(old) Computers to Kwartzlab

As any one who knows me could tell you, I'm a hopeless scrounger! I also hate to see perfectly good things tossed aside for the 'latest and greatest'. Imagine how I feel about North American's horrible habit of throwing out working computers, mainly so they can purchase something smaller and faster (mainly just so they can play the latest games.) Truth is that a 20 year old computer can still handle all your business records and all your writing tasks.
For a number of years, my wife Vandy had worked at a major advertising agency in Toronto. About every six months, they replaced all their Macintosh computers with new ones. (Ok, in this case, maybe called for to handle the increasing complexity of graphic work.) She was able to purchase these 'surplus' machine at trivial prices (even for our tight budgets). They most often came with all the software loaded, sometimes with periferals and even program manuals. Over the years I had collected up a huge pile of perfectly working machines.
It got to be a pretty big pile.
Now, I had made a serious effort to try to donate these machines to ANYONE. Families on reduced incomes. Kids living in remote areas. Relief programs in disaster areas. Third World start ups. Absolutely no one was interested. Only the very newest machines, with the latest operating systems, would do. This left me pretty frustrated. (And wondering if some kid in Africa was using a bettter machine than I'm writting this on right now?)

Enter my friend 'Gus' Gissing and Kwartslab:

Boehmer Box Factory
First Floor
283 Duke St. W., Unit 106
Kitchener, ON
Canada N2H 3X7
43° 27' 18.2376" N, 80° 29' 46.9068" W
http://kwartzlab.ca/

Admittedly, Gus might not have realized quite how much stuff I was bringing. Like pretty much the entire history of MAC for the 1980's and 1990's. Even an original 'all in one' Mac 512 (yes, boys and girls, thats 512K!). Two thirds my Chev Astro full.

Kwartzlab meets Tuesdays at 7 PM - but members have access to the large production space with equipped workshops 24 hours a day. There was clearly a vast creative energy and sharing of viewpoints, inspirations and skills. Very Kool...

(oh, have fun sorting all that stuff - most of it does work if you can find the right cables. They are in one of those boxes...)