• atmur@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    6 days ago

    I finally went through my box of cables and Goodwill’d or threw away stuff that I’m absolutely never going to use. Gotta say, the feeling of going to The Box™ and not having to dig through a million cables to find what you need is pretty nice.

    The hardest thing to throw away was the mystery power cables/bricks. Even though everything I own has its power cable with it and labeled with no exceptions, and even though I haven’t touched the mystery power cable for 10 years, I still felt like I’d discover its purpose the moment I got rid of it. Hasn’t happened yet, but I’m still anxious.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
      10·
      6 days ago

      The hardest thing to throw away was the mystery power cables/bricks. Even though everything I own has its power cable with it and labeled with no exceptions, and even though I haven’t touched the mystery power cable for 10 years, I still felt like I’d discover its purpose the moment I got rid of it. Hasn’t happened yet, but I’m still anxious.

      I keep those but convert their use to replace disposable battery powered devices.

      All those spare USB wall warts you have are 5 volt and at least 1 amp DC power supplies. Anything you have that takes 3 AA or AAA batteries is a 4.5v supply. Almost all of them can tolerate the extra .5 volt. Clip the mini-USB/micro-USB/classic iPod/lightening connector off the cable and run those (I usually solder them) to your device. Now you can plug it into the wall and never have to worry about batteries again.

      6 volt DC wall warts can be used to replace things that take 4 AA or AAA batteries.

    • thawed_caveman@lemmy.world
      2·
      5 days ago

      My solution is to have two boxes: one for things i might actually use (USB-C, HDMI, standard power cables), and one for things i’ll never use (micro USB power bricks). Keep both obviously

  • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
    2·
    5 days ago

    LPT: label the unique power bricks/cords when you get them.

    Use a piece of white tape, a silver marker or get a cheap $20 label printer at Walmart.

  • BigDaddySlim@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    The Box ^TM just came in handy for me to find a VGA cable to change a BIOS setting on an old PC to output through PCI on boot. Had to reset the BIOS after installing a new CPU and it reverted that setting.

    The Box ^TM will stay with me until death.

    (Most of these old cables are organized, I haven’t gotten to this box yet)

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    7·
    5 days ago

    My wife made fun of me for having one of these.

    And I told her that I just hadn’t thrown them out yet.

    I don’t think anyone will ever need my spare Firewire cables.

  • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
    5·
    6 days ago

    My cable box of doom – boxes, I have eight of them – are categorized by overall type of cable and everything is bagged for tangle-free storage.

    I know what I have and I know approximately where I have it. And often enough, I do indeed need to produce a specific able on demand, albeit usually just to give away to other people who are in a bind with some damn fool device or another.

    Retro video game cables in one crate, “modern” (like, PS3 and up) in another, legacy and modern computer data cables in two more crates, video cables in one crate, audio cables in one crate, AC power cables in one crate, and assorted DC power supplies and wall warts in the last crate.

    When it comes to old junk cables, I am not fucking around.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      6 days ago

      Same here, although I’ve got to admit that needing parallel ATA ribbon cables seems unlikely at this point.

      • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
        3·
        6 days ago

        You fuck with enough industrial automation equipment and you absolutely will find yourself needing those 40 pin IDE cables, not to mention 25 pin (ugh) serial cables, and BNC.

        Still.

        Technology in some sectors changes very slowly.

  • cron@feddit.org
    111·
    6 days ago

    No dad, YOU never know when you might need them. I know for sure that keeping charging cables and headphones with proprietary connectors will never again be useful.

    • kamenLady.@lemmy.world
      14·
      6 days ago

      My father overdid it by keeping everything you might need one day. Life went on, he got old and circumstances forced him to throw everything away, without the chance of going through all the stuff and maybe keep things that really had value to him, in any way.

      This experience is teaching me to get rid of things.

    • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      8·
      6 days ago

      Your guys’ box isn’t full of HDMI and USB mini/micro?

      Oh and I have 150ft of coax, don’t ask why, I don’t fucking remember

      • cron@feddit.org
        5·
        6 days ago

        Does anyone need some old SCART, VGA, DVI, serial, parallel, USB type B, coax, RJ11 cables? And that’s only the stuff I know the names of.

  • naonintendois@programming.dev
    10·
    5 days ago

    I organized and threw away cables a few times. Every time a week or two later I’d find the things the power cables attached to and now have no replacement because they were unique to the device.

    • thawed_caveman@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 days ago

      Rookie move. You need to keep the things and the cables together. My box of cables is purely for things i don’t own anymore, which is clearly the more sane solution

    • dch82@lemmy.zip
      4·
      5 days ago

      The day you need a Thunderbolt cable but you can only find power-only cables is the day you wonder how good USB-C is