You can't judge all based on the experience of one.

This is true, I am being too retro. I also need to learn the new trends and if someone makes me aware of something new, I must look into it more.

I was hesitant to dumpster dive in bad weather. However, I spoke to a neighbor and he said that few years ago he dumped a very old desktop for recycling outside. Folks sometimes are forced to declutter, move etc., in winter and if this happens then they drop things closer as they can't carry them far. So, the one who goes out searching in bad weather may have some unexpected special luck in bad weather sometimes with IT stuff.

So far, I have never seen a tablet, ereader, cellphone, netbook, laptop etc., abandoned for recycling. But there is always a first time. Specially in winter.

People mostly leave laptops, tablets and such in a desk drawer or basement. You have to let everyone around know that you collect old stuff and they will usually be glad to clean out theirs. Only thing I couldn't use was an ipad, they are just so limited.

I've gotten an old IBM XT, some old 486's, a couple Sun servers, etc.

Yes, perhaps I must start chatting with folks locally to see what they discard, what they don't need etc., to learn in advance. Lots of folks living here, lots of apartments in City. However, I can try atleast a little.

I work in IT so I usually tell my cow-orkers and IT folk tend to have a lot of old stuff laying around.

This is so true, specially for sys admins where older servers are decommissioned regularly and given away. Very good point. :)

Puppy Arcade:
http://scottjarvis.com/page105.htm

Great distro for retro gaming with Emulators etc.,

There are period when I feel this thread has almost come to an end, but then something new comes up soon that I wish to share here.

This guy has some nice pics of the first flip-flop circuit I ran across. http://rexwiederanders.weebly.com/ib...echnology.html

An IBM engineer gave me a box full of these modules, unfortunately when my folks split up in the 70's and I was cruising around Viet Nam, they tossed them all.

Very impressive thanks for sharing. Went thru your site, glad you are teaching chemistry and your long dream came true. :)

Learned about turning a PC into Mac, wonder if this can be done with older PCs also:
http://www.hackintosh.com/
http://lifehacker.com/the-always-up-...tosh-o-5841604

Here is another career choice for you, since you have backgrounds in both Chemistry and IT, you can work with companies that provide Instrumentation for Chemical Analysis, Laboratory Software etc., A bit of work experience for about a year or so in Chemistry in Industrial Setting, specially in the area of Quality Control will help in this regard.

Yes of course, so long as the individual hardware components are compatible. For best results, study the parts list of existing Apple computers (motherboard, CPU, GPU, etc.) and try to find identical components for your build. You may need to pick and choose parts from multiple old computers to build your perfect Hackintosh.

Here are the minimum hardware requirements for OS X: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP728

Or, use that old computer for Linux, not Mac. Apple doesn't really approve/condone/support Hackintoshing, whereas Linux is totally free-as-in-freedom. :)

Just a correction, it's not my site, I found it looking for an image of the vacuum-tube modules. My Dad managed an Air Force data center in the 50's with an IBM I think 705 in operation, and I got the grand tour a couple times.

Found lots of cables dumpster diving, many were cut into two so that others can't reuse them, this was sad. Could only save 2 that can be used.