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[tomh38]

Just the other evening I was out for a walk in my neighborhood.  It was the night before garbage pick-up, so everybody had their garbage at the curb; out of the corner of my eye I saw a computer tower under some bags and boxes of trash.  Normally I don't pick through people's trash, but I figured the thing might have some usable parts or something.  I put it over my shoulder and took it home.

When I finally got around to looking at it this morning I made a sort of surprising discovery.  The machine is a Pentium 4 1.5 Ghz, has 512 mb of RAM, an older but perfectly functional nVidia card.  All that was missing was a hard drive.

I put in an old (but quite functional) 40 gb hard disk in it, then proceeded to install VL 5.9 Standard on it.  No problems at all with the installation, and even 3D works fine for the screensavers.  The install took a total of about 15-20 minutes.  Naturally XFCE is very fast on it.  I have a neighbor a few doors down who's working her way through college.  I think she said she could use a newer computer.  If she wants it, it's hers.  If not, I'll either give it to someone else or use it as a backup machine for myself.

Thanks again to everyone involved in Vector Linux - you made my day and possibly someone else's too.

Tom

[rbistolfi]

Omg, lucky guy! That is a good story. I found 1 AR$ coin once, and since we are in the Lounge, I will tell. I was 16, I went to see a rock band at Haedo, like half an hour from home by train and a bus. I spend all my money during the night in perfectly legal stuff. The morning was already there when I took the train back. people rarely pay the train at Haedo so not a big deal, but the bus, that is a problem if the driver is not an Angel or something. I was walking through the Flores barrio, and I saw it, one shining coin, I was with my friend Diego so we look at our faces and started to run. I think I heard that song from the movie, that where the guy runs a lot. Man, the coin was there, beautiful, waiting for me. When I finally was there I tried ti pick it up. Someone put some glue on it and it was a solid syster of the street. Damn, I kicked, scratched with my fingers, I took a big rock and smashed it. No way. A guy from a tv show used a very strong glue, and he was recording all with his camera. I took my defeat. Walked to the bus stop, so sleepy, so tyred. The bus stoped, the driver watched me and said: do you want a ride?

[tomh38]

Wow, great story rbistolfi!  I'm curious ... did you end up on television, trying to get the coin?  I'm glad you at least got the bus ride.

Oh, an addendum to my story.  This was not the first time I've found a computer left for garbage.  A few years ago I read a story in the news about how Windows machines sometimes become so infested with viruses and spyware that they become unusable.  So, since some people have money to waste, they just buy a new one and put the old one in the garbage.  The one that I found recently is the best I've found so far.  I suppose it could have been left there by a gamer, since you can't play recent Windows games on a computer with specs like that.

Tom

[rbistolfi]

hehe, I dunno, that was a really bad show!

I heard about that, but always thought that was an exaggeration of Argentinian emigrants.
I have some some friends who really get surprised there is many people without a computer at home in some areas. I think is more frequent than we believe. Refurbishing and redistributing that kind of "garbage" is a very good thing. It helps to save resources and also is obviously great  for who get one of those. I am very happy that many people here does that kind of stuff, like Lagagnon, Lawquest, and some others I cant remember.

[Sivatheja]

OMG! Nobody throws computers in Garbage here in India. I'm keeping all my older parts on the way of upgrading my computer. You know! The parts I've discarded actually madeup another computer. I'm thinking of setting up a LAN in my house with these things. Each computer can take some load of my daily work easing life of my main computer.

[tomh38]

rbistolfi & sivatheja:

I completely agree with you guys.  I never get rid computer components that are still functioning.  I know that even if I don't have a use for them at the moment, I will eventually have enough to build a complete machine, which I then usually give to someone who doesn't have the money to buy a new one.

[Sivatheja]

The thing is we cannot discard old one, and not all at our home run heavy apps, so that old one would suffice for majority and moreover the actual reason  is that you  cannot throw off your old machine while it still runs, much kind of emotional attachment... the computer that I worked  on  for years

[nightflier]

I've saved several boxes from the landfill. It's quite rewarding when you bring them back to life.

One was an Intergraph Dual P-133 with 128 MB of RAM. Great machine built from top of the line parts. Bought some SCSI drives off eBay and used it for several years as a server. After that I put W98 on it and gave it to a friend who used it for another year.

Right now one of my testing machines is an AMD Barton 2600+ that someone discarded. Had to add a few things from my parts bin, but it's been doing a good job for almost a year.