Random surprise at a pick up

Had a nice surprise yesterday from a freecycle post yesterday. Scheduled a pick up of a random item I was getting and did my standard, if you have any more electronics you want to get rid of, I am happy to take them at the same time. Got there and see a small pile by the garage. Turns out to be a couple of older VCRs, a scanner, a box of small corded items, keyboards, phones & a toaster oven and finally two PCs. Scrapped the first one, and it was Pentium I chip with a bunch of silver memory, but missing the HD. Then I see this little beauty (Packard Bell 386 Forge, circa 1989ish). Before I break it down for the 386 that is in it, is there value to it as a collectible? No idea if it works, as none of the cords came with it.

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Try hitting a local thrift store for cords if you don't have extras laying around. I do, but I realize not everyone is a packrat.

Failing the thrift store you can try Radio Shack if you have local to you.

I always keep extra power cords, a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc for testing purposes.

Far as collectable or not...do a ebay sold search, a program like Terapeak or visit a Vintage Computer forum. If your in need of a speedy response, or you can wait an hopefully one of our smart computer people can tell you.

Good luck an nice find~!

Sirscrapalot - The best part about being put on the naughty list..is being naughty. - Me.

To ebay it goes then....bummer. Still happy for a nice pile to break down....can't win them all. It's a long term game anyway.

I'm pretty sure there are some ceramic 386SX chips. I'm 99% sure I have a few. The plastic flatpack 386SX as well as 486's were mostly used in laptops, have scrapped a few before.

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

The 386sx is a flatpack chip, it is NOT the gold chip you think it will be.



All you will get is a large socket motherboard and silver memory. TRY to sell it whole, even 20 bucks would be a profit.

Ended up selling on Ebay for $31 as a unit. Not bad.

Thanks. It was the flat back by the way. I opened the case to take some additional pictures and it was what you posted.