[COFF] Re: Typical Fate of Older Hardware

[Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>]

Grant Taylor via COFF wrote in
 <5ec59010-d848-8adc-9872-7a4e6fb599eb@tnetconsulting.net>:
 |On 7/29/23 6:26 PM, segaloco via COFF wrote:
 |> Howdy folks, I wanted to get some thoughts and experiences with regards 
 |> to what sort of EOL handling of mainframe/mini hardware was typical.
 |
 |My experience disposing of things is from the late '90s and early '00s 
 |and is for much smaller things.  So it may very well differ.

Around 1990(+ a bit) i worked during holiday for a company which
collected old computers, monitors etc from authorities and, well,
other companies.  Myriads of (plastic) keyboards, cables, etc., it
all was thrown into containers (ie rolled down the floor, then
blindly thrown), all mixed up.  I (a prowd owner of an i386 DX 40
by that time iirc) shortly thought of, you know, but to no avail.
I have no idea, i am pretty sure it all went down to Africa or
India, where young people and other unlucky then had to pave their
way through, as is still mostly the case today, _i think_.  Let's
just hope they do not have illnesses because of the (likely) toxic
interour.  (Having said that, i myself also worked for a short
time for another company where i was crawling through cable and
such shafts, .. without any mask ..  Not to talk about waste
incinator and chemical industry here (Merck and Rhön etc), they
were also filter free, .. and then i was also smoking for over
twenty years.  How did i end up here now??  I hope i am still from
one of those generations which can live a hundred years
nonetheless.)

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)