Repurposing Old Electronics

As someone trying to downsize, I found a bunch of old electronics that are in perfectly working order but not used. For one reason or another, they became obsolete or duplicated in function. I decided to try and salvage some of them.

- July 2019

With the digital streaming by Netflix and Amazon and Hulu, there is almost no need to have a DVD player. Yet, I have a collection of old DVDs that are perfectly good and I may want to watch some old movies for nostalgic reasons.

I found an old flat screen Computer monitor that was sitting in my basement. It is 23 inches diagonal and small by today’s standards. All I needed was the right adapter to make it come together.

• Acer flat screen Computer monitor 23”
• Magnovox DVD player
• Bose Stereo Radio
• RCA converter to HDMI (purchased for $15 from Best Buy)
• RCA jack cables
• power strip

After connecting the whole thing, and plugging it to the wall, it all came together and works. I now have a working portable, standalone DVD player that can play my old DVDs and for the times when the network is down or when I can’t find anything good to watch in the 100 channels from my Optimum Cable company. The quality is not great but at 1080 resolution, sufficient to watch any old movies. The sound on my old Bose radio is great.

Having been involved with archives for most of my career, I am faced with the same dilemma but on a personal scale. What to do with my old media...? I had thrown out all my 33 LP many years ago, along with most of my cassette tapes. I have an extensive collection of music CDs, and DVD. I also have some VHS tapes but only have one player that still works. It can only be played on my old Karaoke system that is connected to a CRT monitor system that has a built-in VHS player. This system can also play laser discs which are totally obsolete.

Imagine what a library or an archives have to deal with. The media has gone through several generations of technology. What do we do with these outmoded media content?