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Finding a 486

C

cobracon

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2012
Messages
176
Location
Michigan
Whats the best way to find one of these? Can't find one anywhere in town at this point. Don't want to spend much on one as I just want to play a few old dos games. Any suggestions?

Robert
 
DOSBox is a great way to play old DOS games. I use it for all my old pinball varieties (Tristan, Epic, Silberball) and several others.
 
Dosbox is great, but, I love sitting in front of the old machines. Nothing beats the look and feel of an old computer. Just have to hit the recycle places monday again. Problem is when they get 486 and older machines, is that they strip them right away. They figure no one wants that old stuff anyways. Sigh
 
Try posting on Craigslist. You could also ask the recycle place to hold one for you if you haven't already. Or, start asking old people if they have old computers from the early 90s. I got a 486 and two 286s from my aunt.
 
Good way to find these is to look around surplus stores many of them have a bin filled with old hardware, Often you can find motherboards, ISA cards and stuff like that for ridiculously cheap, I got a 386 motherboard with a 386 for $3. Of course you will have to collect bits and pieces and put it together once you find everything, I'm almost finished a build like this all I need is a Floppy controller.
 
PgrAm said:
Good way to find these is to look around surplus stores many of them have a bin filled with old hardware, Often you can find motherboards, ISA cards and stuff like that for ridiculously cheap, I got a 386 motherboard with a 386 for $3. Of course you will have to collect bits and pieces and put it together once you find everything, I'm almost finished a build like this all I need is a Floppy controller.
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Even though I just ranted about this in another thread I'm gonna ask you the same thing:Why do so many people like you not put a meaningful location in their profile? What's the big deal?

Canada's a pretty big place, but there are probably at least one or two people on here in every major city and a few not so major ones as well. I can't speak for them, but if I saw that you're in Toronto I'd probably send you a PM saying 'come on over and help yourself'; on the other hand if I have to ask every time or go through the rigamarole of packing, shipping, postage etc. I usually just pass right on by.

I just happen to be in a venting mood tonight... ;-)
 
I was in the same situation as the original poster.

Local recycling spots in Madrid (Spain) where people go to unload their old kit and trash are now "privately managed", even with an on-site security guard, and all kit that enters there becomes their property - you cannot get away with anything that you find there, the security guard won't let you. Their idea is that they make money recycling the raw metals in the old kit, therefore as they are now a "private operation" instead of a public one they have to look strictly at their bottom line.

The obvious next step is to pay the guard some 20 euros "to go for a walk" while you pick a dumped 486 machine, but then I can buy for the same price one which has not been dumped and is known to be working, so the recycling spots route is now a no way here in Madrid.

I finally got my 486 from a lady in Germany, and had to pay 20 euros for the shipping to Spain, hahaha.
 
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Sorry, didn't mean to steal the thread; I've got some 486s but shipping's a dealbreaker.

@ PgrAm: thanks for putting in your location; PM me and let's see what I've got that you need.
 
To paraphrase the Lion King, its "the Re-cycle of Life". For the last ten years 486s have been too old for users and too young for collectors. I junked a good one myself not too many years ago. Around my way the recycle and charity places couldn't sell them, so sent them straight to the metal maggots. Now most of them are trashed, we collectors start to show interest. Smarties on ebay are asking $100+ for motherboards - market forces at work.

This is the interesting phase for collectors - finding the few that were hoarded and are not of value to their present possessors.

It will be interesting to watch how the 486 market goes, because at their peak there were so many of them out there in homes and businesses, compared to say S-100 or even classic XT generation machines.
Were they the victims of a more "efficient" materials recovery industry? Children in Africa or Asia sitting on a pile of old 486s picking the gold teeth out of them?

Rick
 
Recycling is a bigger problem for newer system then 486's actually. In a few years you will have a hard time finding P2-Athlon 1 systems since they were all recycled. People kept their old Apple IIfx systems because they were $5,000+ new, they won't think twice of instantly recycling a DELL that was $599 new. Speaking of which some lady on freecycle offered up a box of 3.5" floppy disks and some disk holders that I snagged (nobody else was interested). I asked her if she had anything else obsolete computer related and she had a Dell Inspiron 2650 laptop that she had planned to just recycle without even bothering to freecycle it (its old and slow and she had already drilled the HD to keep the data safe). Granted her unit had the stock 256MB of RAM (DDR1 P4-1.6Ghz) and was slow but I found it interesting that she bothered to offer up the floppies but deemed the laptop not worthy of reuse (battery still holds charge too).

Anyway I think what you are going to find is people who are hoarding 486 motherboards (I have a bunch for spares) will probably not sell them but will want something specific in trade. Its better for me to trade something worth say $50 on ebay for something else worth about the same then selling it for shipping charges and then having to come up with $50+ to buy something I do want on ebay. Seems like everything I want these days is getting expensive and my collection is a money pit as it is.

P.S. I think quite a bit of stuff that ends up in recycling is staying in the US instead of being sent to africa (well maybe outside of some monitors). There are places close to me that actually even recycle monitors these days. There is money in it (even without having some choice items to refurb). There are companies that will even pay you and come out to pick it up at your place if you have a decent amount to recycle.
 
Unknown_K said:
Recycling is a bigger problem for newer system then 486's actually. In a few years you will have a hard time finding P2-Athlon 1 systems since they were all recycled.
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Quite a few of those systems are still in use judging by the high prices DDR still commands. Chip makers are winding down production of it, but there is still enough demand. Most P4-Athlon equipment from 2000-2005 is gone simply because most of it was poorly built. Tons of dead boards due to bad caps, overheating (Prescott anyone?), and general cost cutting.

2000 was about the tipping point that PCs became commodity products. Prices dropped to the point that they were affordable, but that resulted in huge drop in build quality and sent many computer stores out of business because any markup they had just vanished. Look at a Dell built in 1998 vs. one built in 2002... there is a big difference.
 
I kind of wonder if manufacturing quality might have peaked already (for motherboards anyway). Pretty sure I will regret not snagging some of the best quality P1/P2/P3 boards out there (I do have some but also some crappy PCCHip ones). I don't think there are that many HX chipset P1 boards out there anymore (thankfully I kept the ones I purchased new and they still work). PR440FX Dual Pentium Pro boards are now super expensive.
 
Unknown is right on the money. I have a ton of 286-p1 motherboards, processors, at least 40 soundcards and videocards, etc. I most likely wouldnt sell a single thing, although I am always willing to trade. This hobby shouldn't be expensive. That is what throws me. I've been in it for over 15 years, collecting obsolete computer equip. This hobby was meant to be somewhat cheap and fun. The cheap aspect flew the coup years ago when people on ebay started charging sky high pricing. At least I stockpiled quite a bit beforehand...

Like my XT 5150, I got it free. My friends father was going to use it to prop his boat dock because he felt it was worthless and no one want it!!!! Nowdays good luck finding a working one under 100-150. :S Now even 386/486 motherboards are reaching those prices. Insane.
 
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Well I went down to the local recycler today. I asked them if they ever get any 486's in and got a strange look. They said they rarely get them in and most are bad so they scrap them. The few that do work get put into there interactive museum. :( Not the answer I was hoping for. About to make a trip to the World Mission store and ask there. Hoping for better luck this time.
 
Well I just got back from the Mission store. I talked to a clerk to see if they ever get any old computers in. His reply was "only really old ones that no one wants", I was like "thats what I'm looking for!" He said "I have one in the back but it's not been tested?", I said "Don't bother testing it i'll buy it". So the clerk went in the back and grabbed me an old tower. It turned out to be a 1st gen Pentium w/MMX machine. Not quite the 486 I wanted but pretty close. So now, I get to have the fun of testing it. YAY!! Hopefully the old girl still works. Will this machine run dos with windows 95 ok?

Robert
 
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