Getting Rid of Old Computers

I suppose it's an environmental nightmare, old computers, what to do with them. I was given the task today of cleaning out some old junk in order to get rid of it. Which always carries with it various thoughts. Such as "I remember the day I got this," "I remember when this was brand new and I was trying to keep it from getting scratched," etc.

Today the junk being gathered included old computers, which are around probably everyone's house who's had more than one computer in the last 15 years. One of the computers to be gotten rid of today was a Magnitronic (I think) brand. It was the first PC I owned, and I got it in 1996. It had a one-gig hard drive that came with it. And we had installed, a couple years later, a seven-gig hard drive. So those were both in it. Last time I tried to start it, after it had been in the basement for a while, it wouldn't work. Hung up somewhere on the booting.

This old computer I used quite a bit. I used to do a lot of graphics work, and there came a time when the monitor was so darkened, I had to adjust the brightness on the graphics to be way overexposed just to see them clearly, then remember to adjust them back when it came time for saving. So I know the monitor was no good!

The other old computer today was gotten in 2000, and had the Windows Millennium operating system. I really liked it. Fast and pretty efficient. It was a fine computer, except for various troubles that developed along the way. It actually developed troubles right away, but I always had work-arounds. Then I took it to get it fixed one time and the technicians made it worse. I could barely boot it up without having to go to Safe Mode or watch it continually telling me that I had an improper shut-down (which I didn't) and it needed to check the hard drive for errors. I guess on second thought that computer was a piece of crap. But when it worked, it worked great! And I did like it.

I destroyed the hard drive in that one a couple months ago. I have a twisted bit of metal on my shelf. That's my 60-gig hard drive, hopefully destroyed beyond recognition. For my Magitronic (whatever it is), I took out the two hard drives and will destroy them someday. It's not an easy process! They don't call them HARD drives for nothing.

I also -- and this was one I nearly forgot -- remembered I had an Image Writer printer for a Mac (1980s) and so I got rid of it. And I do believe, yes, I'm 100% certain, I have an old Mac (from the '80s) somewhere, not here at the house, and it needs to be retrieved and disposed of. Last time I tried to turn it on, it wouldn't work.