff, and once you're done, throw it out. Better yet turn it into a computer recycling program.

It's likely one of the first Pentium's with a whopping 75mhz of speed. I am guessing the Ram to be about 4mbs give or take 2 mbs.

[PrOLifIC_onE]

Your guess is about right. P1 was introduced in 1993 and P2 was introduced in 1997 per this website. Sounds like a fun little find to mess with.

[Hitman]

It's rare I read a post over 4 lines, but this one cracked me up. It sounds like some archaeologist that dug up an ancient computer from a time long ago. This is the type of computer I first used. In fact I used an AT motherboard until about 1999. Back in the early 90's nothing was on the motherboard, it was all expansion cards. A little bit further back, and even the Hard Drive and Floppy drive controllers were expansion cards. Computers have come a very long way in the past 20 years. Hell 10 years ago 266mhz was considered a fast computer, and a 1GB Hard drive was huge, 64 megs of ram was in high end systems, and an 8 mb Video Card was awesome.

[PrOLifIC_onE]

Yeah, I messed with an old computer back in the day, way before pentiums came out. It was considered a 'dinosaur' at that time. I didnt get very far with it. I was doing more programming than hardware stuff at the time. I laugh now because I had issues just disconnecting and reconnecting the old floppy drive at the that time.

Then, the first PC that I got after marriage was an old 486/66. For those that don't know, 486 was the processor-type before Pentium. It was 66mhz. It had something like a 300mb HD. A year or two after that I bought my first CD burner (2X) for about $125. That thing was awesome! LOL

[yurimxpxman]

Old machines are great for Unix terminals, especially ones driven by SSH. I'd hang on to it. And if you're not interested, then I am ;-)

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by yurimxpxman

Old machines are great for Unix terminals, especially ones driven by SSH. I'd hang on to it. And if you're not interested, then I am ;-)

Yeah cause everyone needs a Unix Terminal at home. You can put it right next to your VCR and your Cassette Walkman.

[Reloadron]

Did you ever notice what one finds on a treelawn is directly proportional to the area (neighborhood). Wealthy to Upper Class areas tend to toss all sorts of great stuff out. Then moving to the middle income areas nets lesser good stuff. Finally in the dirt poor areas there is nothing of any value to be found on the treelawns.

Ron

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by Reloadron

Did you ever notice what one finds on a treelawn is directly proportional to the area (neighborhood). Wealthy to Upper Class areas tend to toss all sorts of great stuff out. Then moving to the middle income areas nets lesser good stuff. Finally in the dirt poor areas there is nothing of any value to be found on the treelawns.

Ron

Sounds like a professional dumpster diver. I have always had good luck around corporate dumpsters. Also on Military Bases, when people are moving they tend to throw away good stuff, so they can make weight.

[Stormcrow]

Theres a couple more of these white little rusted cases that have popped up overnight, spring cleaning? Might take a look at those tonight or so, maybe make a keychain out of the processors.
I've pulled some great stuff out of the dumpsters around here, a toaster oven and food dehydrator that look and work like new, a room fan that lasted 3 years, a set of stereo speakers I use for my computer, a 20 gallon fish tank with all the equipment, a full size bed frame, refracting telescope and then a $200+ camera tripod to go with it. Lots of goodies to be had.