It depends, you have to catch the right time window.<p>Some hardware that was discarded (or sold cheaply on eBay) in large numbers a decade or fifteen years ago, usually as "second hand" University surplus taken out of the recycling bins, is now an expensive collector's items - early 68k Macs, SGI workstations, DEC VAX/MIPS/Alpha machines, black NeXT hardware. Even the prices for puny Commodore VIC20s, C64s or a Nintendo NES have climbed quite a bit - gone are the days when you could buy one at a flea market for a couple of Euros.<p>Of course, it's much more difficult to restore such a system to working order nowadays. Capacitor failures, dying SCSI disks and leaking batteries are only some of the many problems you face when you actually want to use an old computer instead of just putting it on a shelf (like so many boring computer museums do).<p>This reminds me that it's time to look after our Tektronix 40xx, TI Explorers and Xerox Stars...
Most of these things are kinda useless without software support anymore though. Like where are you going to get any apps for an iphone 4 with the ancient OS? If you can find FOSS software replacements for some of these things like laptops you might be in luck, but things like old smart phones might as well be bricks, sadly.<p>To be honest I mostly feel like I have the opposite problem this article describes. I have plenty of old working electronics that I pretty much can't give away because nobody wants it, but I feel bad throwing away something functional. I really wish these things weren't abandoned so quickly by the companies that make them.
Lately, I've been immensely enjoying buying up last-gen's overpriced gimmicky hardware for dirt cheap. I'm typing this from a top-of-the-line late-model 12" MacBook (the one with only a single USB-C port) that I got for $430, probably a fourth of what it cost when new. If anything it's even better to use now than when it was new, since the USB-C and wireless ecosystems have both matured so much since it was released. It makes for a perfect second laptop, just like all the review outlets said it would've been if it weren't for the price. And like the article says, the process of finding it on eBay and waiting for it to arrive was just as satisfying as if I'd bought it new.<p>I also got an LG G8X and its folding screen attachment for less than $200. I can't wait for the Galaxy Fold 2 to be less than $500, that's probably what I'll go for next.
Unfortunately my track record of "That Device I Longed For" has a habit of not matching what other people wanted, so what I longed for wasn't made in enough quantity and went straight from "expensive" to "rare"<p>...or "only collectors/completionists want that" when I want the damn thing to actually /use/ it.
A reminder that this is highly variable. Sure, that Tungsten E2 might be twenty bucks but a working Clie TH-55 is $250 and up. A working OQO is $400 and up. A Sony x505, maybe the prettiest laptop ever made, is $400 and up for a unit in poor condition.
I'm kind of glad I didn't splurge on too many guitar effects pedals back in the day. Behringer has cloned much of the BOSS line, now available at a fraction of the cost.<p><a href="https://www.tonestart.com/ultimate-behringer-guitar-pedal-clone-list/" rel="nofollow">https://www.tonestart.com/ultimate-behringer-guitar-pedal-cl...</a><p>(Not to mention things like Axe-Fx, which while not cheap, can clone 100s of amps, cabinets, and pedals.)
Around 1985, looking at a Commodore Plus/4 at K-mart, I realized that in a few years I can probably just get it at a flea market for a few bucks. Over the years I have got so many classic computers by waiting and being on the lookout. With eBay I got things that would have been even harder to find if I just looked locally.<p>Also long-time collector tip: collecting goes in waves, one generation eventually ages out or cleans out their closet and there's bargains for the next, Especially when newer tech hits the market. (i.e. current trend for emulated/re-created systems that take up a whole lot less space than the original hardware, so some people may get those and pass on the old stuff to make space).
Old HP Proliant tower servers make great Linux lab machines. Super reliable, great parts availability and upgradeable, also well supported by linux.<p>I use an old ML 330 G6 with dual xeons and soon to have 64Gb of memory as a dev box. Fantastic for VMs and emulators, containerd etc. I did throw a cheap video card in it and dual 1Gb drives running the simplest raid available in the bios. It rocks. Current ebay price around $200 in working condition. Team it with a couple of charity shop monitors.
I have a few rules I follow in regards to buying non-essentials.<p>* Never pre order anything<p>* Never buy limited editions or limitied runs<p>* If I find a strong urge to buy something, I really try to imagine how I would use it (if at all) or if I have other things that fill this use case already<p>* If I can see myself using it, or having a need for it, but not an immediate one, I write it on a list.<p>* Look over the list every so often, and then perhaps buy the thing after a few months have passed since I wrote it down.<p>Most of the time I just end up removing the items of the list.
I realized this and its why I still have a couple of G3 and G4 mac laptops that I could have purchased a decade after the turn of the century, when I originally wanted them<p>The tricky thing isn't really the devices themselves but the stuff like batteries and hard disks they come with, like the article says. I at least try to spin them up once every 6 months or so to make sure the lubricants and whatnot don't break down in storage.
Old Thinkpads are the best! My x201 is plugging away hosting a media server, NAS, and a couple other home-lab goodies. At under $100 to max it out, it was definitely a steal.
I can't say that I think of ten year old stuff as being particularly old. I've got the normal pile of early Thinkpads and a couple of cheap desktops but don't lust after them, it's just that new is too expensive (plus, stuff like OpenBSD will definitely run on a T420).<p>Now, you start looking at vintage Marantz receivers, GE Super Radios, or an ancient Sun engine analyzer, now you're talking.