Old computer ….

One or two of you might get a kick out of these pictures

The other day I got a call asking me to pick up some “old computers and stuff” for secure data deletion and green recycling (see, Proper Disposal of Old Computer Gear– eWaste). When I got there, I learned what she meant by “old”.. I would have said “prehistoric”!

This unit dates back to the first PC’s.. circa 1990 (actually, toward the end of the first gen era, as it actually has a hard drive [800KHz, 1 MB of RAM, and a 20 MB HHD. That’s right. “Kilo” and “Mega”]) and is a fully working Macintosh SE.

“Welcome to Macintosh”

and roughly two minutes later…

I did shred the user’s data, but this is the unit that basically completes my Apple wing at the Tech Paul Museum. (And it has a darts game that’s kind addicting..)

This Mac SE is easily the oldest unit I’ve ever been asked to recycle. (For those wondering, yes – I plugged it in and it booted right up.)(And no, it’s not the oldest Apple Desktop PC in my museum.)

Remember folks, simply deleting something by dragging it to the Trash (or, Recycle Bin) does not really erase your files. If you want something gone gone, (aka “unrecoverable”) you need to actually write over them (several times) using a “secure delete” tool, such as can be found in Apple’s Disk Utility, or physically destroy the drive.

Today’s quote: “If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” ~ Ray Bradbury

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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