Friday, January 28, 2011

Does Anyone Use Centronics Interface Cables Anymore?

I am hunting for the power supply for my antique Sony camcorder, and I have found every piece of museum grade computer junk you can imagine: DB25 to DB9 serial converters; Centronics to DB25 cables; DB25 to DB25 cables; stacks of 5.25" rails for mounting hard disks and CD drives in PC towers; a PCI LAN adapter.  There must be somewhere that can turn this stuff into something useful.  I mean, there must be third world countries where rural schools are overjoyed to have just received a hand-me-down 486 PC.

Somewhere there must be some guilt-ridden multimillionaires spending big money to sort, package, and distribute this stuff where someone could get some use out of it--instead of it just filling up a landfill.  The only question is WHERE?

UPDATE: A reader points to Free Geek Vancouver--which does exactly what I suggested someone must be doing. Fortunately, I put an ad on Craig's List, and found someone who does computer repairs on older computers interested in taking my collection of antiquities.  He needs the rails for an immediate project, and figures that he will end up using the rest of it at some point.

There is also PC Recyclers of Idaho, which does much the same thing, closer to home.

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