The township recycling event two Saturdays from now is accepting both electronics and software, so this seems like a good time to ruthlessly scan my office (and office closet) for Things I’ll Never Use Again.

First under the microscope was a box of software originally released on floppy disks–the likes of Civilization II, SimEarth, F-117 Stealth Fighter, Harpoon, M1-A1 Abrams, and the Colorado Backup program that came with my first QIC-80 tape drive. They want MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, or Windows 95, and that’s just not going to happen here.

Of course, those were the days software came in a two-pound box the size of a large hardcover book–slipcover, dividers, installation discs in multiple formats, manuals, registration cards, keyboard templates, maps. So I had to break each one down into components to meet the recycling requirements. Cardboard, Boxboard, Plastic, Misc Paper, Books, Magnetic Media. Chaos precedes order.

I held back MYST and RIVEN, for now.

Coming up next, the fliptop boxes of 5.25″ floppies, the drawers of 3.5″ floppies and QIC-80 drives, the shoeboxes full of data CDs and DVDs, the media rack full of program CDs, the clothes basket full of computer speakers, the fan-fold, pin-feed paper box full of power cords, the plastic totes full of every kind of cable used in PCs over the last 35 years, the box of old phones, the crate of wall-warts and laptop power supplies belonging to devices long gone, the stacks of assorted drives removed from some of my 50+ dead or retired computers, the three dead computers tucked away under the library table…

It’s going to be a busy two weeks, with a lot of trips up and down the basement stairs.