deskthority

I recently started going to the sorting center and they let me look inside this large open top dumpster used for electronics. I'm free to take whatever I need. Still hoping to find some keyboards eventually

The last time I went, I brought home an IBM Selectric typewriter, a Chiligreen laptop w/o charger, two HP laptop chargers, a dozen or so different stick of RAM etc.

Today I got a complete 486 PC, a working 17" NEC LCD monitor and 5 processors one of which is an Athlon II X4 640. Couldn't believe it myself! There was also a motherboard for the Athlon but I haven't tested it yet.

Any of you do this? It just seems such a waste for all of this stuff to end up being torn apart for raw materials.

Whenever I go there to throw away the g81 cases etc. I have a look. The problem is, they don't allow you to take anything with you.

You take the train (S) or you drive (P) ..
Then you burn ...

Reuse is better than recycling.

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" so they say. All are better than "Burn, Bury, Dump on Nigeria."

Not quite the same, but beside a dumpster I found a Raidmax Smilodon case with an Asus P5N32-E SLI motherboard, Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor and a dead HP IDE DVD-ROM drive. I still use the motherboard and processor as my main system today, although the case is now a black Antec P180.

Unfortunately here we have one company that handles the only two ewaste drop-offs for around 30 miles any direction, and they have a rule of don't even walk near the stuff. I've gotten kicked out a couple times...but apparently they let certain people take stuff, or so I've heard.

I picked up a commodore 64 in original package and all, but the dude running the recycling station got mad at me because I even dared to look at the electronic waste before asking. I had to give him the dog eyes and a huge apology in order to take the commodore with me. One time I saw around 40 IBM keyboards in the electronic section and thought I had struck gold but sadly they were all useless rubber domes.

In my experience, you can often get away taking a lot off good stuff if you just kindly ask them... before you start digging.

I think your metod often works better as no decision is needed. Take it and apologize later if necessary

Yep. It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

Broadmonkey wrote:In my experience, you can often get away taking a lot off good stuff if you just kindly ask them... before you start digging.

Yeah, that's what I did and it worked. I'm now on good terms with both guys that work at the gate. It's a bit unpleasant to be seen by people who bring in their "garbage" since someone could eventually say something to the bosses.. but so far so good. I'm already looking forward to my next visit and tomorrow will be a fun day at work trying out all the "new" stuff.

1st test - 486 PC:
486DX4 100MHz, 32MB RAM, WD 40MB HDD,...

The motherboard is a late-gen 486 from 1994. It has an integrated IDE controller and no VLB slots. Powers up but doesn't boot because the hard drive appears to be dead. Luckily I've got a 200MB HDD stored away for emergencies like this one

What other emergencies did you have in mind when you kept that 200MB HDD?

Turns out the BIOS incorrectly detects the hard drive and it's really a 2.5GB but it still doesn't work

100MHz DX4, eh? I had one of those. It had a SoundBlaster AWE-32 in it eventually. Chock full of arcane slots.

You could also try with an IDE<-->CFC adapter, and whatever size CFC you want.

Just saved this Sony KDL-32EX302 from the dumpster. Manufactured in 10/2011. Wouldn't turn on so I opened it up. Nothing looked burned, checked the fuse (no beep) so I replaced it and BANG! A working LCD TV for free!

There's a few e-waste skips around my university that are often goldmines for amazing things. Some of the coolest things I've found so far are two SGI O2s, a broken SGI Indigo, an IBM InfoWindow 3153 complete with Model M2, a few Dell AT102W, a Thinkpad X61 (sans battery) and some others. It's a complete waste for some of these gems to go to waste, really. I actually found the Thinkpad just after I ordered a new Thinkpad x121e for myself so I fixed it up a bit and gave it to my mum. Two years on, and the skip-dived X61 is still working perfectly and my x121e is falling to pieces!

I found an ISO Model M, and this in the same place :P

I had a dream the other night that someone here had advised me to go around town calling into local businesses to see if they had old keyboards. I forget what the outcome was, but, strangely enough, after waking up and going back to sleep, I had a sequel dream — I went into some building and there was an office with the door open, and a heavyweight black chap who looked like a security guard. While I was allowed in, they denied having anything, but someone dumped a large plastic box on the table in front of me. It was full of broken keyboards, mostly with jammed keys (probably thinking of that melted thing from Ascaii) but there was a cream (?) slimline Alps CM keyboard with black keycaps with Japanese legends (but pretty busted), an AT-style, Philips spacesaver keyboard of some kind sealed in a giant bubble pack (couldn't tell what it was, I was hoping for NMB), and an all-black model M (not M13) with a load of missing keycaps and bent springs. That was it, I think. Makes a change from dreaming about my old hobby of telephone card collecting.

In reality I'd end up with a load of rubberdomes with the letters worn off (a while back I seriously found someone who'd replaced all the worn-off pad-printed legends with hideous Tipp-Ex scrawlings — seriously, replacement keyboards don't cost enough to justify the shame of such a heap of scum on your desk for everyone to see, and fortunately it got replaced, but not with doubleshots sadly)¹.

Last night, though, I had another dream — no idea where I was, but there were two women present (one of whom I know online but have never met), and I was holding two keyboards on my lap, one being my Realforce …

As for dumps: ¹As Dictator of the World, when not completely preoccupied with wreaking viciously sadistic cruelty upon people who write errors like "haha ur not having ur USB drive back and I wont tell u why u suk" (WTF Windows, you know exactly what process has handles open on that volume, just ask Mr Russinovich), I'd create a mandate that all medium and full travel keyboards would be required to have sliders with Cherry MX-compatible mounts so that we can least fit black Taiwan Tai-Hao doubleshots even if people can't stretch to decent switches … but then back to torturing people as I've got a staggering backlog to work through and the elixir of life continues to elude me :(

Not exactly dumpster diving, but did find this on the side of the road near my place..

My bet is Alps.

Chicony 5161 or 5161A. alps.tw has that exact one (in Chinese, but with that same LED label) with blue Alps, but as a 5161 it could also be Cherry MX blue, Cherry MX clone (possibly Yali) or orange Omron.

His one is specifically a 5161A, where A isn't a subvariant code indicating the switch (as you norrmally get with Chicony), but a different model that has N-key rollover and (so far) either blue Alps or orange Omron switches. 5161A has its own FCC ID.

It's a Chicony 5161, it has White Alps Switches! FCC ID is E8H5IKKB-5161. I can take more photos if required

Wiki page on the 5161/2/5161/2A: [wiki]Chicony KB-5161[/wiki]

One photo, as you can see — definitely needs more.

White Alps? Same with that other bloke's Canon keyboard — white Alps came in earlier than I realised. Would be nice to get the variant number off the PCB, e.g. KB-5161Q along with any years present.

I uploaded some photos here:

http://deskthority.net/photos-videos-f8 ... t6835.html

We have this used electronics bin at work but I've been in every office and looked at hundreds of computers and they all have HP and Lenovo rubber dome boards so I won't ever find anything good I'm afraid.