Indianapolis Hamfest Haul

From: Mzthompson_at_aol.com <(Mzthompson_at_aol.com)>
Date: Thu Jul 18 18:51:01 2002

Many did not think it was a great hamfest this year, but if a whole
carload of stuff hauled home is any indication then I say it wasn't bad.

One good item was a Compaq Portable III, good clean condition, fully
working, and had the internal modem installed. $5

This year I stuck around a little longer which means good deals on
stuff they don't want to pack back up. One dealer had two eight foot
tables full of customer returns and other 'as is'. I saw one item
in particular and made an offer. He counter offered with a price for
the entire contents of both tables for less than $10. I said what the
heck. So far everything I have tested seems to work fine. I suspect
a lot of customers try to install it themselves and just don't get it
right and return it.

Then there is the stuff that is pitched as it all winds down. A friend
and I were standing next to a trash barrel when someone brought over some
stuff. We grabbed some items. Among that was two full tower PC cases,
and a old 486DX2/66 desktop. Turns out the 486 is a good machine for
testing various components, so it has found a home on my test bench.
Also a couple ATI video cards that are the same card as in the machine I
am writing this on, the same right down to the firmware numbers on the
EPROMS. It's nice to have some spares.

Mike
Received on Thu Jul 18 2002 - 18:51:01 BST