What to do with obsolete computers and cell phones

[gdr_11]

Yesterday I came across my old Gateway Solo 3100 laptop. It was a nice little machine in its day, but with no wireless, 640k RAM, and slow processor, it would probably have a seizure if I connected it to the net. Funny that a machine that cost a couple of thousand a decade ago is not worth $15 according to eBay. I also have a Palm Pre phone that I was using until 6 months ago and its camera, calling, text, and browser functions are all still good. Tried selling it with two chargers and two batteries for $25 with no luck.

What do you do with old tech equipment? Toss it, donate (to whom), or leave it on the front seat of the car with the windows down?

[billd]

I erase my computers and cell phones. I donate the cell phones to organizations that reuse them. I normally just recycle the computers.

[JAFGO]

I donate old cell phones to the local battered women shelter after deleting personal info. They can still be used to dial 911 if a lady is in danger.

Old computers I destroy the HD and take the corpse to the local recycler.

[Iknownot]

Donate phones to a shelter. Destroy the HDDs in the PCs and take them to an e-waste drop off or recycling center.

[GillaFunk]

http://www.earth911.com/recycling-center-search-guides/

[stilly]

There are a few places that might BUY it, but you are not going to get much, HOWEVER, if you could wipe it out clean, install Linux and see if it ran fast enough to look good, you might be able to gift or sell it as a kid's first laptop...

[gdr_11]

http://www.earth911.com/recycling-center-search-guides/

Thanks for the link, found several sites close by. Will also donate the cell; never thought about the shelters

[bohoki]

id probably try to play through secret of monkey island one more time

[orangeusa]

Good Will recycles as does the county (OC).

[MrFeetZ]

for old phones, you can use a free app (SalientEye or IPcam) and turn your old phone into a webcam. Even more cool is that you can operate the cameras LED remotely to light up the room. Budget night vision

[Cowboy T]

For older computers, I'd use them as LTSP terminals and set up computer labs with them. This is something I've been doing since 2003.

http://www.ltsp.org/

Distros with LTSP already built into them are as follows.

https://fedorahosted.org/k12linux/

https://www.edubuntu.org/

I've used both of the above distros in school computer labs, with kids on 'em, in production, and they indeed work very well. The REGLUE charity in Austin, TX has done the same thing in community centers in the greater Austin area. The kids love it.

Just about every computer built since 2005 (i. e. the last 10 years) has PXE-booting in it already, so it's a complete net-boot. USB thumb drives are supported for taking homework home, bringing it to school, etc.

Now, for cell phones, others have already provided some excellent suggestions.

[boy&hisdogs]

Keep them and experiment on them. Curious about a new operating system but dont want to commit to it and screw up your main computer? Want to practice jailbreaking before you risk your brand new $$$ iphone 6? You could also put Pandora or whatever on an old phone and just use it as a wifi radio.

Donating is always a good option if you arent interested in this stuff. You could give it to some kind of charity or give it to a kid to take apart or experiment with.

[Cowboy T]

Waitasec...the OP's computer has 640K RAM in it?

I'm thinking FreeDOS and Night Mission Pinball, baby!

http://www.myabandonware.com/game/night-mission-pinball-11

https://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/Night_Mission_Pinball

[ziconceo]

I can't belive no one has mentioned this.... SHOOT EM!

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

[bigbearbear]

I can't belive no one has mentioned this.... SHOOT EM!

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

Hah....yeah this.

However, remember you still need to dispose of them properly AFTER you've shot them up. And recycling centers might not be too thrilled to see a computer with lots of bullet holes.

And they make quite a mess, I've used old HDDs as targets and my colleague brought an old laptop too. There were junk EVERYWHERE after we've shot it and it can be hard to clean up. We laid a large plastic tarp to trap all the debris and it was a big help cleaning up afterwards.