In 1988, I Bought an 80 Megabyte Seagate Hard Drive

[csziggy]

78. Back in the late 1990s I taught myself how to build computers by rebuilding old ones

Lots of times, the only thing wrong was that they needed new hard drives. At that point used hard drives cost roughly a dollar per MB. When I could, I scavenged drives out of other computers - I was getting most of those for free from family and trash. Then I had to find operating systems and basic software for doing word processing, games and other stuff.

Windows User Groups were a great resource - they would share old versions of Windows that they no longer needed as well as the other software. On the other hand, when I was donated a big pile of Apple computers, the Apple group was not helpful at all and I had to trash the entire lot. Although my first computer had been an Apple, I grew to detest Apple computers, the company, and the users because of this.

All the computers I rebuilt were given to people who could not afford a computer at all, mostly families with kids. I wasn't in it for the money, but for learning.