There are two constants in life.
Computers grow obsolete. And users hate to admit it.
It was those constants, and the generosity of a number of people who couldn't bear to see their onc
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| GCM Members and Volunteers sort through the roomful of computers, looking for usable units. |
e needed computers go to the scrap heap, which brought Gold Coast Mac volunteers to the Mahi Shrine on a Saturday afternoon.
Miami's Shriners had taken donations over the past two years, but lacked the resources to sort the trash from the treasure. The donated computers had been piling up in the Shrine basement, doing good for nobody, when Potentate Richard Lynn asked Gold Coast Mac to step in and give a hand.
It didn't matter that most of the equipment was DOS and Windows based. What the Shrine needed and didn't have was someone who could plug monitors into CPU's, see if they'd boot, and decide if a working computer could be assembled.
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| This is part of what was tossed out, computers worth tens of thousands new, now hopelessly obsolete. All PC's. Not a single donated Mac ended up here. |
Equipment which passed the cut would make it to Shrine hospitals, where burned children and others are cared for without regard for their ability to pay.
GCMac volunteers walked into a find a virtual mountain of computers, a testament to how fast the industry has moved in the past decade. Most of the equipment was less than 10 years old, but you could tell much of it was obsolete just by looking at it.
There were line printers which once printed cruise line tickets, printers worth thousands of dollars new, but absolutely useless today. Many of the CPU's could not be salvaged, because they lacked what GCM volunteers set as the bare minimum, a 3.5" disk drive and a VGA graphics capability. Slowly, we found monitors and computers which would work together, but sadly, the reject pile grew faster than the keeper pile.
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Thanks from the Shrine.
Click for a full size view. |
Even so, simply because there was so much to start with, CGM was able to assemble a number of PC's which could be used for educational games and light duty, perfect for a hospitalized child bored to tears.
While most of the equipment was PC's, we found in the pile some old Mac equipment. Unlike the PC's, where rejects exceeded keepers, in the Mac section, not a single unit failed to boot, and all of them, even an ancient Mac Plus, worked flawlessly. All are now helping hospitalized kids.
It took just a single afternoon, but the hours spent sifting through the techno-trash produced enough nuggets of giga-gold to make it a worthwhile project, both for Gold Coast Mac and for the Shrine.
Potentate Richard Lynn wrote: "Words alone cannot express the gratitude for all you have done for the children Mahi Shrine sponsors. Mahi has some 600 children we sponsor and transport to the Shrine hospital in Tampa...Now, due to your efforts, we can offer them computers as well...You can be proud of your entire membership."
It was our pleasure. Shriners say, "No man stood so tall as when he bent over to help a crippled child". Gold Coast Mac is happy we can stand tall.
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The crew which gave up a Saturday
to help sort through the morass!
If you'd like to donate equipment for this program,
please contact us!
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