Hello all,
I've posted in the forum once before but I figured I'd give somewhat of a formal introduction.
Born and raised in NJ, I loved going to YESTERcades in Red Bank. A few years ago I moved to Florida and found that I missed that arcade more than I thought I would so last year I bought my first game off Facebook Marketplace. I work in the computer industry (decommissioning data centers, reselling and recycling electronics) and had always been interested in restoring/repairing old electronics but had no formal education on the topic and didn't know where to start, so I jumped right in by buying a working Hard Drivin' machine with the goal to refurbish it. The seller threw in an unknown condition Space Invaders board in a beat-up Space Invader Deluxe cabinet, which I'm not exactly sure what to do with yet. I've since gotten a Missile Command upright that needs a little love and a non-working Asteroids cocktail table. I'm enjoying this adventure so far and hope to learn a little more every day.
I've also got a question but I'm not sure where to post it so I'll drop it here. Being in the business of recycling a lot of computers and other miscellaneous electronics, relatively often I run into old technology like 70s-80s era Hewlett-Packard measuring and test equipment, vintage oscilloscopes, CRTs, and old motherboards. I try to sell what has value and recycle the rest - meaning old PCBs get refined for their precious metal content. I try to check some boards for valuable ICs or processors before I scrap them but I'm not exactly sure what might be useful and when. I've de-soldered a number of IC sockets that might be useful sometime in the future but I really have no clue what else might be worth saving. So my question is: are there certain ICs, processors, sockets, or other electronic components on old circuit boards that I should be looking out for and save?
Thanks for reading and thanks for welcoming me into the forum.