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Sorting Old Cables
Feb. 11th, 2023 07:57 pmThis evening Hawk and I sorted through a bunch of old cables we have. We've accumulated quite a number over the years, even with a bit of pruning along the way. The three plastic bins we sort them into in our closet were overflowing, so we decided it was time to get them a spring cleaning even though it's only February.
The picture above shows just a few of the various cables we sorted through. The cables in this pic are mostly telecom cables: phone cables with RJ-11 connectors, Ethernet cables with RJ-45 connectors, and a few couplers and splitters. There are also power supplies/adapters for stuff we're pretty sure we don't own anymore, a 30-pin connector cable for old iPhones, and a coaxial cable signal splitter.
How old or out-of-date is this stuff? Well, we haven't run multiple phone lines around the house in almost 20 years. We kept a few for the one land line phone we still retain and tossed the rest in a bag we'll take to an e-waste station. It's a similar story for the Ethernet cables. We went wireless almost 20 years ago. We tossed most of the Ethernet cables in the recycling bag, keeping 3 or 4 in case the need ever arises— or, more likely, to sort through again in another 10 years and laugh at. Also for laughs we kept the phone line connectors/splitters and the coaxial cable TV splitter.
The gear in this picture is less than one-fifth, by bulk, of what we sorted through. Other things we "found" include:
With a sack of stuff ready to go e-waste/recycling our 3 plastic bins now close easily, two of them with plenty of space left over.
The picture above shows just a few of the various cables we sorted through. The cables in this pic are mostly telecom cables: phone cables with RJ-11 connectors, Ethernet cables with RJ-45 connectors, and a few couplers and splitters. There are also power supplies/adapters for stuff we're pretty sure we don't own anymore, a 30-pin connector cable for old iPhones, and a coaxial cable signal splitter.
How old or out-of-date is this stuff? Well, we haven't run multiple phone lines around the house in almost 20 years. We kept a few for the one land line phone we still retain and tossed the rest in a bag we'll take to an e-waste station. It's a similar story for the Ethernet cables. We went wireless almost 20 years ago. We tossed most of the Ethernet cables in the recycling bag, keeping 3 or 4 in case the need ever arises— or, more likely, to sort through again in another 10 years and laugh at. Also for laughs we kept the phone line connectors/splitters and the coaxial cable TV splitter.
The gear in this picture is less than one-fifth, by bulk, of what we sorted through. Other things we "found" include:
- Several stereo audio connectors with RCA plugs
- Several 3-wire stereo/TV cables with RCA plugs
- A 3-wire RCA plug set I tied together myself for component video... back when that was the highest fidelity cabling for video. HDMI is way better now.
- Speaking of HDMI, lots of HDMI cables. We kept 3 or 4 since it's a current standard and culled the cables that seemed in poor shape.
- Scads of USB-A cables, USB-A cable extenders, and USB-A to USB-mini and USB-micro adapters. We kept a few and tossed the rest because newer USB devices have pretty much all gone USB-C.
With a sack of stuff ready to go e-waste/recycling our 3 plastic bins now close easily, two of them with plenty of space left over.
