Processing.
I was a serial computer hoarder. Not unusual in this company.

What makes the difference (and explains the "was" rather than "am") is that I once tried to build a functioning computer out of all the bits I had hoarded.

The Slot 1 Pentium III chip I'd hoarded didn't fit in the Socket 370 motherboard I'd thought "might be useful". So I hunted on eBay for an appropriate CPU... which came with a motherboard. Having solved that and started putting things together, I then realised the case I'd hoarded had a non-standard power connector and motherboard tray.

One shiny new ATX case later, I managed to fire up my PC of hoarded components. It got no further than a memory test. An investigation of the motherboard I'd carefully hoarded revealed that at some point in storage, the capacitors had bulged and leaked. The board I'd purchased from eBay worked, but was of a much lower specification. I wasn't having that, so a third board was hastily purchased from the world's favourite online auction site. This came with memory. I was pleased, up until I realised that the new RAM combined with my hoard was about four times what any motherboard of this age could address.

Still. At least the storage could legitimately come from my carefully curated collection! Well... yes. If I wanted a computer with a 10GB hard disk, a 5.25" floppy drive and a CD-ROM drive that didn't work. One afternoon of electronics disposal and shopping later, give or take delivery time, though, and I was up and running.

Nearly.

None of the graphics cards I had supported the native resolution of the panel I was connecting this frankenmachine to. Here I lucked out! Someone I knew had a hoard containing a graphics card that was useless for every possible purpose they had, but would work for mine. I swapped it for some of my pointless RAM.

To cut this worryingly elongating story into a handy tl;dr chunk: the only item which ended up coming from my gigantic hoard was a 3Com network card. Which I never actually remember storing in the first place, but I'm pretty sure 3Com network cards spontaneously appear in any critical mass of electronics. I opened my battery drawer the other day and there was one in it.

In conclusion? That comprehensive collection of computer bits that might come in handy one day is incompatible and useless. Defenestrate it with extreme prejudice, accepting that since you'll end up begging, buying or stealing everything anyway, you may as well regain the storage space.

(Says the man who, despite his own advice, still has a K6/200 CPU lying around somewhere. You know, just in case.)
(Timberwolf, Fri 4 May 2012, 22:05, 3 replies)

TINY
I still have a 3gig hard drive knocking around somewhere.
(andycrass loves two hats on, Sat 5 May 2012, 9:59, closed)

the 3com
it wasn't a 3c905b by any chance was it?
(liquidkristal, Sat 5 May 2012, 16:15, closed)

How did you KNOW?

ps. Since it's easy to glibly claim these sorts of things over the Internet in aid of an easy laugh or whimsy, and because I like to go that extra mile (usually because I'm lost, but the less said about that the better), I've opened the battery drawer and... lo!


(Timberwolf, Sat 5 May 2012, 23:29, closed)