[Coco] And on the delusional EBAY auctions post today

[Chris Osborn]

> On Apr 8, 2015, at 2:04 PM, Bob Devries <devries.bob at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Over here it's the same. I think the safety requirements is what killed it. The cost of having each electrical item "tagged & tested" went way beyond the value of the item.

The whole “oh noes personal information!” is what killed it here. I did find a P3 motherboard in a case at a Goodwill Outlet a couple of weeks ago, and when I tried to buy it the clerk told me they can’t sell computers. But he knew that the real issue was the HD, and since it was just a mobo with no HD he let me buy it. I actually ended up stripping the mobo out of the case and taking only that since the case had no sides and everything else had been stripped.

I know you’re thinking "why don’t they just sell the computers without the hard drives?” I think most of the people that would be buying them would expect a fully working computer and wouldn’t understand how to install a hard drive or an OS. The labor involved for Goodwill to run a boot-and-nuke followed by a Linux install would also be too much. And for older computers with no hard drive it would be too much training to try to get their employees to understand.

However there’s another independent thrift store I’ve been to that does occasionally have old PC towers. They haven’t had anything interesting yet though.

--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com