Computers don’t go bad after a couple of years, that’s a myth. My computing setup came from the street including 6 screens & the gpus to control them. My desktop is 15 years old & laptop close to 25. Both run Debian & I’m looking into migrating the laptop to NetBSD since i386 was dropped from Debian.

Anyway. A friend told me he found an old computer in a bin earlier & so I went there to scalvage it. It is in poor condition and quite rusty but it is still computer shaped and I’m sure some bits can be re used. Although the mainboard looks in good condition it doesn’t start and just makes a faint high pitch squealing noise when I connect a known good PSU.

But on the way there I saw an interesting looking pile of bin bags near a block, there was nothing obviously computery about it but on the way back I walked past the same pile and was drawn to go investigate (also I was tired of carrying a heavy rusty old box on my head and wanted to rest).

Inside this pile of bags was one with a roughly rectangular boxy shape which looked quite computery, upon kicking it sounded distinctly computery so I decided to carry it home.

So now I’m walking down the street with one computer on my head & carrying a bag containing another. This happens quite frequently, yesterday it was microwaves. The trip home became a bit of a struggle & I had to keep stopping to rest.

The first computer was totalled but when I opened the bag the second one turned out to be spotless. It worked instantly & is a relatively modern mid spec i5 that would cost maybe ~ £200 to buy new today. It even had the OG manual & power cord in the bag with it. It can’t be much more than a year old. I listed it for £50 after reinstalling windows.

I might do something with the other one at some point but for now it goes in deep storage (a corner of a cupboard that is difficult to get to).