We’ve all done this, what’s your most obscure tech that you’ve got laying around?
We’ve all done this, what’s your most obscure tech that you’ve got laying around?
48 Comments
True dat, you might change jobs tomorrow and they give you a 486. Always be prepared.
Can’t tell you the amount of times I brought DVI-HDMI adapters to work office to make my monitors work.
Laptop’s USB-C → HDMI (dongle) → CAT6 (HDMI-over-CAT6 transmitter) → HDMI (HDMI-over-CAT6 receiver) → VGA+3.5mm stereo (dongle) → Old projector.
Beat that!
VGA to Component video adapter. Sounds useful until you realize that its only purpose is to utilize a sync-on-green VGA output for a very specific purpose, which more or less limits its usefulness to the PlayStation 2.
I still have a working Zip drive. Every couple years someone comes to me and asks “can you get stuff off a zip disk?” That and my Thinkpad OEM windows 2000 disk are probably the most obscure stuff.
i still have a scsi cable despite never owning a scsi device
Floppy drives. A few ribbon cables of varying pin counts. A dot matrix printer. I think may still have a couple pieces of an old IBM 711 laying around too.
i brought all of my cables and stuff i ripped out of old prebuilds to recycling when i moved apartments two years ago, it filled an suv’s entire trunk. and honestly, i regret it sometimes
Mac plus with flowers, Zip drive, and Kodak photo printer
I have a 3½ inch floppy disk in my table, and I’m pretty sure that nobody had a floppy drive in this house ever including the previous owners.
The second anything gets thrown out, you will need it.
I found a serial NuBus card from my Apple Quadra 950 the other day.
I don’t know but maybe some random apple cable or adapters that I honestly have no idea what they are used for.
S-video cables. I miss my flatscreen crt.
Crossfire bridge. Not only is crossfire dead, but AMD doesn’t even need a bridge anymore
Me with a box full of random cords and a tote full of random PC parts from past builds lol
So funny story, I have a rats nest of cables. I’m 37 married with child. Wife asks me to throw them away, I say no !
I had a LAN party for my bday. My friends forgot, hdmi cables, power bars, power cables and usb cables. Needless to say, no one had to go home to pick them up .
Altera DE2 programmable FPGA board. I tried getting software for it but failed miserably.
I have to see if I have that 3.5″ floppy disk drive is still at my place or not. I still have the optical drive and firewire port though.
56k dial up modem. Though I did cut up the power supply for another project.
This once actually saved me some time with setting up a new PC.
I got a PC assembled by a more technologically inclined friend, but I didn’t have the correct cable for my ancient (but still functioning) monitor. So, I dug in the drawer with old cables and found an HDMI to HDMI and plugged my PC into my TV and set it up. I considered myself genius for a few hours after figuring that out.
I had to move on somewhat short notice a while ago and had to leave a lot of stuff behind. The random bullshit box of cables made the cut and proved useful multiple times.
Not a PC part, but I have an ancient drill. It’s just an electric motor in a 4″ square metal box with a metal drill bit(can’t be changed)
A Garmin USB GPS signal detector that sticks by magnet to your car roof perhaps ?
Several film cameras, some of which use an unusual format (APS iirc)
Two Steam boxes and a steam controller
An LCD watch
I still have a Wii output to HDMI dongle thingy. I haven’t had a Wii in over a decade and I don’t even have a TV anymore lol
Not standard composite to HDMI, I’m pretty sure it plugged directly into the Wii and outputted HDMI. Tbh I haven’t seen it in a while, but I did see it in the bottom of a drawer a few years ago so I’m sure it’s still kicking around.
RS-232/DB25 PIN –> Serial crossover –> 9ft extension cable –> rs232/DB25 to DB9 –> DB9 serial to USB dongle adapter.
For transferring all the discs from my apple //e to the Apple emulator on PC.
I cleaned out my old tech stuff a few years back. I still don’t know what I kept IDE DVD drives.
I have boxes of cables and bits n pieces. Still have my old Dual 8800GTX GFX cards.
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Yeah I wish I had an old box of cables. Can’t even plug in my ps2 into anything remotely modern
A composite cable
I have only one device it plugs into and no where for the other end to plug into.
I’ve also got a VGA to HDMI adapter cable – but the catch is it doesn’t even work no more
The random DC barrel jack power bricks that don’t had a device associated with them
USB A to USB A male to male.
Probably the is a powered composite to S-Video converter box that I bought to hook up to my first flat screen to make my N64 look better. I have a dial up modem that plugs into the USB port, might be too on the nose.
I’ll be sitting pretty with my two dozen Firewire cables when Firewire becomes the standard again! /s
A charger for my Motorola StarTac cell phone and the charger for my iPod v.1
All of it still works remarkably.
I have usb lights in my garage running on a usb to ps2 adapter, to a 10m ps2 cable to a ps2 to usb adapter to the lights. I’m not buying more cables when old ones will do
You’re an adult not when you have your own place, but when that place has the box of cables AND the plastic bag full of plastic bags
Custom made serial port splitter that is also powered.
My wife tried this just weeks ago. Now I’m on the lam.
I can relate, wife made me get rid of a bunch of random cables and adapters, “when are you ever going to use this stuff”?, had an instance where I needed a transfer cable to transfer between two laptops, had to use a flash drive!
I did finally throw out the SCSI cables, tho.
And the ZIP drives.
I’ve got a Nintendo DS charger cable that plugs into a cigarette lighter, haven’t touched my DS in about 10 years but you never know when you might need to charge your DS in your car
2 old Macs (a PowerMac G3 and an IIsi with NuBus card), various external SCSI hard drives and optical drives, some external 5.25 inch floppy drive (proprietary connection) and disc, some PS/2, serial, and ADB keyboards and ball mice, and a bunch of DB-25 to DB-9 adapters (probably parallel to serial).
I am sure one of these days I will need a parallel to serial adapter… /s.
My compromise was I keep 1 of each kind of cable/adapter. So no duplicates…
I literally needed an old adapter the other day, that’s why I have the bin!
I used to have 90s laptops and Walkmans and stuff like that. But as of right now I still have a P4 rig which was my main rig growing up
This is real fuckin life!
This is my house…and office
I have a steering wheel for a PS3. And no I don’t have a PS3 or 5 or anything like that anymore haven’t almost ever really. I don’t play console but I guess I have this thing in a box and we’ll never use it I’ve never thrown it out what is wrong with me? And yes I have a box of fucking VGA and DVI and usba cables all that shit I’m that guy