Computer Reset Adventure!

[Redmaus]

Hi, as many of already know I recently went to a place called computer reset which was liquidating their buildup of retro electronics and other equipment. The person managing it named Justin is a very nice individual and I am very happy he was the one in charge and not someone else, this was probably the best experience I have had in a scrounging environment.
I went there twice, on two separate weekends. I had a blast both times and definitely want to do these types of events more in the future.

Without further ado, here are some pictures of my time there. I didn't get many pictures the first time, but was sure to get them on my second go.

Here is the outside of the store:

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First look inside:

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Pictures of the interior rooms:

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Floppies all over the shelf to the left:

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Every single one of those boards on the shelf were rubberdomes

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Most of the building had a lot of debris on the floor like this:

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The IBM box you see toward the right side had a NIB XT model F in it!

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Some of the rooms were completely miscellaneous, bunch of floppies visible in the image before:

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My father taking pictures(he spilt coffee on his shirt before we went in )

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One of the rooms without working lights:

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A few outdated PC's

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They weren't letting people in this room:

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Some of the rooms weren't too easy to navigate:

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That's it for the interior for now, I need to arrange the photos I have better, I'll update this post with more in the future.

Onto the big warehouse!

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The first area had a few keyboards I nabbed, but the gold was on the higher pallets and in the middle of the piles.

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That is unfortunately all I can post for now, I need to leave for work in a few minutes and if possible I will update this post with more information later, as well as some of the rarer more intriguing boards I got when I get home(possibly in a new thread) I need price checks on a lot of the things I got, because I have never seen the exact model sell on ebay or here on DT. There aren't many boards left now, if any at all. I'll try and head back next week to help them clear some stuff, i'll see if I can uncover anymore but its doubtful.

Also what is in my sale thread equates to less than a quarter of my current hoard, this is less than a third of what I got sitting in my room:

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[depletedvespene]

Woah... just... woah. Words don't describe the envy I feel right now.

[Anakey]

how an earth were they able to run a business with everything being in such a mess with things dumped everywhare i mean great for us that want the stuff but how the hell would you find anything if it was a part that was needed etc

[User101]

how an earth were they able to run a business with everything being in such a mess with things dumped everywhare i mean great for us that want the stuff but how the hell would you find anything if it was a part that was needed etc

lol when you have too many stuff the place literally becomes a junk yard. look at Rhode Island Computer Museum's warehouse. Although that one is not this messy but you can still call it a junk pile.

[matt3o]

holy mother...

[Redmaus]

how an earth were they able to run a business with everything being in such a mess with things dumped everywhare i mean great for us that want the stuff but how the hell would you find anything if it was a part that was needed etc

Apparently the owner bought entire stocks at once when a company needed to upgrade so there is just a plethora of things that were difficult to sort. I don't think the business was like that the whole time, I think the situation got out of hand after awhile. I could be wrong.

[Red_October]

Looks just like the place I work for, before we lost two consecutive storage facilities and had to thin out our inventory! I even recognize a lot of the equipment (Toshiba notebooks, the Panasonic printer, and many crappy old computers of that certain vintage where they're too old to be useful but too new to be anything like collectible). My HP 26xx keyboard, Sanders Associates 720 keyboard, Fujitsu Brown Dasher keyboard and F-XT keyboard came from there in addition to myriad vintage systems (DECscope, Datapoint 8200, Acme portable, DECPC 450D2 MT, DEC 486 Notebook, Fujitsu Stylistic ST 5031D, etc.) and a number of notable systems were sold through eBay as well, DEC PDT-11/150, HP 9000, countless 286, 386, 486 & Pentium notebooks, 5150, DEC Multia (never in my life have I seen something so rusty that still works fine that didn't also say "Chevrolet" on it somewhere), and many more I forget. Places like this are a treasure-trove and I'm glad one of us got to save a few pieces from the scrapheap!

[Redmaus]

Looks just like the place I work for, before we lost two consecutive storage facilities and had to thin out our inventory! I even recognize a lot of the equipment (Toshiba notebooks, the Panasonic printer, and many crappy old computers of that certain vintage where they're too old to be useful but too new to be anything like collectible). My HP 26xx keyboard, Sanders Associates 720 keyboard, Fujitsu Brown Dasher keyboard and F-XT keyboard came from there in addition to myriad vintage systems (DECscope, Datapoint 8200, Acme portable, DECPC 450D2 MT, DEC 486 Notebook, Fujitsu Stylistic ST 5031D, etc.) and a number of notable systems were sold through eBay as well, DEC PDT-11/150, HP 9000, countless 286, 386, 486 & Pentium notebooks, 5150, DEC Multia (never in my life have I seen something so rusty that still works fine that didn't also say "Chevrolet" on it somewhere), and many more I forget. Places like this are a treasure-trove and I'm glad one of us got to save a few pieces from the scrapheap!

I definitely want to find more places like this, but chances are slim since most people try to wring all the money they can even if you only grabbed like 5 things, let alone a whole van full of boards. Erecyclers just won't let you in if you aren't a company. They definitely had a bunch of complete systems and monitors, the first time I was there I saw people pulling out a couple wrapped apple II's in mint condition. I actually grabbed an entire IBM terminal system(the guy there wanted me to) after he saw I had this:

Spoiler:

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Probably the best thing I grabbed. I found it while climbing up high on pallets sandwiched in a a dark corner between two boxes! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it.

I loaded up a flash drive with pictures of the boards I have cataloged so far and the rest of the pictures taken at computer reset, so I can update this post at work. Stay tuned!

[Redmaus]

Here's some of the neat stuff I got!

Cumulus yellow alps keyboard with interesting caps(of course ONE slider had to be broken)

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Memorex Brown Space Invaders terminal keyboard(this thing feels really nice if it was ANSI I'd probably want it for myself)

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Interesting white alps phone keyboard, this thing is an absolute whale and strangely enough the switches appear to be sealed with plastic over them.

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A NOS AT model F chassis! I think I only have one of these but its still a great find. I also have a filthy AT keyboard with a terrible condition chassis so I can transplant this puppy into a case!

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And probably the coolest thing I found other than the beamspring:

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Already desoldered and sent off to E3E and gainsborough!

Those are the pictures I currently have with me, I definitely have some cooler stuff that hasn't been processed yet. I am also currently thinking of altering my prices in the sale thread(reductions), any input on that score would be much appreciated!

[Raumfahrer]

amazing, what board did the stiped-amber switches come with?

[Redmaus]

It came with a tandem 65-something board, the only keyboard in existence that contains striped amber alps.

[depletedvespene]

You... you got a white whale.

I also couldn't help but noticing that Quattro manual over there. Had I gone there, even thinking in "keyboards only" terms, I'd have gotten that manual. Quattro is the spreadsheet that should have been the dominant one in the market until this day, not Excel. Oh, well...

[snacksthecat]

You... you got a white whale.

I also couldn't help but noticing that Quattro manual over there. Had I gone there, even thinking in "keyboards only" terms, I'd have gotten that manual. Quattro is the spreadsheet that should have been the dominant one in the market until this day, not Excel. Oh, well...

Miguel over here talking about software like it's his ex girlfriend that got away

[depletedvespene]

You... you got a white whale.

I also couldn't help but noticing that Quattro manual over there. Had I gone there, even thinking in "keyboards only" terms, I'd have gotten that manual. Quattro is the spreadsheet that should have been the dominant one in the market until this day, not Excel. Oh, well...

Miguel over here talking about software like it's his ex girlfriend that got away

MY life, MY regrets! OKAY?!

Now, don't get me started about those abandoned M122 keyboards that I failed to rescue from the Green Mud Bank back in 2004... THAT is an actual sob story.

[Redmaus]

MY life, MY regrets! OKAY?!

Now, don't get me started about those abandoned M122 keyboards that I failed to rescue from the Green Mud Bank back in 2004... THAT is an actual sob story.

The worst one is the all the kishies that got shredded because the recyclers thought they would have banking data on them...

[depletedvespene]

MY life, MY regrets! OKAY?!

Now, don't get me started about those abandoned M122 keyboards that I failed to rescue from the Green Mud Bank back in 2004... THAT is an actual sob story.

The worst one is the all the kishies that got shredded because the recyclers thought they would have banking data on them...

That's certainly the worst sob story. I don't think many DT regulars will disagree.

[Redmaus]

At least Ellipse is making new ones. I really wanna find another Beamspring or Unsaver. It's fun to find stuff. I'm not even gonna keep the beamspring to be honest, too big to be useful on my desk and I don't like ISO style enters. I'm probably not gonna put it on ebay either because I'd rather have it go to someone here so I can see what they do with it. I don't think I want more than $800 for it, because I know I don't like to pay that much for keyboards.