Dumpster Diving

[Edgedamage]

While doing some dumpster diving I found in the box a complete NES system that even has the gun only thing missing is the game cart. Toronto area.

[SirPeale]

You dive, Edge?  Cool!

http://www.dumpsterworld.com

Down right now,  unfortunately.

[Edgedamage]

Yah baby my last find was a portable air conditioner that is  on wheels just needed an exhaust tube couple of bucks at home depot solved that problem.

[Edgedamage]

I knew I saw your name before I have lurked at that site in the past.

[JoeB]

alright! NES!!

If it isn't spoken for yet, I'll take it!  I'm located at Bayview and Sheppard area but can pick it up.

leonki@yahoo.com

[GGKoul]

I'm interested too...

Adelaide & Simcoe here....

ggkoul@hotmail.com

[walls83]

So....  You just go out jump in a dumpster and see what you find?

Or do you have stake outs and see whats being dumped and then when they leave you go into stealth mode and grab the good stuff.?

[Edgedamage]

alright! NES!!

If it isn't spoken for yet, I'll take it!  I'm located at Bayview and Sheppard area but can pick it up.

leonki@yahoo.com

Well the first poster got it.

[SirPeale]

So....  You just go out jump in a dumpster and see what you find?

The 'diving' part is misleading, you pretty much just open it up and see what you can find.  I've found some pretty amazing stuff.

[menace]

Why just last weekend I picked up a working pioneer 400W surround sound receiver!  i should have grabbed the 5 disc changer at the same time but i already have one--I'm amazed at the stufff people just toss

[GGKoul]

Seriously... how do you guys find this stuff?  I mean do you just walk from dumpster to dumpster and opening them up and having a look inside?

Granted I got a Dot Matrix printer & P3 computer on the side of road in Toronto one day.

[Edgedamage]

My picks:

Condo dumpsters at least one computer a month.

Office bulding dumpsters full of goodies.

Computer shops that do upgrades/repairs. Also save diving I have asked my local shop to call me when he has just filled the dumpster. It saves him money because after I raid the dumpster he has less trash.

Also look for houses that are sold when the people move they find it easy to just toss the second tv / stereo / computer than move it.

[RetroJames]

You dive, Edge?  Cool!

http://www.dumpsterworld.com

Down right now,  unfortunately.

I just bruised my chin when my jaw hit the ground.  Lordy I love the internet.  

[Edgedamage]

When we had a car before it became a money-pit. I was able to grab a computer + monitor that was sitting at the curb on garbage day. In less than 15sec.

[SirPeale]

You dive, Edge?  Cool!

http://www.dumpsterworld.com

Down right now,  unfortunately.

I just bruised my chin when my jaw hit the ground.  Lordy I love the internet.  

Is it up for you?  I can't access it for several days now!

If it is up for you, can you PM me the IP?  Maybe my DNS is flakey.

[Edgedamage]

Bit slow but it works.

http://www.dumpsterworld.com/

[Edgedamage]

Seriously... how do you guys find this stuff?  I mean do you just walk from dumpster to dumpster and opening them up and having a look inside?

Granted I got a Dot Matrix printer & P3 computer on the side of road in Toronto one day.

Most of my finds are just by chance. Thing that got my goat was when I was moving into my building I saw a 21" pc monitor beside the dumpster. I went to help move something from the truck and in the 30sec it took me to do that some guy with a car sped up hopped out and grabbed it.

[SirPeale]

Bit slow but it works.

http://www.dumpsterworld.com/

Can you PM me the IP?  I'm getting nothing but a blank page here.  The site was migrated several days ago, and it looks like I'm getting the short end of the DNS stick.  It comes and goes for me.

[SirPeale]

Since you got rid of the item I changed the subject and moved the topic, since this thread seems to be taking another turn.

[missioncontrol]

http://www.dumpsterworld.com

I can't beleive it a whole forum devoted to dumpster diving...I think I've seen it all now....

I did find a guitar amp sitting beside a dumpster once grabbed it on the off chance it worked....got home hooked it up and It acually did work....I may have to keep my eye out more often....

[GGKoul]

Actually... I found a large Nintendo In Store Display unit a few years ago behind a department store.

I stripped the lighted "World or Nintendo" marquee of the unit and plan to have it mounted soon.    I had the 6x6 foot shelving unit in my parents gargage, as was planning to store all my Sega & Nintendo inside the unit.  But had to get rid of it since my parents would store it anymore.

My Brother in-law kept the base of the unit that had a cool Gamecode Logo on the front of it.  He has all of his Nintendo Systems inside of it.

[RayB]

I've always been interested in this, but have been worried about the legalities. If the cops see me going through a store's dumpster, is it stealing???

[Edgedamage]

It's a cat and mouse game. Think I gotta make a ninja outfit and some smoke bombs so if I get caught I can getaway.

[GGKoul]

It's a cat and mouse game. Think I gotta make a ninja outfit and some smoke bombs so if I get caught I can getaway.

See this post if your interested in a Ninga outfit.

 http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=22858

[missioncontrol]

dumpster diving FAQ

http://www.freewebs.com/dumpsterdiving/

[RetroJames]

LOL...I had to run to a local toys r us as my wife's car broke down.  I saw this thread before I left so I took a drive behind the stores.  Old Navy was throwing out super cool galvanized steel and laminate wood display carts with really heavy duty casters.  These things are like new, if I had a shop I would have grabbed a couple for sure.  If you had a loft or condo you could put these things in the living room and they wouldn't look out of place.  A truck already picked up 2/3 of the carts in a dumpster, there are about 10 more sitting behind the store.  On ebay I would think you could get at least 1k for all of them sold seperately.  I have no space nor time...

BTW: THey are behind the Old Navy store in Atlanta off of Lenox Rd. and GA 400 if there are any locals interested.

Too funny, I'll never look at a dumpster the same way again.  (Now it's a store)

[RetroJames]

Ok, who threw out the site...?

[ChadTower]

Ok, who threw out the site...?

Not sure, someone dive into the dumpster and get the source code back.

[SirPeale]

The server recently underwent a migration.  Ever since then it's been up and down.

[Edgedamage]

Yay latest find p3-667mhz nvida agp card onboard sound lan card 20gig hdd.

[gprime]

:O

Who in their right mind just tosses something like that away.

Oh and the site IP is 64.62.138.61 (forum is working for me)

[crashwg]

When I was like 9-13 or so I used to take crap out of dumpsters all the time.  Bike parts, typewriters, all sorts of useless crap that I never used but looked cool.

Reading this thread has got me thinking though.  I'll never look at a dumpster the same way again.

[missioncontrol]

I had to take some stuff from one of my rentals to the landfill the other day and they wanted me to take the T.V. to another area. I got to that area where they recycled electronics I was amazed to see all the perfectly good looking P.C.'s laying in a pile. Unfortunately they wouldn't let me take them  

[Tailgunner]

I had to take some stuff from one of my rentals to the landfill the other day and they wanted me to take the T.V. to another area. I got to that area where they recycled electronics I was amazed to see all the perfectly good looking P.C.'s laying in a pile. Unfortunately they wouldn't let me take them  

Wouldn't surprise me, these days more gold is recovered from recycling old electronics/computers than is dug out of the ground.

On a side note, you're a certifiable pack rat when you leave the dump with more stuff than you brought.

[Edgedamage]

The system works great after I re-installed win98 it had the Korean version and I was not able to set it to Eng. Getting drivers was hard untill I used www.drivers.com. And with a name like "very good pc" I could not pass it up!

[Edgedamage]

It will be used for my next mame project. And any future systems I find I will start to give them away to family and friends that don't have computers. Label shot.

[Edgedamage]

Guts.

[menace]

I'm ashamed to admit that I'm jealous

[GGKoul]

Edge

Where was this dumpters?

[hunky_artist]

....i hate all of you, lol

[Edgedamage]

Edge

Where was this dumpters?

Outside my apartment building.

[SirPeale]

Nice, Edge!

Yeah, the DD site was down for a while because the site owner was using the space for other things.  Hopefully it won't go down again.

[Edgedamage]

I have yet to find a snes.

[Harry Potter]

For all people in Melbourne, everyone is lining their front lawns with crap (again) on Toorak Rd, near the Coles Myer building in Tooronga. Not sure if there's anything useful but a friend phoned me the other day that he saw an arcade cab (minus monitor) around there. Would have grabbed it if I didn't already have one.
Have fun.

[Sephroth57]

wow the internet amazes me, i can kind of understand looking for computers and tvs and stuff. but on that site, they got people like

"here is my list of finds!!

*random stuf blah blah*

potatoes (3 were green)
onions
2 green peppers"

im like WTF you want me to give you 5$ go buy some vegetables at the store you friggin weirdo. theres people like asking if its ok to eat food out of dumpsters, its like yes go eat anything you want, the gene pool needs cleansing...  

[Nephus]

yeah, I dug through that forum for a while and found a guy complaining that he wasn't finding 30lbs of salmon in the dumpster he usually found it in each week.

Seafood... left outside for an unknown lenth of time... in a dumpster...
Can you see a Darwin Award comming from this guy any time soon?

[thumbninja]

wow the internet amazes me, i can kind of understand looking for computers and tvs and stuff. but on that site, they got people like

"here is my list of finds!!

*random stuf blah blah*

potatoes (3 were green)
onions
2 green peppers"

im like WTF you want me to give you 5$ go buy some vegetables at the store you friggin weirdo. theres people like asking if its ok to eat food out of dumpsters, its like yes go eat anything you want, the gene pool needs cleansing...  

Exactly.

If you are on the internet, you can afford food that is clean. When I was 10 my family had to resort to "dumpster diving" for food, and it was not all fun and games! What seemed like a perfectly good box of Cheerios had maggots. I realized this halfway through a bowl of cereal. Ugh. That turned me off to Cheerios for about a decade, and I still can't touch regular flavor Cheerios.

Pavlov would be proud.

That said: people throw out perfectly good stuff all the time. I see no reason not to profit from this. This is especially true of computer stuff. I'm suprised there aren't more tales of great dumpster finds on this site, considering you only need a 100mhz or so PC to play classic games in MAME.

[Mameotron]

Well, diving in store dumpsters may or may not be legal, since the dumpsters are almost always on store property.

However, it IS legal to go through anyone's trash that they have set out for pickup.  Oddly enough, there was a court case about this where I live recently.  Some private detectives got loads of info on a guy getting a divorce simply by taking his trash after he set it out. The verdict:  If you set it out, it is up for grabs.

[Snarbald]

Today I got one of those 5 foot tall gumball machines from work. A month or so ago some genius put it outside for a tent sale that later got rained out. Everyone was so worried about getting DVDs and stuff covered up that no one noticed the water running down the inside of the gumball machine and colored water coming out the bottom. Rather than clean out the machine, the bosses would rather just buy a new one and throw the old one out. So I had to take it apart and throw a few pieces in the dishwasher and now I've got a big gumball machine in my living room.

[SirPeale]

If you are on the internet, you can afford food that is clean.

Not everyone pays for Internet.  My local library offers 'net service.  I'm not in that number, I do pay for my 'net service, but I pay for it with the proceeds from DD'd items.

That said, I do eat DD'd food.  It's not like the food is sitting naked in a dumpster.  Most of it's packaged.  There's this natural food store not far from me I used to get food at, and we didn't have to buy groceries (except little things once in a while) for about six months.  

The supply went away, and we found that the store started donating everything to a soup kitchen

Oh yeah, I've got to go shopping later on, can I have that $5.00 to get some vegetables?  

[SirPeale]

im like WTF you want me to give you 5$ go buy some vegetables at the store you friggin weirdo. theres people like asking if its ok to eat food out of dumpsters, its like yes go eat anything you want, the gene pool needs cleansing...  

No one's saying eat anything you want, you should always be careful with what you eat, whether it's directly from the store's shelf, or from a bag in the dumpster.

It's good that you have enough money to never worry about going hungry.  Not everyone is as lucky as you.

Truth be told, even if I had more money, I'd still DD for food.  

[Mameotron]

im like WTF you want me to give you 5$ go buy some vegetables at the store you friggin weirdo. theres people like asking if its ok to eat food out of dumpsters, its like yes go eat anything you want, the gene pool needs cleansing...  

Yeah, send me $5 for food while you're at it.  Wait until you're married with kids and you'll really miss those days when you had a disposable income.

[ChadTower]

As another person who's DDed out of necessity in the past... I wouldn't go back to doing that unless it was again necessary.

[GGKoul]

Any other new finds?

[Gunstar Hero]

One man's trash is another man's treasure!

[spidermonkey]

I recently did some curbsiding in my town three days before the bi annual "clean up day" and grabbed the following..
Sega Genesis system with two factory controllers and two rather obscure and cool looking aftermarket controllers. Sime kind of foot pedal controller for maybe a music game that Sega made. A Mitsubishi 4-head hifi vhs.(works perfect) Two Wico command control joysticks with fire buttons on top for an Atari 2600. They are the bat style instead of the balltop ones.  An "Everex Explora" desktop pc with an AMD K6 processor. (haven't opened it up yet to see what kind of goodies are inside yet but it does work) Also found a Gateway desktop with a Pentium ll 400mhz and a  DVD burner. This one seems to work fine too. Both good for running the classics. Last but not least a fairly large pair of "Koss" computer speakers complete with wiring and power pack. Some pretty good finds for about an hour and a half of digging through piles. Going back out tomorrow after work. Only two more days before the garbage trucks start picking up everything so I'll be out good n' late tomorrow night. Couldn't go tonight because of rain. Hopefully people covered up their good garbage for me.

[SirPeale]

I found two DVD players the other night.  One was a VHS/DVD combo, which works perfectly (cosmetic flaws) and the other didn't work.  I took it apart, only to find that someone must have left a disc in the player and picked it up, it was jammed in the drive.  Five seconds later it was working fine.  The DVD in question was 'Enough'.

[Crazy Cooter]

...you should always be careful with what you eat, whether it's directly from the store's shelf, or from a bag in the dumpster.

HAHAHA.  That's some words to live by right there.

[spidermonkey]

Alright, 2nd night out garbage pickin produced the following..
A Thrustmaster digital "Millennium 3D Inceptor flight stick. (don't know if it needs drivers or not so I'll have to connect it and see what happens)

A "POWMAX" 400w atx power supply.(not tested yet)

A 100W "Delta Electronics" model DPS-100TB-1  power supply. (from the looks of the connecters I believe its an earlier "AT" model and not an "ATX" ) seems to work fine.

A Data transfer switch that has a two position A/B round selector knob on the front. On the back it has three PS/2 ports. The ports are labeled "A"  "B" and "input-output. What are these things used for ?

And lastly a Sharp GF-7500 boombox. the radio part works but the cassette deck gobbeled up my favorite Dream Theater tape. Oh well..the tape was replaced with a cd long ago so no biggie.

Thats all Folks...untill I muster up the nerve to wallow in an actual dumpster. I guess I'm a newbie since so far I only resort to curbside picking.  

[GGKoul]

curbside picking.  

I'm a curbside picker as well.. just not with the wife...

[DrewKaree]

A Data transfer switch that has a two position A/B round selector knob on the front. On the back it has three PS/2 ports. The ports are labeled "A"  "B" and "input-output. What are these things used for ?

it lets you switch between either two input devices or between two pc's...usually used to test stuff out, or in the case of OLD peripherals, to allow you to use them on the same PC.  

I used to have a SuperDisk drive that supposedly had a printer pass-through, but there was no human way to make the printer work while hooked up through the SuperDisk port, so I used one of these for switching between the printer and the drive.

I also use them to test out new (to me) PC's.  It allows me to use my current keyboard, mouse, and monitor (KVM box) to test/set up the beaters people pass on to me.  You have an excellent find there, my friend!