Is it worth pulling EPROMS?

Originally Posted by Bear

I don't ever recall seeing any in tubes etack

This is a picture of what IC tubes look like. This is what they come in when new.

Eric

Originally Posted by etack

This is a picture of what IC tubes look like. This is what they come in when new.

I was going to post pictures before I saw that you did etack. I should have read all the posts. Nice job!

Scott

I used to scour the vintage computer area of ebay, there are people selling the ICs, Proms, Eproms in long plastic tubes. They are shaped so that the chips fit perfectly and are able to slide up and down the tube with little pins on each side to prevent them from falling out. When I get a chance I'll take a few pictures of them, I have hundreds.

If you look in the vintage area on ebay, you will see that people are selling bulk chips in these tubes, but also you will see people selling individual chips, sometimes for a lot of money. I came across small ICs that were gold plated on the legs and top. I was looking them up online, just googled number on the chip, and found out they were worth $35 usd each, so you know what I did. I sold them for $30 each to the same company.

Here some examples on ebay:

vintage eproms | eBay

Sometimes it's not the value of eprom attached to the board, or the refine value, but the actual value to people who restore vintage computer equipment. If you are careful and pay attention, specially to older computer equipment, you can find and save these little bits of history, and make a killing while you are at it.

Scott