Free Stuff

[alexh]

As a former Northerner I always like Free stuff (don't you?)

Work are WEE'ing all 7th Gen Intel CPUs & Motherboards (approx 1000) and so I grabbed one. These are PCIe Gen 3 hosts that were used to test our PCIe NVMe SSD controllers. They date back to 2010 (OMG that's 13 years ago, feels like yesterday).

Anyhow I bagged one, 16GB DDR4 2400 RAM some 7th gen i5 CPU, not sure which but (if it works) it's got to be better than my home desktop PC which is a 2006 Core2Duo E6600. Unfortunately doesn't support Windows 11 but hey.

You ever get free stuff from work?

IMG_20230720_125847.jpg

(FYI my desktop is not my main computer, I mainly use a Laptop)

[Darklord]

Back before I retired, our hospital would give employees a chance
to buy old computer equipment whenever they did a system wide
update.

You could actually get some pretty good deals. Way back when, I
picked up a 486DX for really cheap at that time. Used it for quite
a while.

Biggest shock for me though was the first employee sale that I went
to in the early 80's - there was a system there with 8" floppies and a
case that came up to mid-chest on me. :)

PS I know that 8" floppies weren't unusual at that time but my first
system was an Atari 800XL and I had never actually seen an 8" floppy.

[mrbombermillzy]

Having come across this thread titled 'Free Stuff' by AlexH, I was kinda hoping he was going to be giving away his Falcon or Amiga 4000. :lol:

Now Im here though:

I used to work in a bonding warehouse. (Thats the places that supply airports, if you are wondering).

Our job was processing and shipping stuff like perfumes, Hugo Boss suits, expensive watches, high value goods etc. In with that mix were assorted chocolate bits and bobs.

So we were there one day and those in charge decided that the pallet of peanut m&ms in the corner of the warehouse had just gone out of date, so they should hand a box each to all the staff (there werent that many staff).

I must have been eating m&ms for a full 3 weeks. By the last week, it was more habit than any sort of pleasure. It took me a very long time to actually want to buy a pack of these again. :)

[sporniket]

In France that is not possible anymore since a few years, as it would be a kind of advantage for the employee, and as such must be included in the assessment of the social taxes. Until 3 years ago if I remember correctly, it was something possible.

[alexh]

The same thing exists in the UK. However because this equipment is over 5yo it is deemed by the UK government to have no intrinsic value and so is not subject to income tax.