A similar thing happened to my uncle Paul (Terrell)... after he moved to Portland, he had an Apple I (part of the original run of 50 he famously bought) and many other ancient 8-bit computers, like Exidy Sorcerers, in a garage my cousin was using. One day my cousin got frustrated by the "junk" and hauled a bunch of it away to the dump.
I believe my uncle still has one more bare motherboard squirreled away somewhere -- it used to hang on his wall in a plexiglass case as art.
by a weird coincidence, i was just watching a video where steve jobs talks about that early sale of the 50 computers. it is interesting in its own right.
You can't really blame the woman, something so old doesn't shout "Hey I'm worth hundreds of thousands!" to most people. But I am glad people at the depot recognized its value and didn't actually recycle it.
I have so many old computers/electronics. I can guarantee I couldn't pay someone (other than garbage collection) to take them, let alone make money off them.
Same, intentional clickbait title. A decent editor would not have allowed that through. "Discarded Apple I sells for $200k; mystery woman stands to get half". Not difficult.
That's stretching the idea of clickbait quite a bit. "Mystery woman gets rid of old computer, you won't believe how much it sold for!" is the one baiting clicks. Current title is just an unfortunate arrangement of words.
I don't believe it's stretching. People specifically click through to that article to hear the first hand experience of the person who dumped an Apple I. There's an interesting angle to the story in this version; the actual article posted is void of any such angle of interest.
Let me know when you find a decent editor on the internet. Even quality publications like Ars let countless its/it's and sentences without verbs sneak through.
I hope they find her, a $100K isn't anything to sneeze at.
I did go to a garage sale in the Bay Area where an older couple there had the manuals for an Altair 8800 which they kept because they thought they might have some historical value to someone but threw out the hardware because it wasn't really useful to anyone. But over the years it is very hard to know what will and what won't become collectible in the future.
Back before Jobs turned Apple around you would be lucky to get $500 for an old Apple I, after all who wants the first computer of a failed computer company? :-)
These boards were $666 in 1976, about $4K in today's money. Plus you had supply a TV, power supply, keyboard, and punch tape reader. That was twice my income in those days.
I'm not fantastic at math, but I think that makes it about an 11.3% annual rate of return after inflation. That's not outrageous, but I'd take that investment.
$905,000, and presumably there's a premium for being in working condition. I think there's also a small market of people who have the money and care to spend it on this, so prices can fluctuate quite a bit.
Considering the time for the sales transaction taking place (2 days?), I'm sure if they took it to an auction house it would fetch a much higher price. There's only 50 ever made and it's from a household name that even the fashion houses respect.
On the other side of the story, this story is totally genius marketing (if intended). I've been hearing this firm's name all day including their policy of sharing proceeds with people who donate.
You may be right, but if you look at the history of sales recently, the prices are all over the place. This one's still pretty low in comparison, but if it isn't working, that could explain the difference. Or perhaps some of these came with accessories, like a cassette player.
I had some very old machines around, even if I am not even 30 yo, I love almost any kind of old machine I was able to collect.
I had a small collection since a couple of years ago composed by Sun Ultra-60, Next Workstation (working, but original HD was gone), Next Cube (never worked), Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Apple Macintosh (not working) and some others machines people were not interested anymore and I was able to collect for free. It was a quite good collection and funny to deal with in the spare time, but then, one day, my father decided to discard all of them because they were old and mostly broken. I was so disappointed it took me a while to realize it.
If they really can't find her, they should peruse the obits for her husband.
Edit: 3 downvotes and a bizarre reply to my comment about sexism. From the article, "He feels badly because the woman said her husband had died a couple of months earlier". How is my comment sexist? And how would you find the woman?
I curious about the 50/50 split? It looks like a relatively new company.(couldn't find a review on Yelp, and 50 plus like on Facebook). I went to Clean Bay Area, under 'How much money can I make?'; The answer was scarce, and I would need to email them for details.
Call me cynical, but while I feel this is a true story, I wonder if this is the first time they actually ponied up any money on donated equipment? That is without a firm agreement to buy before the drop-off, or pick-up?
This one Apple computer and their earnest attempt to find the woman and give her $100,000 sounds fishy? It sounds like it could be a PR move?
I could be wrong, and they always make good on their promise to split proceedes with customers 50/50?
I will probally never know--unless the company comes on here(HN), and describes the details, and discusses the 50/50 split? It would all be good marketing for an honest recycling company? Especially, a new one?
My main point, is I have dealt with antiques, collectables, etc.--for 20 years. I have never found a completely honest wholesale/picker/auction house/reseller/buyer? You have to keep a keen eye on All of them. If you want to donate to a supposedly good cause--just drop off the stuff. Just keep in mind even companies like Goodwill are loaded with huge internal theft problems. My local San Rafael Goodwill has fired at least three managers, that I know for internal theft. None of the managers were charged? Why? Maybe, because the nonprofit didn't want the bad publicity? They sure go after, customers caught stealing--with a vengeance?
By the way--I see people buying too many products from Goodwill close to, or exceeding retail prices?
One manager was literally cherry picking the valuable donations and selling them out the back door. He was quite the happy entrepreneur--for awhile? Another was caught taking expensive jewelry out of the company safe, and yes Goodwill rehired her for some reason! I am not picking on Goodwill. I am actually hesitant to say anything because they have a lot of lawyers. Someone wrote a book on Goodwill, and no one bother to read it.
Just expect to get ripped off if you are not selling your stuff yourself. Hell, even the wealthy need to beware--I believe Christie's was found guilty of price fixing a few years ago? Oh yea, go through your stuff before tossing? I've seen a lot of people throwing away 1st edition books. I can go into most people homes and find something of value--they thought was junk.
EDIT: Ok, looking through your comment history I am less surprised. You do a disservice to the very real and prevalent instances of sexism when you play the card in situations where it clearly does not apply, like this.
It's not, the person was "triggered" by an artificially manufactured offense. Some people refer to it as outrage porn; the desire to seek even the smallest of possible things to generate anger, outrage, etc. which eventually becomes like an emotional addiction.
You are correct, however it has taken on another definition on the Internet, Tumblr and Twitter being hotspots for its usage. It makes a mockery of those who suffer from PTSD; being "triggered" is not the same as being upset at something, it's far more horrifying and I've got nothing but sympathy for those who have suffered. Also, typically a trigger isn't something specific like a description of something bad that happened, but something more ethereal, like a noise or a smell or a particular memory that only comes up while dreaming. Horrifying condition :(
Another definition? In the spaces where it is used it refers exclusively to PTSD triggers and such. Trigger warnings mostly originated on the Internet - claiming the Internet perverted them is nonsensical.
It's not the same as someone disagreeing, but nobody has said that it is. Why would you think that this is what people mean? Do people seem to be triggered by trivial things? Well, that's how trauma can work. It's not people misconceiving the concept.
A description of something that happened can cause people to relive trauma. Yes, it doesn't work like that for all survivors, but that doesn't invalidate the reality of everyone else. Triggers are specific to individuals and personal.
It is a completely reasonable and utterly inoffensive thing to suggest that people warn about things that might cause certain people to relive trauma.
This is not at all true. For example, in new age communities, "triggered" is used very frequently to mean that someone's personal ego wires have been tripped -- and in fact the reason the word is used is because it's understood that "being triggered" is not that big a deal, it's part of being human, and one may get very upset in the moment but with perspective one sees it's fine.
This is obviously very different from the PTSD-only meaning you are talking about, but I would bet that the new age version of the word has been in use for much longer and by many more people.
So ... I sense some presumption and lack of exposure here, is all I am saying.
"Triggered" has become something of an Internet meme these days (via tumblr). That's what he is referring to. He was using quotes to highlight the irony.
You have the causal chain incorrect. It isn't mocking trauma and abuse sufferers, it's mocking people who equate minor inconveniences with trauma and abuse.
Who are they to assume some particular thing does not cause trauma or flashbacks to it? And how can you tell if these supposed people trivialising it are sincere?
Mocking a concept genuinely helpful for sufferers of trauma simply because of its perceived misuse hurts trauma sufferers and helps nobody.
Agreed, attacking people as sexist for totally benign comments just HURTS women's rights. It's a "boy who cried wolf" scenario, filtering out the B.S. just makes people insensitive to the real issues later.
Read the article, the "plot" of the story is the clerk and the donor commiserated for some time on their shared experiences of the loss of a spouse, which the clerk found rather memorable.
In contrast, when I visit the recycling center, I dump my stuff and GTFO so they likely have no memory of my visit.
"Our electronic waste pick-up service is free for all residents of Northern California, CA."
OP is likely assuming they operate like my local dump/recycling center where they record my drivers license info every time I visit and drop something off (electronic or otherwise). Believe it or not they used to physically write down the data, now they swipe. Locally they don't tag what I drop off individually with my ID but they do have my ID on file as a visitor on a certain date.
I have no idea why they collect the data as opposed to mere verification. I suspect its something along the lines of a large difference between resident rates (free) vs business rates (if you have to ask, you can't afford it)
I don't know how good that assumption is. I recently visited my local dump in Fairfax County, VA to drop off a used fire extinguisher and nobody recorded anything.
The article explicitly says he did not collect her information. Is the argument being made that he is lying about that detail of the story? To what end?
huh that's interesting, I missed that and in my mental model of op's theory, op obviously also missed it, for the model to make any sense.
I talked to a coworker and in his village they also gather visitor data, and for environmental reasons the recycle center will never turn hazmat away, ever, but the data is forwarded to the city who will lean very heavily on business owners who try to use free resident hazmat instead of paying for commercial hazmat disposal. With lead free solder and RoHS I wonder if some day we'll reclassify electronics (at least modern lead free electronics) as plain old garbage instead of hazmat.
There are, probably, many political ways to organize hazmat collection and its funding, some of which aren't going to make sense to outsiders.
I believe my uncle still has one more bare motherboard squirreled away somewhere -- it used to hang on his wall in a plexiglass case as art.