Computer Help and Support

For several years around 2000 my husband and I collected old computers from family, got some in working condition, installed basic operating systems and programs and gave them to people who couldn't afford computers.

Then I used that knowledge to build my own. The last two, I picked out the parts and had someone else assemble. I'm going to do that again soon - the computer I am using now is over six years old and isn't quite up to what I need today.

My Dad unloaded his old computers on me, but I donated them - without hard drives - to the local Goodwill. They have a recycling program so if they can't use the parts, they get torn apart and the metals are reclaimed.

The hard drives get put into enclosures so I can try to save whatever I can. Dad exchanged stories and pictures with some of his friends that he didn't share with his daughters, so a lot of the stuff is family history. No one wants a 100 MB hard drive any more, for some reason.

I also got some collectible stuff from Dad - he had bought a Texas Instrument TI-99 for Mom which was never taken out of the box. He saved his first computer, a Commodore, with all the parts, and the manual for the Wang computer he leased in the 1960s. I need to find a computer museum to give those things to!