Donate Your Old Computers

If you or your organisation has any old computer equipment, then we know how you feel! It's not good for anything you can think of, but it's too good to throw out. The standard response is to store it for a few years, then once it's so antiquated that it's not worth a second thought, trash it! That way nobody has to take a positive decision about it - though you do lose a storeroom (or a corridor, or an office...) and you don't help to save the planet.

Do something constructive by donating the machines to RTI. We're confident that our artists and technologists can find creative uses for any machine, however low its specification. If a computer has a 3.5 inch floppy disk and a hard disk (any size!) then to us it's first rate - it'll be really useful. But we can even make use of older machines as well.

As long as it still works, we want it. Even if it doesn't work, if it's a 486 or better we still want it, because we'll either be able to fix it, or use it for spare parts. There's just one thing that we really don't want - dead monitors. We can't do anything with monitors if their tube has blown.

At the moment we're particularly looking for Pentium 75s, 486s & 386s, 680x0 Macs, Amigas, Ataris, and more. We particularly value complete systems - with keyboards, monitors and mice. We like to use what we're given as effectively as possible - we don't break down useful stuff and weld it together into sculpture, unless we really can't find another way to make it work first.

What You'll Get Out of It

So, helping to save the planet and supporting the Arts isn't enough for you, eh? Fair enough - if you're donating computers on behalf of an organisation we'll tell people about your postive, green, creative attitude by featuring your organisation on this website and thanking it in our exhibition catalogues and other publicity. If you're an individual donor, we'll welcome you at our exhibitions and performances, where you'll see how your old machine has helped. Either way, not a bad deal for getting rid of your IT trash!

Other Ways to Help

If you live in or near Sheffield, then we're on the lookout for volunteers to come and help us get our new "Access Space" off the ground. You don't have to have a high level of IT expertise, but UNIX experts are always welcome. The fact that you're reading this information on the web, and that you're perfectly capable of emailing us, shows that you know more than enough to get stuck in.

If you have some time, enthusiasm and almost any skill whatsoever, you'll most likely be able to make yourself useful. People skills are particularly useful - because we need plenty of chatty, communicative people to help hardcore cyber-people (who maybe aren't so used to talking that much) to share their skills and participate in what will be, essentially, a social space.