Old programming/computer manuals - any use?

VoucherMan

My father passed away last year & we've just got started on sorting out the contents of his study. We'd decided that none of the computer hardware was worth salvaging, so I said I'd take it away & strip out any hard drives before disposing of it.
Somehow I managed to end up with all the software & books too, but before I haul everything to the recycling centre, I wanted to see if there was a better alternative.

I don't know if 'old' languages are still used, or if there would be any interest in the books, so hoped the good folks of MSE could suggest the best option.

I tried to put together a list in case anyone recognises the titles.


CSS - the definitive guide - Eric a Meyer - 2004
HTML for the World Wide Web - Elizabeth Castro - 2003
Webmaster in a Nutshell - O'Reilly - 2002
Web Design in a Nutshell - O'Reilly - 2002
Dreamweaver in a Nutshell - O'Reilly - 2002
MS-DOS - published 1996 by Commodore
More Eric Meyer on CSS - 2004
Partition Magic 3.0 user guide - 1996
Designing with web standards - Jeffrey Zeldman-2003
Internet: The complete Reference, Millennium Edition - 1999
Database Management - Gordon C Everest - 1986
Dreamweaver MX 2004 - David Sawyer McFarland
Foundation Dreamweaver MX 2004 - David Powers
Dreamweaver MX 2004 and Databases -Sean R Nicholson
Dreamweaver MX 2004 hands on training - Garo Green
Teach yourself Dreamweaver MX 2004 - Betsy Bruce
Don't make me think - Steve Krug


There's also several books & CDs for Borland Delphi version 2 - still in the box with Borland label

3 copies of Harvard Graphics v2.0 (software)

Check It Pro - Advanced Diagnostic Software

Symantec C++ version 6 - looks like a full set


I'm not trying to make any money from it, although if there are some rare 1st edition paperbacks I wouldn't object to selling them. I'd just prefer not to take them to the recycling centre if they'd still be useful to someone. I don't want to waste time on eBay, but they're probably too specialised for the local 2nd hand book store to take them.



Also, if I've still got your attention, there's several hundred floppy discs to get rid of (3 1/2"). don't suppose there's a better option than just throwing in the bin, or would they be recyclable?

Likewise, a lot of CDs, mostly cover discs from PC Pro, and a few bits of old software. All neatly organised, but from the early 2000's

agrinnall

I'd stick it on Freecycle or similar and see if there's any interest. I'd suspect that the software will be obsolete even if it was worth anything in the first place, and most of the manuals may be too out of date for anyone to want, but the C++ could be of use still. I very much doubt if anything in your list would qualify as valuable even if it was a first edition but you could check on book selling sites if you have the time.

Robisere

This is my favourite computer forum, mainly a bunch of oldpharts, some of whom are legacy computer devotees.
https://forumite.co.uk/?post_type=forum

I will ask if anyone is interested, but there is also TNMOC (the National Museum Of Computing) at Bletchley Park:
http://www.tnmoc.org/

I don't know of anyone who would be interested in the floppies, are they blank, or do they have software? The old cover discs are junk, no one will want them.

EDIT: just put it on Forumite.

Owain_Moneysaver

Some old computer hardware is quite collectable now, especially IBM PCs (which had mostly business users, so when they were replaced they went in the skip rather than the loft, so are now quite rare).

Neil_Jones

VoucherMan wrote: »

My father passed away last year & we've just got started on sorting out the contents of his study. We'd decided that none of the computer hardware was worth salvaging, so I said I'd take it away & strip out any hard drives before disposing of it.
Somehow I managed to end up with all the software & books too, but before I haul everything to the recycling centre, I wanted to see if there was a better alternative.

I don't know if 'old' languages are still used, or if there would be any interest in the books, so hoped the good folks of MSE could suggest the best option.

Some of these were given away with various computer magazines back in the day, I'm sure I had a "teach yourself Dreamweaver MX" 2004 book from a magazine if its a little A5 black paperback.

The basic principles still apply for a lot of modern web sites so the books are not totally obsolete. And databases, well it takes ages to learn how to use Access properly, so learning an older version is useful for newer versions of Access as its basically the same save for the ribbon interfaces introduced in 2007.

There's also several books & CDs for Borland Delphi version 2 - still in the box with Borland label

Delphi 2 dates from 1995 so its almost certainly obsolete now. It was the first Win32 capable programming environment of that series so basically if you wanted software made in it to run at that point under anything earlier than Windows 95 you needed the Win32 files added to 3.1 to get it to run. Great fun.

Nowadays its still around in one form or another.

3 copies of Harvard Graphics v2.0 (software)

Check It Pro - Advanced Diagnostic Software

Symantec C++ version 6 - looks like a full set

Check it Pro is obsolete as it's a hardware checking tool designed for what are now really old computers. Harvard Graphics was Powerpoint of its day for DOS but Powerpoint itself effectively blew it out of the water.

Also, if I've still got your attention, there's several hundred floppy discs to get rid of (3 1/2"). don't suppose there's a better option than just throwing in the bin, or would they be recyclable?

Likewise, a lot of CDs, mostly cover discs from PC Pro, and a few bits of old software. All neatly organised, but from the early 2000's

Floppies may be worth a couple of pennies on eBay but they break easily, they're fragile and hold sod all data wise compared to the modern era of 128Gb pen drives.

The cover disk software was almost certainly a bunch of trialware, freeware and "full versions" of stuff you'd try once and then never use again. You could always use them as bird scarers in the garden.

VoucherMan

Robisere wrote: »

I don't know of anyone who would be interested in the floppies, are they blank, or do they have software?

I've not had a thorough look through them. Most that I have looked at either contain backup data or old election software (he used to help in local election campaigns)

The question for the floppies was more one of disposal. I didn't want to just throw them in the bin if someone's going to say they could be recycled.

Neil_Jones wrote: »

I'm sure I had a "teach yourself Dreamweaver MX" 2004 book from a magazine if its a little A5 black paperback.

All are full sized manuals between 300-800 pages

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Some old computer hardware is quite collectable now, especially IBM PCs (which had mostly business users, so when they were replaced they went in the skip rather than the loft, so are now quite rare).

It never even occurred that any of the hardware could be of interest. The older laptop is a Dell Inspiron 510m, and the more recent one, an Acer Aspire 5920.

As for the PC/tower, I've no idea. It was still plugged in to an extension, along with a connected CRT monitor, which suggests it had still been use, but tucked away in a corner of the room, so I don't know what it was used for. (I'm fairly sure it wasn't bitcoin mining though:p). Having said that, I may try and see if there's anything useful or interesting on it.
If anyone wants to try and guess its age/purpose, all I can offer for now is a couple of images.

If the labels are anything to go by, it has both Pentium & Celeron processors,

Not sure about the rear view either. I'm guessing the 'aerial' on the top slot is for wifi, but I've no idea why he would have wanted what looks like a twin coax cable connector on the third one down. I didn't notice any compatible cables in the vicinity, so assume it was no longer in use.

unforeseen

A 10 base 2 ethernet card. Haven't seen one of those for about 30 years

Neil_Jones

VoucherMan wrote: »

If the labels are anything to go by, it has both Pentium & Celeron processors,

Its possible the case was reused to change the computer insides and if that's the case the outside stickers become irrelevant. You'd need to fire it up if it still works and see what the BIOS screen says. Note that machines of this age will seem to take forever to get going compared to modern units

But looking at the back it is quite an ancient machine.

Not sure about the rear view either. I'm guessing the 'aerial' on the top slot is for wifi, but I've no idea why he would have wanted what looks like a twin coax cable connector on the third one down. I didn't notice any compatible cables in the vicinity, so assume it was no longer in use.

In order from top to bottom the connectors are 2xPS/2 connectors (keyboard and mouse), 2 USBs, a 9 pin serial port, the longer strip is a parallel port, VGA port (connect a monitor to this 15 pin connector), Wifi card (with the aerial), something else underneath it, the 10 base 2 network card (with the BNC connector), dial-up modem (56k!) and sound card.

It was only since about the turn of the century that you got computers with onboard sound and network ports as standard and most top end boards now come with Wifi as standard. On computers of that age you had to add it all separately via separate cards if you wanted sound or LAN.

On the 10Base 2 card, see the Wiki entry, the BNC connector was effectively a converter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE2

newatc

If you want to find a good home you could try the Computer Museum in Cambridge http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/

Owain_Moneysaver

Acer Aspire 5920 have sold on Ebay for £16 -- 21 plus postage as 'spares or parts'.

onomatopoeia99

unforeseen wrote: »

A 10 base 2 ethernet card. Haven't seen one of those for about 30 years

We were using a BNC network at work well into the last decade, get got bored with resoldering the connectors on the wall plugs (they seemed to fail a lot) and had so many long cables running between the wall ports to bypass the failed structured cabling that eventually a colleague and I replaced it all with cat5e one weekend out of frustration. .

edit - I threw out all the old RTL8029 adapters and cables when we moved office three years ago, don't have any of it left any more.