Interesting embedded appliance on closeout

here is the url to look at it

There is a Yahoo group that might have something useful in it.

If anyone finds good info, please repost it here - I myself refuse to participate in Yahoo groups.

I also am allergic to Yahoo, but there is some interesting info here:

You are an evil tempter. :-) I am looking out my window at a dumpster full of 'stuff' collected over 40 odd years in this house.

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net)
   Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
     USE worldnet address!

My packrat instinct is being beaten out of me at work. Every time we make a bad board spin due to the wrong PCB material being used or a small but critical error being found in the circuit, I want to salvage those MSP430s and other interesting parts... but I can't take them, they have to be thrown out. Same for test equipment (probes, scopes, spectrum analyzers, signal generators), device programmers, ......

***sigh***

I did manage to save a couple of small pieces of equipment that were explicitly given to me, but mostly it goes straight into dumpsters. Breaks my heart.

Ascending soapbox: ...

Hopefully you don't mean landfill type dumpsters. Many states consider electronics as hazardous waste which requires special handling. We separate the circuit boards from the enclosures. We pay to dispose of the non circuit board material at reclamation companies and get paid for scrap circuit boards which are mined for precious materials. Going the landfill route only means that someone in the future is going to be drinking water with high levels of Ta, Cd, Pb and other nasties. Those of us who work with these marveleous creations have an obligation to make sure that the companies we work for dispose of this material properly. Nag them if they don't.

Stepping off ....

I know what you mean by the heartbreak, Lewin. In the late 70's I managed a University program that handled surplus electronic eqiupment. My job was to find a home for it in the various departments. We had a large store room where we kept everything. There were other sites on campus that did the same thing. One year I was called over the property accountants to see if there was anything we could use in a site that was being decommissioned. I was too late. By the time they got there, they were using a front end loader to push the gear up against the wall until it fell into the bucket and was then dumped in the back of a big dumptruck. Literally tons of HP and Tektronix gear being destroyed. Broke my heart. The excuse for not selling it was it cost to much to administer, and giving it aways would show favoratism. Years later, long after my departure, my storeroom was emptied too. By then they had learned that if they put it on the loading dock at night, most of the time it would be gone in the morning.

Blakely

were

consider

I really don't know. I know we don't sort it beyond saying "this pile is electronics" and I suspect we pay some company to take all the electronics stuff and sort/resell it at their leisure. All I know is I can't take it, even though it is technically trash.

time

We have a loading dock like that too :) Some of the guys have Weird Tales of bringing in unwanted CP/M machines from home and putting them on the magic Dock of Teleportation only to see them vanish within the hour. I suspect some of the plant guys put it in their pickups and it winds up on eBay, but as long as it finds a good home eventually...

Here in the UK they are getting rid of Amstrad's "emailer plus", Originally (two years ago) it was sold for 99 quid, the last week it went for 9.99 in Sainsbury's. I couldn't resist *such* offer :) Sharp LH79531 (ARM7),

64KiB boot flash, 8MiB NAND flash, 64MiB RAM, Cypress SL811HST, 480x320 LCD, smart card reader, qwerty keyboard, JTAG -- all for less than a tenner.

Now they are pushing the next version, e3, based on OMAP5910, with colour screen, camera and Linux.

As the whole idea is at least 5 years late -- who really needs a fancy phone sending email *and* receiving spam (you cann't opt out, it is the essential part of business scheme), and ADLS is everywhere and cheap, -- I haven't seen people eagerly buying it. But there are reports of "recycling":

Not that I am promoting any particlular product, nor that I work for any company implied. Nor that I am going to open the shrink-wrapped manual, just to find out what I've been bound to.

Vadim

SNIP

Why? I financed my hobby with all things fished out of a skip and sold on eBay

Wim