Hardware Donations

Hardware Donations

or: "I want to leave some stuff at the Hacklab!"

Toronto Hacklab is located in a downtown apartment. This means, of course, that space is at a premium and that garbage disposal can be expensive or at the very least annoying. Because of this, we cannot accept just any old equipment -- we have to be a bit picky. Hardware donations to the Hacklab should meet some requirements:

• Full donation: Decide if you are lending or donating the equipment to the Hacklab. Donated equipment will be free for members to use as they please, for as long as they please. This includes disassembling, re-purposing, turning into artwork, whatever. The equipment should also be yours to give -- make sure it is not on your employer's books. Loaned equipment should be CLEARLY LABED with your name and the intended use.

• High hack / educational value: Device in question is very well documented, in excellent condition, and is modern and interesting. It should be open, and software/firmware if required should be included or be easily available on the public internet.

• High usefulness: Device in question is modern (can be interfaced with today's products) and is in perfect working condition. We should be able to trust it and rely on it. Broken computers are a dime a dozen; we don't have room to store them. The device should also be power-efficient and environmentally responsible, since its use will affect the Hacklab's power bill. Today's 1GHz Atom beats your 2.4GHz P4 while using 10% of the power.

• Historical value: Some things can get by without meeting the above restrictions based entirely on their historical awesomeness (size permitting). If you want to donate an Altair 8800 to the lab, nobody will complain.

Please note that this excludes materials for the project you're working on, provided they fit in your bin.

Donation Signup

If you want to donate something to the lab, add it to the list below and we'll vote on whether to accept it during our next meeting:

YOUR NAME	EQUIPMENT DESCIPTION	DATE ADDED	VOTE DECISION
Martin Ringehahn	Canoscan LIDE 100 Scanner	2000-08-15	pending

Donated equipment should be tagged with a sticker saying that it's a donated item, and the date it was donated.

Purge Request

If you find something in the lab that you think is just wasting space, list it below and we'll vote on whether or not to get rid of it:

YOUR NAME	EQUIPMENT DESCIPTION	DATE ADDED	VOTE DECISION
Dan Fraser	2 Cisco Routers	2008-11-23	pending