Comment Repurposing (Score 1) 309
Re-puposing sounds better than hoarding, though there are elements of that too. Machines and devices that still work are kept, even if they are obsolete. Things that don't work and there is no point in repairing them have power supplies, memory chips, sometimes power transistors, relays, or connectors, removed and the remainder goes in the recycling pile. Dead hard disks are taken apart and the motors, bearings, and platters are used for some other project. Even if this just stays a bunch of related parts in a box for a couple years...
I don't usually throw out things that work, or are sufficiently valuablet that I one day will get around to fixing them.
Of course, eventually all the old machines running various server jobs around the house and yard fail and have to be replaced, so there is a gradual attrition of the oldest machines, typically 486s or early Pentiums capable of running at least some Linux 2.2 or 2.4 variant. Old Slackware or Red Hat systems typically, are nice and light-weight. Of course, in these days of Picotux, Gumstix, and Raspberry Pi, these dinosaurs have only the fact that they aren't broke and thus need no fixing going for them.
And new old machinery always arrive when family members discard machines that still have some good life left in them, or there is something nice available at the junk-auctions of the radio-amateurs club.
Ashtead