On Friday, June 30, 2017 at 5:17:44 AM UTC-4, Drew Klenotic wrote:
> On 27 Jun 17  17:10:00 James Harris wrote...
> 
> JH> On 27/06/2017 16:29, cbmeeks wrote:
> JH> 
> JH> > If you don't want the hassle of selling it, then by all means
> JH> > donate it.  
> JH> Here in the US, Goodwill is a TERRIBLE place to donate old computers
> JH> because they deem them worthless and send them off to recycle. 
> 
> To which Drew Klenotic replies...
> 
> That's not really true.  Just the other day I picked up a Timex Sinclair
> 1000 from my local Goodwill store (for $5!).  Also, I've heard sometimes
> they end up putting that stuff on their auction site.


OK, you're only seeing the odd-ball instances that didn't go to recycle. 
Obviously, if they sent 15 other Sinclair's to the recycle center you
wouldn't know it.

It really depends on the Goodwill (or other thrift store).  One time I was
in a thrift store (similar to Goodwill) and they had a floppy drive with no
price on it.  I asked them and they sold it to me for $0.99 USD.  The guy
told me that it was a "disk 
drive and you can't use disk drives any more so I could have it for 99 cents".

Clearly, he had NO idea what it was.  Granted, it wasn't worth much but the
idea of "cannot use disk drives anymore" was wrong.  What do you
think he would have done with a Timex Sinclair?

Atari's MIGHT survive thrift stores because everyone knows Atari.  But my
point is that lesser known brands may be mistaken for junk and sent off.

Keep in mind these "experts" are the same people that keep around
stupid cable TV tuners and broken kids pianos.  They clearly have no
expertise in what should be sold or discarded when it comes to electronics.

If you found a Sinclair...then awesome.  I know the LGR guy finds stuff
like that.  But he must live in some bizzarro thrift store world or
something.  In my experiences, most people scrap that stuff.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05