Iowa State University's Surplus Sale is held most Wednesdays from 12 noon to 3 p.m. at the old ice arena. I have been going to this thing since Andy and Sam showed it to me probably sometime in junior high, and we have spent more time and money on the junk it has to offer than I'd care to admit. And from airplane wings and indigo2's, to particle accelerators, autopsy tables, and countless "don't ask's", we've seen it all at the good ol' UP sale. Therefore, I have created this page in an attempt to commemorate all our great finds, and to remind us of our more-questionable acquisitions in days to come...
Total money wasted on the UP as of 4/16/03: $185.50, on 22 items.
Total extra money invested: $50.
ITEMS #18-20: Sun Sparcstation 1+, Sun Sparcstation 10, and a DEC Terminal
Date of Purchase: 4/16/03
Purchaser: Andy, Steve
Cost: $18.00
Description: Sun Spacstations and a DEC Terminal; specs unkown at this time, though Steve's has dual 50MHz processors.
Reason for purchase, if any: Steve bought one to mess around with Solaris 9, supposedly. Andy bought one because Steve's was so cool, but it turned out to be a waste of time and $5. The terminal acquisition is a bit questionable, however.
Current Status: Unknown, but most likely working.
Additional Cash Invested: None.
Verdict: Steve's ended up being a dual-processor bad-ass, and should be able to work with Andy's 21" SGI monitor once a proper keyboard is found. Andy's ended up being nowhere near as good as Steve's; however, the eventual usefulness of either machine is highly debatable.
ITEM #17: Quadra 950
Date of Purchase: 2/26/03
Purchaser: Andy
Cost: $3.00
Description: The mother of all Quadras--the 950. Came with no hd and a whopping 28mb ram. Andy says it works. Not sure if that matters.
Reason for purchase, if any: Andy has always wanted one of these, because for the longest time back in the day, it was BAD ASS. And huge.
Current Status: Working.
Additional Cash Invested: None.
Verdict: I think owning a 950 is like owning a special piece of Apple history. Or something like that. Good work, Andy.
ITEM #16: Blue & White G3
Date of Purchase: 2/26/03
Purchaser: Ben
Cost: $50.00
Description: 400MHz Blue and White G3 "Yosemite", with no ram, hd, or drives. Everything else was intact, though, except the bezels.
Reason for purchase, if any: Not sure I needed this one, but it was such a good deal I couldn't pass it up. The case alone is worth a good $20 more on ebay than what I paid for this assembly; only problem is I about broke the bank on it.
Current Status: Working!! I raided my PII for it's 4gig hard drive and 128mb ram, and threw in the 24x cd-rom from Sam's beige g3.
Additional Cash Invested: NONE--yet.
Verdict: This is by far the coolest thing I've ever bought at the UP, and come to think of it, it might be the "newest" piece of computer hardware I've ever seen there. The plan is to slap a sawtooth mobo in it and add Sam's G4 400 card so that I can finally have a G4 ;)
ITEM #15: HP Laserjet III
Date of Purchase: 2/26/03
Purchaser: Steve
Cost: $10.00
Description: Yet another laser printer for Steve; this one works, however.
Reason for purchase, if any: To try and make a second working laser printer from the other one's he's got, I think.
Current Status: Working?
Additional Cash Invested: None.
Verdict: You'll notice that at this point Steve has invested $23 in broken laser printers, meaning that if he spent an extra $7 or so he could have just gotten a working one from the UP. But that wouldn't have been any fun, would it?
ITEM #14: HP Laserjet III
Date of Purchase: 2/19/03
Purchaser: Steve
Cost: $5.00
Description: Yet another laser printer for Steve; don't remember what's wrong with it.
Reason for purchase, if any: To try and fix the other broken one he bought at the beginning of the semester.
Current Status: In pieces.
Additional Cash Invested: None.
Verdict: Steve claims that from this printer and the other one he bought that he's made one working fuser. Congrats Steve, you STILL don't have a fully-functional printer ;)
ITEMS #11-13: Books
Date of Purchase: 2/12/03
Purchaser: Steve
Cost: $0.75
Description: A 60-year old book on Advanced Heat Transfer, one on forestry (in German), and another one in Russian.
Reason for purchase, if any: 5 minutes of amusement over how funny other languages look to us.
Current Status: Paperweights, maybe?
Additional Cash Invested: Nada.
Verdict: The HT book may be out of date, to my knowledge Steve can read only high-school level German, and the Russian book is for a friend of his. Still, cost less than a dollar total and probably wasn't a complete waste of money.
ITEMS #9,10: Headphones & MousePad
Date of Purchase: 2/12/03
Purchaser: Andy
Cost: $1.75
Description: Crappy pair of old-school hdeaphones ($1.50) and a M$ Office 97 mousepad ($0.25). Mouse not included.
Reason for purchase, if any: Needed a mousepad, but the headphones are a very questionable call, though.
Current Status: Mousepad works great, which is more than we can say for the headphones.
Additional Cash Invested: Nada.
Verdict: The headphones are crap and need to be pitched; and although the mousepad works great, the purchase of a M$ one seems a bit fascist to me ;)
ITEM #8: SGI Indy
Date of Purchase: 2/05/03
Purchaser: Ben
Cost: $15
Description: Best Indy ever made: 180MHz R5000, 128mb ram, and the XZ graphics card (the best one made for the Indy). No hd. Snagged it off the bottom of the pile, too. (I'm hardcore like that.)
Reason for purchase, if any: Not sure, but $20 (added $5 for a hard drive, see below) for a top o' the line Indy seemed like a good deal.
Current Status: Boots into the BIOS okay, but getting an OS on that hd could be a hassle. Currently it's a large blue paperweight on my kitchen table.
Additional Cash Invested: Nothing--yet.
Verdict: Pretty sure this is my best purchase so far, though the Indy really hasn't been challenged by any of my other questionable buys. I do like the idea of having a sweet Indy, if for no other reason than it makes Andy jealous. Pretty funny considering it was partly his idea to get this one in the first place ;-)
ITEM #7: Quadra 840AV
Date of Purchase: 2/05/03
Purchaser: Ben
Cost: $5
Description: Quadra 840AV, with a *3gig* scsi hd in it.
Reason for purchase, if any: Gave me a 3 gig hard drive to use with the Indy I bought.
Current Status: Boots up okay w/it's existing 500mb hd, but has no O.S. Not likely to ever be turned on again, sadly...
Additional Cash Invested: Nada.
Verdict: Was Andy's idea to buy it for the 3gig hd; certainly not a bad deal, I think. The 840AV was a big time BADASS back in the day; however, it's now well past it's prime. Can still import/export video, though, for all that's worth ;-)
ITEM #6: HP Vectra VL
Date of Purchase: 2/05/03
Purchaser: Ben
Cost: $5
Description: HP Vectra (yup, another one), 233MHz PII, no ram, cd-rom, or hd
Reason for purchase, if any: None.
Current Status: Working great, w/a 300MHz PII I added from the Gateway I bought, plus 128mb ram and a 4gig hd. Runs FreeBSD pretty well.
Additional Cash Invested: None.
Verdict: Very questionable decision, considering I already had Buddha and that Gateway that refused to allow me to install anything on it...oh well. It was like $5.
ITEM #5: 2 SGI Keyboards
Date of Purchase: 1/29/03
Purchaser: Ben, Andy
Cost: $2 apiece
Description: Old-school SGI Keyboards, the kind with the nice sexy "clicky" keys
Reason for purchase, if any: Both needed(?) keyboards for our pc's.
Current Status: Working flawlessly (unusual for a UP purchase), and stylish as ever with their graphite cases.
Additional Cash Invested: None. Ha.
Verdict: Definitely one of the better UP purchases ever: we got 'em for $2 apiece instead of $10 when the lady at the check-out asked if they were from the "2-dollar rack." Andy, being the sly man that he is, of course answered in the affirmative. Nice work ;-)
ITEM #4: SGI Indigo2
Date of Purchase: 1/22/03
Purchaser: Andy
Cost: $50
Description: Teal SGI Indigo2, with a 150MHz R4400, 96mb ram, a gigantic EXTREME graphics card, and no hard drive or sled. Also note the incredibly large and tank-like case ;-)
Reason for purchase, if any: Wanted something better than an Indy...
Current Status: Powers up, but is otherwise unfunctional. Has a hard drive sled on the way, and then it will work (probably.)
Additional Cash Invested: $15 for a hard drive sled off eBay.
Verdict: Although there wasn't much point to getting this computer, it was probably the crown jewel of this week's sale. Has a sweet gfx card and will eventually have a 9gig drive, for all that's worth.
ITEM #3: HP Vectra
Date of Purchase: 1/22/03
Purchaser: Andy
Cost: $5
Description: HP Vectra VL, w/a badass 200MHz Pentium 1. Came with some RAM, too, and even has a couple USB ports on the back.
Reason for purchase, if any: Wanted to make a BSD box...and have something to do that afternoon...
Current Status: Has been dubbed "Buddha," and is currently working great running BSD in Andy's apartment. However, it lacks quite a bit in the speed department.
Additional Cash Invested: None, really.
Verdict:Was a nice $5 investment--lasted a whole week until Andy got his AMD box.
ITEM #2: Newgen TurboPS/630 Laser Printer
Date of Purchase: 1/22/03
Purchaser: Steve
Cost: $3
Description: Newgen TurboPS/630 printer. Untested. No paper tray. Makes a grinding noise when turned on that can probably be fixed by replacing or doing something else to a couple plastic gears.
Reason for purchase, if any: Hell, it was only $3. If it never works we can always go Office Space on the thing.
Current Status: The printer will talk to the computer, but makes a grinding noise. Bought a paper tray at the UP on 1/29, but can't get it to quit grinding the gears...
Additional Cash Invested: $5 for a paper tray
Verdict: Hell, it was only $3. If I can get it working for under $30 it will be a great buy. This printer retailed for over $4000 years and years ago.
ITEM #1: Gateway E-1200
Date of Purchase: 1/22/03
Purchaser: Ben
Cost: $5
Description: Gateway E-1200 case, with mobo and cd-rom/floppy. No processor, HD, or RAM. (Doh.)
Reason for purchase, if any: To make a cheap BSD and/or linux machine to mess around with, and to put together an old pc.
Current Status: PII and ram arrived last week; computer boots fine but won't let me install anything on it because the second IDE port is screwed and it doesn't like having the cd-rom on the same cable as the hard drive. GREAT.
Additional Cash Invested: $35 for 128mb RAM and a processor. Silly me...
Verdict: Perhaps this wasn't my smartest purchase ever, since it's required investment of 7 times what I paid for it. Oh well.