Hardware For Sale/Trade

@mapesdhs
ok, lesson understood, thank you so much, i will follow your advices

jan-jaap writes:
> from an HP NetServer) for 40 or 50EUR per kit years ago. ...

Yup, classic source for a hobbyist, hence why in the hobbyist realm, it makes no sense to expect a high offer for the RAM.

I sold two 512MB kits last week half-price to a movie company acquaintance for 75 UKP each, he was very happy with that.


> The G160 used to fetch a similar amount, not sure anymore what I paid for it or how much they sell for these days.

It's still an item that's not really in demand, but OTOH they're moderately scarce, so at least atm it's highly variable.


> Seller is a business, sitting patiently on it's stash, waiting for another company in need to extort ^H^H^H do business.
> That doesn't mean a hobbyist can sell *today* at those prices. Most businesses don't even want to buy from individuals.

That's absolutely correct, and is precisely what I meant.

Plus, how much dealers charge for stuff is also very greatly influenced by how much stock they have, how bulky it is, all
sorts of other factors. I hear of dealers all the time selling certain items for low prices because they have a lot of them
and just want rid of them. I've done that myself, though usually just in the form of giving them away (guess nobody
wants free JBOD units, oh well.


> I'm using the same kits here. Downside to the HP kits is they have tin plated contacts rather than gold. This causes
> bad contacts over the years -- but nothing that a little cleaning won't fix.

Ach people keep saying that about such kits but it's FUD. I've worked with these for more than a decade now, never
seen or heard of a single issue of this kind.


> I would say half of that is so you can feel assured that someone will answer the mail if you run into a problem. Not that
> there's anything wrong with that, on the contrary. Ian can simply demand a higher price than you or I can.

Actually that was with a big discount. Because I can get half that much *just* for an IMPACT PSU these days. Indeed,
the last time I sold an R4K/250 Solid system with the same RAM/disk, it was to an aerospace company for 645 UKP.
They thought it was *cheap*.

And btw, at times in the past I've been told by some dealers that my prices are too low! (most recently last week) This is
because some companies will not buy parts/spares/systems if the prices are waaaay lower than how much they originally
cost to buy, ie. it raises awkward questions in finance depts. I found this was exactly the case with Indys. When I had a
mountain of them, I listed them crazy cheap, but never sold any to companies. Once I upped the price by about 4X, bingo,
companies started buying. In each case there can be thresholds of cheapness tolerance. The last max-spec Indy I sold
(except the gfx was 8bit XL) went for 700 UKP to a textile company, though 150 of that was for a brand new Dallas chip
(again, for them, cheap, because if they asked their original system vendor for a replacement it would cost 1000).

It's a crazy world, but that's sometimes how it is.

Ian.

PS. Nobody does an OS install as good as I do for hobbyist use. Not by miles. Ditto packaging; get it from me, it
will arrive intact. Get stuff from eBay, it'll likely arrive in a million bits .

Trippynet wrote: I know you can get Indigo2s a fair bit cheaper if you really shop around and look for a bargain, but I don't begrudge for one minute paying a bit more for one from Ian

And that's exactly the market I'm aiming for, those who want a complete system, fully ready to use, cleaned, with an excellent OS
setup, lots of extras like a CD set, locking bar, power cable, etc., and yes I T-cut the case if asked, which does work very well (even
I am amazed at how well sometimes). I also setup the OS with a normal user account already configured in the user's preferred name,
with the network settings they want, host name, gateway, etc., so they're able to just plug it all in and they're connected straight
away, barring some unexpected issue. And I intialise all the various system apps so the user doesn't have to do that, everything is
immediately ready to use.

I have no interest in the eBay-level of selling stuff, for reasons mentioned elsewhere. I have a particular ethos of system selling to
which I adhere, something I want to carry over into the 1980s vintage systems I'll start doing hopefully this year (more than half my
storage space is now 1980s fear - Acorn, Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore, etc.)

It really does make me giggle when I see a hobbyist who's horrified at some price they've been quoted for something, or an item
that sold on eBay for more than they would have thought possible. Heh, they have noooooo idea.

An item is only ever worth what someone (or a company) is willing to pay. Sometimes I come across hobbyists who do have some
money to splash around, but often I just include big discounts anyway for hobbyist buyers, and/or I include free extras with the
system they're buying as a nod to their choosing to get it from me. I'm about to send a max-spec Octane2 to someone; the guy
doesn't know he's getting a whole pile of free extras which normally would cost a lot more than the 700E Oct2 system the OP mentioned,
but he paid a good amount in hobbyist terms (even with the 50% discount I included) and I like to make it so a buyer feels it's been
worthwhile. That's my MO.

Heh, the number of people who've bought a system on eBay and end up coming to me for replacement parts, CDs, disk, OS install,
kybd, mouse, etc... one guy who did this with an O2 eventually said he would have been much better off just buying a system
from me in the first place, after he had to replace the skins (bad ebay seller packaging of course), sort out a disk and OS setup
(useless 2GB in the system with an old basic 6.3), etc.

Ian.

PS. Closest I come to anything akin to eBay is listing certain items on eBid, but I don't have the time to list a lot of what I want
to add, it'll just have to wait.

ivelegacy wrote: yes, you are right, @mapesdhs has explained me that fibreChannel card is the only solution to speed up the storage of an Impact's storage. ...

By any major degree that is. Striping across the two included channels will help, but it's still nowhere near Octane's built in bus.

ivelegacy wrote: I have read that such an FC card have two ports, ...

Yup, as I explained in my emails, but really, put it out of your mind, they're soooo rare. I've never seen one and I only know one person who
has one; he gets 87MB/sec. That's great for him, but for anyone else I'd say forget it, just get an Octane2 or Fuel instead.

Ian.

IBM S/36 hard drive, pretty working, sold at 300 euro shipped, to France



hey ? i can do professional packing

i have sent an IBM S/36 hard drive to France, it's a 50Kg package with the cage made of wood, professional cage, it's my first job as working student, i was used to prepare cages made of wood, so i know how to pack big and heavy things

also i can ask suggestions to my ex boss, and he provides me reduced prices, for example the woody cage used to ship the IBM S/36 hard drive was priced to my customer just 50 euro, while the real price offered should be no less than 150 euro!

SDA was engaged as shipping-agency, and they did a very professional job: local pick up, and just 4 days to delivery to France without any problem

For big & heavy, try shipping a POWER Challenge rack , more like 180kg. It was quite a job.

I've bought crazier though, eg. 36-CPU Onyx3800 .

Ian.

Trippynet wrote: the system was fully cleaned out inside, Ian T-cutted the case to smooth off the scratches (and did a really good job IMO)

just curious, can i see a few photos about it ?

I was going to link to a post I made way back showing how this works with an O2 top lid, but I see the neko
search system does not allow the use of hyphens in search terms, so I can't. Possible for someone to fix
the search function? I ought to be able to search for "T-cut", ie. an expression within quotes.

Ian.

mapesdhs wrote: I was going to link to a post I made way back showing how this works with an O2 top lid

maybe this one viewtopic.php?p=7318821#p7318821

Yes, that's the one! Odd, I have a different URL:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16722890&start=11

Ian.

mapesdhs wrote: Odd, I have a different URL:

it doesn't matter. mine is a direct link to a specific post in which case the viewtopic script gets the rest by itself

thank you guys, marvelous job done, i am impressed about results X__________X
scratched machine look very very good after the T-cut, @mapesdhs, once again, you have teached me new things =)

Most welcome!

If you can btw, do experiment on unimportant pieces of scratched plastic first (re my email on technique with a box cutter knife).

Ian.

yesterday i got a few pretty humor pills: a dude offered me 50 bucks credits for the IP28, and he was really believing his offer was generous just because a few seconds before he bought a Raspberry PI for 30 bucks from a dealer, also he pointed out that the RPI has more Mhz, it's smaller, it eats less energy, also it's a brand new machine vs a third hands. In shorts he was realling thinking that 50 bucks is good enough

an item is only every worth what someone is willing to pay, so he said - " we could also exchange the IP28 with an RPI, take my RPI, it's RPI model2, i am including the plastic enclosure for free !!! "

Is that an offer or a joke? That's my offer.That's a joke. Really, I was thinking it was a candid camera, but he was really too serious


- - - - - - - - -

btw, it's still for sale, guys

:D

That's a new one for sure, never heard someone act like some modern utterly different tech is in any way inherantly equivalent.

In the end though, it's always going to be hard to get a higher price if you're in a hurry, because people know that
and will act accordingly.

Ian.

yep, it's true, you are right, i am missing my IP30 development (kenrel toying) and i'd like to have a new IP30 machine, and my budget is still down. But hey ? no hurry, i have switched my mind to a pretty cheap chinese router (that is MIPS32/BE and could run the same ramrootfs of the IP30, i have profiled both of them as mips3-be-softfloat-uclibc), so i have a toy to toy with (perhaps only toying with the userland), so i have all the time i can have to achieve a minimal sale price of 300 euro for my friend's repainted-IP28

no hurry, really, i reported the funny-offer just to share my smile