What can I do with old gadgets

[Jun aka Pekto]

I still use my old junk........
Hauppage WinTV PCI tv tuner from 1998
MS Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick from 1995
MS Sidewinder Gamepad from 1996(?)
Floppy drives dating from 1992 although their use may end soon
Nikon Coolpix 995 digital camera from 2001
ATI Radeon AGP (the original Radeon) from 2000 still in use on an XP pc.
Labtec 4.1 speakers from 1999

Some that are really obsolete but still here:
Diamond Monster 3D (3DFX Voodoo 1) from Dec 1996
S3 Virge DX pci video card
Matrox Mystique pci video card
10Mb pci LAN card
A few dialup modems

I also kept software and games from the MS-DOS days:
- Steel Panthers from 1993
- 2 unopened boxes of Doom, id's breakthrough game, from 1993; they sent
me 3 games instead of 1. I preordered Doom a year in advance
- MS MS-DOS 6.2
- Bungie Myth 2 1999(?)
- Microprose Pacific Air War Gold (the best of the pre-3D flight sims) 1994
- Microprose Task Force 1942 (1992)
- Lucasarts Day of The Tentacle cd 1993
- Tie Fighter CD-ROM 1994
- Quake 2 1998
- Origin Crusader No Remorse 1995
- Vista Pro for Windows
- Impulse Imagine raytracing app
- Lucasarts Monkey Island games 1-3

I have a lot more software including those for Mac and Amiga (dating back to the late 80's). But, they're all in storage back in NV.

Add: Thank goodness for MS VirtualPC, DOSBox and ScummVM, I'm still able to use many of those old software under XP.

[mbeige]

There's something nice and interesting about old gadgets that still work perfectly.

[Jun aka Pekto]

There's something nice and interesting about old gadgets that still work perfectly.

There should be considering we paid our hard-earned moolah for them. I for one don't like things going to waste. That's why I still use my 2 almost 7 years old dual 17" Samsung CRT monitors even though we're perfectly capable of replacing them with more modern lcd monitors. Also, it was only last year when I finally ditched our 10-year old beige ATX pc cases. I'm kinda happy they lasted through 3 pc cycles during that 10 year span.

[mikey177]

Thanks for the ideas.

I was fidgeting with my old Beeper 150 pager and I tried putting a fresh battery in it. It still works perfectly. Maybe I'll use it as an alarm clock

The stuff that doesn't work, like the VHS camcorder (it's a huge piece of equipment that looks like the ones TV crews used to lug around), will probably be disposed of along with the recyclable trash. Other items in working condition will be donated to my kids' school as they are having a garage sale as a fund raising activity.

[mbeige]

In school where I also work, we have a shop there that has tons of lab equipment. A whole shelf is full of vacuum pumps (direct or belt driven), most are in need of rebuilding. I've already rebuilt one myself successfully (my supervisor provided the rebuild kit), and am working on the next. This time it's belt-driven, but it's a pain to disassemble considering it's cast iron (30 years old daw) but still pulls good vacuum! Amazing these machines can be.

For me, fixing them is like giving them another life. I appreciate it everytime the professor I rebuilt the pump for complements at how it works perfectly, like brand new.

To rebuild a pump at the manufacturer's shop would cost $1800 daw, but the rebuild kit was ~$160. Since I get paid student salary (considerably higher than the basic though, since it requires more skills), they save, I get to learn more things, and get to appreciate this kind of fine engineering.

If you have something you want to have fixed, see if your boy can learn to do it. We have a boy at home and my dad gave him a multimeter. Guess what? He was able to fix the phone grounds (static), convert the 220V outlet to a 110V for a spotlight we purchased here in the US, the old Sony stereo we had that didn't work, and tons more things he fixed.

Just my thoughts.

[smooth]

There should be considering we paid our hard-earned moolah for them. I for one don't like things going to waste. That's why I still use my 2 almost 7 years old dual 17" Samsung CRT monitors even though we're perfectly capable of replacing them with more modern lcd monitors. Also, it was only last year when I finally ditched our 10-year old beige ATX pc cases. I'm kinda happy they lasted through 3 pc cycles during that 10 year span.

fyi: the monitor i'm using right now (as i type this post) is almost 11 years old its connected to a dual-core cpu. that time i brought home the cpu, i was thinking, "gee, i wonder what will this cpu's mobo think when it finds out its being mated to an 11-year-old monitor?" in fact, the sticker on the monitor (which i haven't removed all these years) still says "designed for microsoft windows 95"

[Jun aka Pekto]

fyi: the monitor i'm using right now (as i type this post) is almost 11 years old its connected to a dual-core cpu. that time i brought home the cpu, i was thinking, "gee, i wonder what will this cpu's mobo think when it finds out its being mated to an 11-year-old monitor?" in fact, the sticker on the monitor (which i haven't removed all these years) still says "designed for microsoft windows 95"

The very first Packard Bell* 17" crt monitor had a very nice picture tube. It's main shortcoming was a max refresh rate of 75 hz. But, I considered its picture quality superior to the Samsungs I have here and even to some aperture grill crt monitors like the Sony Trinitrons. I bought one in 1995 and is still being used by my nephew to this day. Yup, you just don't throw good stuff away.

*Packard Bell switched to an inferior picture tube a year or two later.

[Jun aka Pekto]

As for other old pc's we've handed down to relatives over the years......

My nephews have just finally gotten rid of 2 old P-200 pc's. So now, the oldest pc's we have is a P2-266 from 1997 and a Celeron 400 from late 1998 with both running Windows 2000. Both are still great internet/homework pc's and both can still play a surprising amount of games eg, Age of Mythology and Quake 2.

Quake 2 is still an old favorite over there (NV). We'd have night-long fragfests whenever we visit.

A niece has my old Apple Powermac G4-400 (2000), again mainly as an internet pc. I've thought about taking it back, gutting out the insides, and converting it to another dualcore pc for my wife. We'll see when my niece gets tired of it.

Another old pc still in use is my P3-733 (1999) with XP Home and various Linux distros here. I use it surf questionable web sites, kind of like a recon, and then see what kind of trojans/malware gets triggered. That way, I know which web sites to avoid. It's also the pc my kid surfs the most from. If for some reason that pc gets whacked by a virus, I wouldn't cry any tears over it because it's old.

Other old pc's within our clan are:
- dual cpu P3-1ghz (Tyan Tiger mobo) 1999/2000(?) owned by the husband of my wife's cousin and who also owns a BF2 server.
- DIY Celeron 1.3 ghz 2001 of another nephew
- my wife's DIY AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (768mb ram/GF4-Ti4200+ ViVo) 2001

I also have an old Samsung 8mm camcorder which still works. But, a new battery is hard to find and the AC/battery charger is finicky (after I stepped on it and crunched it one night).

It's not just old gadgets.... I also have two 2.0L 4G63 turbo engines for my Laser (1G Eagle Talon, 2G Eagle Talon), the original Mitsu turbo from my car (current one's a Garrett)... plus boxes of memorabilia dating back from 1985 when I returned from RP. Of course, these stuff require I use rental storage. Otherwise, my wife would've thrown or given them away.

[hubertq34]

ilabas ang pagiging artistik ng pinoy... pwde pangdekor ang mga lumang gadgets... wag itapon magagamit pa yan in some other ways... wait ka lang...

[niky]

benta nyo sa H&R sa Pioneer malay nyo mataas ang valuation nila!

Second this. Best kind of recycling, actually, sell this stuff to some of the electronics dealers. But you might end up buying more obsolete equipment from them...

A full PC for 2-3k pesos? 386-486 nga lang... :rofl01: