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You can make thermite by mixing equal parts aluminum powder (grind some "tin" foil in a coffee grinder) and ferrous oxide. Light it with a sparkler. It will destroy anything.
Edit: I'm not sure how safe it is, but it's fun.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: You can make thermite by mixing equal parts aluminum powder (grind some "tin" foil in a coffee grinder) and ferrous oxide.
Or just order it online. Look for "rocket". As fuel goes, it rather cheap.
For the reader; ferrous oxide is rusted iron. You can make this rocket fuel at home 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: For the reader; ferrous oxide is rusted iron
Technically - and just so the readers don't throw chunks of pig iron into the mix - it should be pointed out that the oxide is actually just the rust, not the iron itself.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Just the rust. And aluminum foil.
And you need more heat to ignite than your average lighter.
--edit
Going full MacGyuver; red iron oxide, black alumininium and a magnesium lint. Then you place the chewing gum there..
--edit2
Iron is the "waste product" here; it is the result of the reaction.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
modified 20-Nov-21 21:14pm.
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sparklers work, as I mentioned, but some strips of magnesium and a blowtorch will do it too. i usually find the former cheaper and easier to acquire.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: a blowtorch will do it too
as opposed to a lighter?
Do you use a magnesium lint, or do you light it directly?
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Honestly, I've never used magnesium. I've only read it can be used. Like I said, sparklers are easier to get ahold of.
I've only made the stuff a couple of times. I don't weld railroad tracks together for fun or profit so I have little need for it, and my interest in it burned up pretty quickly.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I have a lot of stuff too but not that much.
If you are up for it, some of that equipment can be used for projects. Examples:
- small monitors or laptops can be converted into picture frames
- laptop cameras can be used as surveillance cameras
- those big monitors can be converted into interactive table tops and the PCs can be used as the legs and possibly using the old motherboard/cpu/gpu to power the interactive table top
- the printers might possibly be converted to 3D printers with some work and patience
- make a cluster with the old computers to process data that is not critical and you do not want clogging your main PC
If using all that equipment for projects is out of the question and you really want to recycle, it will depend on the regulations of where you are but:
- most electronics (desktops, laptops, TVs, keyboards, mice, printers, switches, adapters, cables, etc) can go to the electronics recycling bin
- the batteries either go to battery recycling bin or, if they are acid batteries, can go to a garage to be recycled as car batteries
- anything holding data (hard drives, SSDs, thumb drives, etc) I would try to either shred them, spot weld them (the very high currents and heat completely rearranges the atoms in the metal) or smelt them into a uniform ingot. Either way it is best to let a professional do it but make sure they do it in front of you. You do not want to turn around and have your intact drive end up in the garbage bin or worse in someones computer.
One advice though. Try to keep one of each old technologies, like one serial mouse and keyboard, one serial modem, etc. You never know when you are going to need it. Sometime ago I saved a colleague's project because I had one serial mouse, one serial keyboard and one 10base2 Ethernet ISA card. The three different modern USB to serial converters he was trying to use did not work.
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: For largish disks that you might want to reuse, you can safely erase them using DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke[^]). For anything under 500GB, just use hammer to drive a nail through it.
I second that. I have used DBAN boot cd a couple of times and it works like charm.
You need some time though. The paranoia modus needs a week or so.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Listen to your wife.
you.are.a.hoarder.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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Slow Eddie wrote: Any ideas on how to safely dispose of all of th unused equipment?
Come on, anything before a 286 should be gone by now. The rest you might want to hang on to.
To be fair, I had the same problem; but a Raspberry Pi replaces all those old machines. Get rid of them, earn some man-points!
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Hording: I have an ARCNET terminator. Among other things.
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Hehehe.
During my first year, I unscrewed it. Screams were heard.
The entire network collapsed, because I unscrewed a tiny thingy. People were having their finals.
I was told not to. So, I had to.
--edit
That was a local network terminator. An ARCNET terminator would be a bit worse.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
modified 20-Nov-21 21:12pm.
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Erase the HDDs and donate the computers. Libraries and charitable organizations can always make use of those. Most everything else can easily go to a recycling center. One trip. Boom. Done.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Similar here. But in addition for the PCs I do the same thing with the coffee machines, which seldom survive long for me because I am too lazy to decalcify them.
And this drives my wife crazy 
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For spinny-go-arounds, I drill a hole down through the housing and platters and take to the electronics recycle bin. SSD's, I just cut up (haven't had many). I turned one older workstation into a backup NAS with TrueNAS. Hmmm, now what to do with the 12 year old NAS it replaced?
I take computers (sans hd's) and such and put them out next to the curb on large pick up day (unless rain is in the forecast). People comb through the neighborhood looking for such stuff and take them. We used to have a church that took old equipment and shipped it to some country in Central America. Not anymore.
The only thing that did not get taken was my golf clubs, they figured they were contaminated with bad shots and vile language (no, not VB).
>64
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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Remember that all the stuff is getting worthless after some years.
Press F1 for help or google it.
Greetings from Germany
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My wife has said for years “ if you die first I’m getting a dumpster and pitching all your stuff” to which I reply “ and if you die first I’ll have more room for my stuff”. And we both laugh!
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I do understand. These days I try to hoard only simulations and PDFs.
I used to have a lot of stuff in my office. Computer and calculator related things covering about 30 years, mid-1970's through 2008. We lived in a row house and a kid two doors down was playing with matches the Monday afternoon before Thanksgiving 2008.
Took out seven homes. The brick firewall between houses helped a lot, but the rear building extensions over the last hundred years did not extend them so the back of the houses burned hot. For us my office took the brunt of it along with my little personal museum. Family pictures were in the front of the house and were undamaged and that was more important.
It became was an exercise in downsizing. For a while it seemed like I was always needing something that I lost. Now not as much. Been about 10 years since I needed an 16-bit ISA 3Com card.
What I really miss is the technical documentation and software I had of some old equipment. Specifically for 1970's and early 80's Canon computers. I was working with a guy that had one of the first computers I worked with and helped fill in some of the gaps from my memory. If I still had those bookshelves I could have provided it to Archive.org.
I've managed to hoard less since then. Yesterday I was looking at a Healthkit Microprocessor trainer on eBay. I talked myself out of it because I knew probably wouldn't get to spend much time with it. It would collect dust.
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For some of it, Pennsylvania requires recycling e-waste, and there are several companies who collect it.
For some other of it, maybe you have a local community college you could donate it to.
After the COVID work-from-home period, I was required to work in the office. I use one PC, one wide monitor, and an inherited ink jet printer in a big airy office, since I am the manager, now. The guys tried to get me to accept a second monitor, but I don't want it. The guy who works for me has my old office, much smaller, with 4 PCs and 4 monitors, and a KVM switch. I tell them I like my life simple.
I used to use the multiple PCs for Linux, various servers of all sorts. But we've moved to the cloud, tech support is so hopelessly dependent on Microsoft, and I am too old to try to change things.
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I side with your wife.
Hoarding is NOT about HOW you acquired things. It's about not getting rid of things!
you have a lot to be grateful for. First, that you could afford those things without selling some of them, etc. And that you have the SPACE to have all of that stuff!
But if you are NOT using it. Have no plans to TRULY use it... Time to get rid of it.
So, here is an easy approach. Take ONE thing a month, that you have NOT USED in a LONG time. Put it in a box. Date the box with the date that YOU ACCEPT it's probably not going to be used ever again. (This says nothing about having "value", this is about taking up space/energy/etc).
Then give your wife permission to toss the boxes on those dates. (This lets you avoid the psychological impact of "loss" by building to it, and not forcing you to go without something).
Also, I would probably put the wife in charge of your Tech Budget money. one of her Strings is removing old stuff BEFORE buying new stuff, or sticking to the protocol. That will give her some control, and she will be able to see progress...
Think of it has HARDWARE DEBT. you are accumulating it without REFACTORING your space!
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IMO, 45 years in this business would mean you'd have a lot more hardware if you truly were a hoarder. Clearly, you already do get rid of stuff occasionally.
Slow Eddie wrote: She intends to put me in a 12' x 10' storage shed in the back yard there, and there won't be enough room for it all.
Any ideas on how to safely dispose of all of th unused equipment?
Avoid that fate by disposing of the wife?
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I've had gotten rid of quite a bit of the old computer stuff by handing it down the the kids and grandkids. You might also be able to find some use for those old computers. I've got 3 of my old computers used as 'smarts' for our TVs. I like the control and extra features they provide over the builtin smarts that came with the TVs.
Oh, make it a 2 story 12' x 10' shed! 
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