Then their worth levels out for a year or so, he said, before plunging practically to zero. That hurts both individuals and institutions or businesses. It decided to donate it to the Computer Museum instead. Museums and collectors, however, generally seek only rare and historically valuable computers. That means most of the tens of millions of computers in America that have been retired from their primary functions have no obvious monetary value.
Some creative types come up with novel uses for their old machines.
Clifford Stoll, a notoriously skeptical computer commentator, turned his Mac Plus into a Macquarium, using plans posted on the Internet, and used a gutted 286 computer as a cat litter box for a couple of years. But it got too stinky after a while, and it was cheaper to toss it out than clean it. My cats liked it, though. Whimsy aside, there do seem to be sensible answers to the riddle of what to do with an obsolete computer, economists and computer professionals say. The New York Times Computers stockpiled for reuse.