water cooler :: anyone tried retrobox.com?



Damn!!!

$98 P2-P3 laptops?
$40 17" monitors?
$5 8-port 10/100Base-T switches???

Sonova Beach!!!

How come I never ran across this site whenever I've searched the web for low-cost used laptops, peripherals, etc?

Retrobox makes the $250 I paid a few years ago for a 486DX-75 laptop w/only 24MB RAM, 800MB HD & 640x480 display sound like I got ripped off.  I've been looking around lately for a laptop that has at least an 800x600 display with a bit more horsepower under the hood (I use it mainly for reading e-books and controlling other PCs on my LAN w/800x600 displays via vnc), but the cheapest I'd ever found was in the $250-$300 range w/o shipping (yes, I've clicked some of the Google ads here in the DSL forums).  I've scoured eBay for laptop deals too, but my "reasonable" bids always get outbid.

I've been thinking of upgrading my LAN to 100Base-T as well, and I originally paid $50 for my 8-port 10Base-T hub!

Heck, I could probably buy laptops & desktops from Retrobox, install DSL or any other OS on them, then turn around and resell them on eBay for twice the price (and maybe even kick back part of the profits to the DSL team). :;):

Where'd I leave my credit card?
I ordered an IBM Thinkpad T21 from them yesterday and will report back. DSL is going to kick butt on that thing but my next project will be significantly lower-budget and less flashy. I miss seeing senior citizen PCs coming back to life and kicking up their heels.
FWIW...retrobox does just what they claim.  I work for one of the big multi-national oil companies and we upgraded about 15,000 pc's a while back....retrobox handled disposal of all the old pc's and notebooks.

They take-em as-is, wipe the contents of the drives, clean them up (as in-with a rag), run a diag program to make sure they're are no *obvious* problems, and sell them.

But you are getting the same machines we used everyday...albiet 3 or 4 years old.

That being said, you still might get a machine with a hard drive with only 6 months life left, or a sticky keyboard, etc., etc.

But....they are cheap.  I would buy one....  I just know that I may have to dump a little more $$ in if something should fail...
About all I have to report back so far is that thinkpads.com has a swap board where I found all the parts I think I'll need to turn my T21 into a perfectly adequate main computer in a matter of days. Retrobox has desktop PIIs as low as $20, but as we already know from No Computer Left Behind, the issue isn't so much finding the old machines and parts as it is storage space and not sounding like I've "found Jesus", as a friend of mine who's stuck in 'doze bluntly tells me, and turning people off to the whole idea. I really feel that DSL is the perfect solution for bridging the growing information gap in the United States and elsewhere. This distro and the philosophy and people behind it restore my flagging faith in humanity, I just wish I could do more to contribute to it; guzzling free beer gets old after awhile and my communication skills are so poor that I frequently wonder if I don't do more harm than good here on the forums.
Quote (noordinaryspider @ June 28 2005,10:19)
About all I have to report back so far is that thinkpads.com has a swap board where I found all the parts I think I'll need to turn my T21 into a perfectly adequate main computer in a matter of days. Retrobox has desktop PIIs as low as $20, but as we already know from No Computer Left Behind, the issue isn't so much finding the old machines and parts as it is storage space and not sounding like I've "found Jesus", as a friend of mine who's stuck in 'doze bluntly tells me, and turning people off to the whole idea. I really feel that DSL is the perfect solution for bridging the growing information gap in the United States and elsewhere. This distro and the philosophy and people behind it restore my flagging faith in humanity, I just wish I could do more to contribute to it; guzzling free beer gets old after awhile and my communication skills are so poor that I frequently wonder if I don't do more harm than good here on the forums.

That was EXCELLENT communication.

Now,.... if you can hook a brotha up with that free beer......
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