I seem to have developed packrat-itis somewhere along the line. I think this is something that has been brewing for years. As I got bigger places to live and more and more hard drive space I just accumulated things. You can read that as I had places to tuck things out of the way so I could forget about them. I am definitely a long way from the point where everything I owned fit into my car when I could drive back and forth between MSU and home and have everything I cared about with me.
It came to a head today when looking through my primarily hardware/cables “sort” drawer[1] looking for a DVI-D cable to hook up SuperFastMofo into its permanent spot on the two Dell 2001FPs (previously I had one DVI and one SVGA hooked up). I had half the drawer out before I found the cable…
Looking at all of the “stuff” I noticed an old Zoom MODEM which I haven’t actually connected to a phone line in maybe 6 years, a Cardinal MODEM which has had the same period of sitting in the drawer. RG5 and 6 cables, unknown number of video cables, ditto speaker cables, ditto USB cables, ditto phone lines, ditto s-video cables, about 10 Microsoft Mice (with Balls), 5 Microsoft Optical Mice, Ethernet Cables (including a really really really nice SUN cable (they know how to make an ethernet cable), 3 switches ranging in size from a pack of cigarettes to a box of cereal (Yeah that one is a bit old…), a dozen USB to PS2 convertes for mice/keyboards, I don’t know how many computer power cords but at least 2 dozen, DVI-D to SVGA converters, funky Dell connectors, 15 or so Intel Pro 100’s, no less than 50 IDE cables (they wrap up small), 10 SATA cables, 2 brand new in sealed boxes OEM copies of Windows Server 2003, 4 IDE Promise Controller Cards (cool I was supposed to find one of these for my old manager who asked for one), Sony 6 band crossover I used in my old booming car stereo days (mid-90’s), Sony DVD+/-RW/+/-R External USB DVD Burner, a bazillion AC to DC power converters that I have no clue what they go to…
This just won’t do, I figure most of this stuff I won’t use. Even if I could use it I probably couldn’t find it when I needed it and would end up buying something new because I have too little time and apparently too much money (I think that after I find the part I just bought three days earlier). So I am going to start boxing up a vast majority of this stuff and going to cart it somewhere. I figure I should keep no more than 10 USB cords, 3 power cords, 2 IDE cables, 10 SATA cables, 5 Audio/Video Cables, 5 ethernet cards, none of the balled mice (I only use ballness mice now a days – the balls just mess with the Mice’s accuracy) and only power supplies for devices I can actually point at that I have currently.
Speaking of AC to DC power supplies, why don’t all of you companies get together and come up with standards for that crap so I don’t need to make sure I have your exact power supply to use your device. Just list, or better yet make the device smart enough to ask the power supply for what it needs and then one universal power supply will do it… one that can supply multiple devices simultaneously… Ditto for rechargable batteries, have a little common contact point that is small that is the same on every type of battery (well maybe the really small batteries would have another standard but still available on the AC to DC converters).
After I get done with that drawer I think I will go after a couple of other drawers. One of them scares me though as it holds all of my old software installation CDs and Floppies with cool things like Borland C 1.0 and other things which just make me sit back and think about history and play around. I know that Descent is sitting in there somewhere and that game used to dominate my time, I have to be careful touching it… I would dial up one of my friends and the next thing you know it is two days later and my eyes are on fire, my arms are shaking, my wrists hurt, and my back hurts.
Hey what do you know… I found the charger for my JVC camcorder I found a couple of months ago and figuring I had to buy a new charger for… I actually haven’t fired that cam up in about 8 years… I bet I will laugh when I look on the tape. 🙂
Oh once I finish this physical cleanup, it is on to cleaning up about 3 TB of storage space plus misc hard drives and CDRs laying about. That shouldn’t be so bad, I can write perl scripts to do a lot of the comparison and cleanup for that I expect. Most of that I wouldn’t be too bad feeling if I lost, the seriously important GBs are all backed up onto DVDs in a fire safe.
 joe
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[1] Note that this is just one of about 9 “sort” drawers and 3 “sort” cabinets[2] just in my computer room. My computer room is actually supposed to be a bedroom but when I put the room together I went to Home Depot and bought 3 cabinet sectionals and 2 drawer cabinets usually seen in bathrooms/kitchens and built countertops on tops of them for a total area of about 60 sq feet of countertop space and 15 feet of drawers/cupboards. Then on top of the counters I slapped up some metal shelving to hold books and my various knicknacks such as plasma globes and glass artwork.
[2] One of the cabinets is half full with a bin of 7 or so years of MSDN CDs…
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