Where Old Systems Go to Die

When you run a QA lab with hundreds of systems, you run into some unique problems – how  to identify the systems naturally, IP conflicts on the network because someone rebounded the wrong address, and what to do with the systems when they reach the end of their useful lives. Most of them, we recycle (there’s an annual electronics recycling program that we participate in). But some, we stick in the kitchen:

Behold the glory of the Sun Microsystems coffee maker! Solaris 8 has never smelled so good!

Or, the majesty of the ‘Gateway Shredder’! I think those are a PIII-600 and an Athlon-650, but I’m not crawling down there to check the faceplates.

A few old tan-box Macs (System 6 or 7-compatible) got used as footrests for a while, too, but I think we got rid of all of those. Sorry, don’t have any photos of those.

OK, this had very little to do with application testing, but hopefully someone was amused by our taste in office decor! Go ahead and contact us if you want to share your own stories of repurposed hardware, or are interested in a more down-to-earth discussion of our current lab hardware, software quality assurance and/or automated testing services.