Hi Michael,
Rectangular boxes the ship 10 pizzas in. 10" wide, 20" long and 7"
Ahhh! --------------------------^^^^^^^^
I was trying to imagine how the box for a *single* pizza
could possibly be useful <:-/
deep. Some come with lids, while others are just open trays.
The water boxes are 6.25" wide, 18.5" long and 10" deep.
OK, different form factor (narrower opening, deeper).
E.g., I have a box for SCSI "1" cables, "2", "wide", VHDCI,
DB25, VGA, DVI, 10Base2, "RJ45", etc.; boxes for screwdrivers,
chisels, drills, etc.; CD-ROMs, DVD writers, speech synthesizers,
barcode readers, PDAs, signature pads, etc.; development boards
(SBC's), hookup wire scraps, etc.; access points, routers, network
fabric, network appliances, etc.
[I think there are ~130 of these boxes currently]
I'll see your 130, and raise you over 500 Banana Boxes. (16" wide,
20" long and 9" deep
They are used for storage without shelves in one
of my small shop buildings. They are in three groups, stacked eight
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If I had a "separate space" for work related stuff, the
gravitational field would probably be highly distorted in its
vicinity! :> (i.e., I learned not to have too much
"storage space" lest you end up storing too much *in* it! :> )
high. They are two stacks deep along the outside walls, and a center
isle three deep down the center of the building. That leaves two long
three feet wide isles. This is where things are stored and sorted
before being recycled or dismantled. There are bulk components,
Ah, I only keep what *I* will (personally) use.
computer, test equipment and tooling stored there. A few complete
telephone systems & spare parts that I was using to support some radio
stations.
That was where I did most of my work before I became disabled. I
would grab some old equipment and decide if it was worth repairing. If
it was, I would look for the parts I needed, or just make notes and box
it up until I got the parts. Others were like the old WE or SC 2500
series five line phones. (1A2 type) I had a steady stream of bad phones
show up. The ones in good shape were repaired and boxed up. The rest
were scrapped as fast as I could. In 10 years I scrapped over 500 of
(sigh) There was a time when I was looking for WE 500/2500 sets.
them. I still have some spare phones and 400 series cards. They are
going to a local tire business for spares as I find them. They help
local Veterans, so it's only fair to return that help.
The barrel is for things that I have way too many of. Like 25 foot
Centronics Printer cables or 50 foot RS232 cables. I will grab one of
those to make a custom cable for someone. I just dug out a 25 foot
Centronics Printer cable a few days ago to make a long Serial Printer
cable for an IOLine vinyl cutter for a friend to cut lettering. No one
stocks them anymore, around here. They probably never did stock
anything over six feet.
I hang onto cables because I don't want to have to *make* any!
Just too damn much work for what it's worth, usually.
So, I keep a good assortment of various types of cables in
various lengths. The only ones I have in short supply are
the nice 12" wide SCSI cables. :<
I have a stack of boxes full of hard and floppy drive cables. Others
are full of various power cables. About 500 AC adapters sorted by
voltage, or application. (EG: HP Printer power supplies)
I have two of the vacutainer boxes set aside for "unmatched" wall
warts/bricks. Anything that *needs* a wall wart/brick has that
stored with it.
OTOH, there are times when I need a standalone power supply
for some bit of kit. If I am lucky, I'll have a supply
in one of the boxes *with* the right connector. If not,
I'll find a suitable supply and cut the existing connector
off and replace it with another.
(I presently have to do that with a pair of external HD
enclosures that are missing their power packs)
I'm 'down' to about 200 keyboards and about 130 mice right now.
I typically only keep one of each type of keyboard as a spare.
Recently, however, my spare PS2 keyboard was used to replace
one that developed a flakey spacebar. Unfortunately, I
didn't think to replace the *spare* at the time! :<
Yesterday, I needed to power down one of my headless servers
and discovered that it's keyboard had given up the ghost.
So, I had to resort to powering it down remotely.
I also have a couple 3' cubed shipping containers full of Commodore
computers.
I really like these little *tiny* keyboards (about 12" wide?)
for those machines that I run headless -- yet "need" a keyboard
to be able to power it down "locally" (i.e., "typing blind").
[I keep a portable *7* inch LCD monitor for those times when
I need to connect a display to a headless machine... requires
a bit of squinting to read but a lot nicer than having to
lug a larger monitor around!]
You can't use VNC software to shut it down from another computer?
Not all of my machines run GUI's.
I can telnet/ssh to any of them and shut down that way.
But, that means having to turn *on* a second computer
*just* to telnet to the *first*!
If, instead, I leave a keyboard attached to each, I can simply
type (without *seeing* what I'm typing):
root
<password>
shutdown -p now (or whatever)
wait a few seconds for confirmation that the box *is*
shutting down...