Re: Good thrift store find...

[et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black)]

Jonathan Adams (az268nospam@chebucto.ns.ca) writes:
> I bought a mint condition Apple IIgs monochrome monitor for $6 Canadian at
> a thrift shop.
> 
I paid five dollars for my IIGS, at a school rummage sale.  Sadly, I did not
buy all the floppy drives that they also had for sale that day.

I got a Commodore monitor with an Amiga 500 for ten dollars, at a Rotary Club
garage sale.

I've since brought home 2 other Commodore color monitors that were waiting
for the garbage truck.

A few years ago, I got an old TI laser printer for $25 (I waited till
the end of the school rummage sale, and the price dropped), which worked
for about a year and a half.  The toner ran out in the spring, and I was
wondering about finding new toner, and the price, and debating whether it
was worth keeping going.  But then the Rotary Club sale came along again,
and there was an HP Laserjet 4P for fifteen dollars.  It was low enough
to risk the money, but the toner seems in relatively good shape, and it
has a low page count.  And I upgraded its memory with SIMMs that I pulled
out of computers lying on the sidewalk.  So when I found a much huskier
HP laser printer last month in the garbage, I didn't even bother dragging
it home to see if it worked.

Fundraising sales by church, school and other community groups, at least
around here, tend to be a good source of such things.  People donate
because they no longer want the items, and since they are relatively
obscure items, they don't carry a high price.  I've had a chance at a
number of IIC systems at such sales.  Though, they often are not really
full systems; I imagine the owners of those know the value and try to
get rid of them through other means.

Of course, I think the best garage sale deal I got was a PowerMac 6100/60AV
last year for ten dollars, that had 2 32meg SIMMs.  I actually never got
beyond trying it out, because I put the memory in my main computer.
I suppose the Powerbook 1400C I paid forty dollars for last month was a
good deal, though it's lacking an ac adaptor, and I suspect the battery is
dead.

Mind you, I dragged home a 200MHz Pentium with a pair of 1gig drives
and 64megs of DIMM in the spring; it was waiting for the garbage truck.
I think that's the best thing I've found in the garbage. When I switch over
to it (it's basically the same as this Pentium I paid $150 two years ago,
but has a few little things in its favor) I can put the SIMMs back in the
Powermac.

  Michael

> Mike Spurgeon (mike@spurgeon.net) wrote: > : Tony Cianfaglione wrote:
> 
> : > That's a pretty good find too.
> 
> 
> : My best thrift store finds remain:
> 
> :   1. brand new, still shrink-wrapped video overlay card
> 
> :    2.a new IIGS w/ Imagewriter and drives, still in original 
> : packaging - only the boxes have been opened, literature still 
> : wrapped up.
>