Big Changes at Free Geek Twin Cities!

[@bobbyhinner3225]

I wish more places like this existed. Old tech can be used and doesn’t have to go to e waste with a bit of time and care. I’d love to volunteer my time at one of these places, if one was near to me

[@ptzzzs]

I feel ya. Suck that there nothing like Free Geek in my country. What a place to nerd out at! haha

[@KameraShy]

The do. Nine other locations including Portland (where it started), Chicago and Detroit.

[@bfapple]

Agreed I wish we had this in the UK. I currently spend a few hours each week refurbishing 3-4 year old laptops and turning them into Chromebooks for families who need them.

[@robert1975031]

I second this. I had a lot of stuff that could have gone to a store like this, only to have to end up scrapping it because goodwill stopped taking computers and parts:( to my knowledge no such place exists in FL. if I had the time and space I would definitely have run a florida branch of this store, oh well..

[@fm00078]

There's 2 retro stores called 'Milwaukee PC' around Milwaukee, Wi.

[@TheYuppiejr]

Great job on the story! Backstory on the light-up signs around the 7 minute mark, those were a donation from Kent @ Burg Electronic Recovery in Anoka, and had indeed been salvaged from an old computer store years ago. I had noticed them sitting in a corner of his warehouse on a few occasions, and when I explained Free Geek's mission and pending retail store opening he offered them to dress up the new space. I'm surprised nobody jumped out of their chair at the 3 IBM PS/2 systems at the 2:05 mark, which will hopefully be tested and pushed to the store soon. One of them even included a discrete (vs on-board) micro channel ESS Sound Piper audio adapter plus the IBM video adapter card. The two newer IBM systems a shelf above are also notable, as one is a socket 8 / Pentium Pro machine that was upgraded with a unicorn Pentium 2 Overdrive CPU at some point in time. Coming soon to a Free Geek Twin Cities retail outlet near you...

[@peepopalaber]

believe me, i noticed them :)

[@KameraShy]

Keep in mind the Free Geek is a chain with nine other locations including Portland (where it started), Chicago and Detroit.

[@jamegumb7298]

Portland? Oh dear. Better het ready for some involuntary donations.

[@jeremiahrex]

Hi, current board member of Free Geek Twin Cities here. All the locations are separate and only unified in spirit. Each one is run quite differently. That’s why we have “Twin Cities” after our name, the original Portland Free Geek is the original.

[@katfox2004]

no fucking way. CHICAGO. NI HAVE TI GO NOW

[@isaacwright2247]

@@jeremiahrex If you're a board member. Why don't you open one in Southwest VA or Northeast TN. Heck, even open one in Asheville, NC or Knoxville, TN. My area has a retro shortage.

[@lellowranger]

Getting an LGR Thrifts vibe from this one with the jazz music. Love it!

[@jackkraken3888]

That keyboard feels just like something LGR would get. 😂

[@flashg30]

yeah but he did not show us wath is as buy ...

[@cabbitkisser2620]

i like to see more store's like this open up every where. store's like this can save me alot of money on computer part's.

[@oldtechnobodycaresabout]

Maybe internationally, I would love to have one in Ashford or even a single one in London for the south of the UK

[@JesBuscus94]

Saaaaaaaammmmmeeee. I live in NY so this place is a bit of a drive for me.

[@organiccold]

@@oldtechnobodycaresabout one in Southampton will be cool :)

[@organiccold]

@@oldtechnobodycaresabout there is a shop that sells retro stuff here in the UK but doesn't have too much stock.

[@siontheodorus1501]

Yesss and even if the prices are too high (some places are expensive like the vancouver if i remember), i can just happily spend my time doing all the recycling stuff and get free computer or maybe just to channel my geek sides

[@hardycious]

This was like Alice in Retro Geekland. Thumbs up for more places like this.

[@BrentFreyEsq]

9:50 "If you want to get into retro audio, it seems like CDs are starting to make a comeback." Gez now I feel old...

[@bobbyhinner3225]

My car only uses cds, and cds are a great way to get mp3 files for cheap. I love cds, crazy to think they’re considered “old and outdated” to the point of being retro

[@circuitsandcigars1278]

Look up Umatic . I feel so old

[@masterkamen371]

@@bobbyhinner3225 They aren't even cheap anymore. My local store wants roughly 1 euro for a single CD-R. I remember back when you could get 2 of them for that much.

[@exequiel_hyan]

i just bought a new cd yesterday. i refuse to feel old.

[@youngengineer6697]

Funny enough my engineering professor ask, "who has a cd player in their car" and no one raised their hands. I told him a cd player was a luxury when my truck was made, apparently when we asked around I was the only one driving a vehicle without power locks or windows. Over a 100 students and only one had manual locks and windows

[@AllMuscle1]

Hi Collin. I know this video was posted awhile back, but I wanted to say that I made it to Free Geek Twin Cities today and man, it was a treat! I talked with the manager and he told me about their eligibility program to help people who cannot afford a modern system. Their mission to serve less fortunate families is amazing! I highly recommend this wonderful organization!

[@hannibalranadal1839]

They've really fixed the place up since I was there in late 2019! Glad to see they did something productive with the downtime

[@stephenharris5532]

Those older Compaqs for $30 was actually a super steal and a gem of a find. One of them had a Cyrix CPU, super rare.

[@thedopplereffect00]

This is a beautiful celebration of the evolution of the computer industry. I'm so glad such a place exists. I hope more such stores start popping up to teach a new generation how we got to where we are today.

[@Vitz_atelier]

Man I wish I had a place like this in my city here in Brazil! I have quite a good amount of tech to donate to a store like this!

[@jackkraken3888]

Why don't you try to get one made?

[@Vitz_atelier]

@@jackkraken3888 I don't have the money nor the resources to do so.

[@jd-py5nm]

@@Vitz_atelier team up with some like minded people? Good luck!

[@jackkraken3888]

@@Vitz_atelier Regarding the money issue, you might be able to get some assistance from the government because this is a nonprofit..

[@vito_fl]

Aqui em Curitiba eu já vi sebo vendendo algumas peças mas em bem menor quantidade

[@AirknightTails]

2:39 Yes Please. That AIO looks pretty interesting

[@adventureoflinkmk2]

Got a man of taste here

[@dav3yb]

I think the old Gateway all in one looks MORE interesting, so get both!

[@Lillfot]

Oh fudging yes, need a video about it!

[@jeremiahrex]

I refurbed that machine, it’s an interesting one 😀

[@yuricosmonaut8105]

Yes, take it please! 😁

[@mileswurster7269]

Thanks for highlighting this store! I’m a Minnesotan, but was unfamiliar with this business. Will definitely have to check them out the next time I’m in the Twin Cities-and bring some donations to boot!

[@KYUBIMATIAS]

Ugh, I LOVE these videos! Wish we had a place like this in Mississippi.

[@AirknightTails]

I wish we had a place like this in Philadelphia, PA as well

[@nothing-mm8ui]

i live in canada and just seeing all those cheap pc parts all in one place makes me want to fly there with nothing but 300 dollars and see what things i can buy

[@12Mantis]

Same here (North Carolina), found a computer shop that also sold working/refurbished stuff (got a couple of laptop power supplies, optical drive and some SATA cables) just before the lockdown......and now they're gone :(

[@budderbrotDE]

idk if there is a Place Like thisin germany, does anonym know that? i hope there is one here because that would be like heaven for me

[@nothing-mm8ui]

@@budderbrotDE not sure, usually cool things like this are only in america

[@ChrisKoehn]

I drooled over those VAIO all in ones back in the day! I'd love to see a video about vintage word processors some day, stuff like the Magnavox Video Writer and the like.

[@markarca6360]

I have currently a Sony VAIO laptop as my main computer right now.

[@RobertOcarina]

In Japan, this kind of stores was opened about near 10 years ago since I was living there and most of the thigs sold there was completely in good shape and sometimes like news for a very low price. In this times they notice that many people are becoming more rtro stuffs interesting soy the prices was going up every month. Great video and thanks so much for the effort in production.

[@dreammfyre]

Definitely get that Sony all-in-one if you can.

[@performa9523]

I make the 4-hour trek out to Minneapolis every few months just to visit these guys. The place is amazing, if for no other reason to meet with other retro tech nerds. Many thanks for the video sir!

[@HeadsetGuy]

I'll have to check out FreeGeek Chicago at some point. I'm sure FreeGeek has plenty of locations in other states, too.

[@gieselats]

Cool thift shop. I wish we would have auch good source for old and usuable tech in our town. Keep up the good work. Stay safe. Stay healthy.

[@stevenclarke5606]

What a great idea, if you can recycle or reuse it helps prevent it going to landfill. I used to build pc’s for gaming and sell them to my daughter’s friends at university. I really enjoyed the process of building the computers, it would take me 3 days to complete, it could have been done in a day but it’s very time consuming,day 1 , mount all the components into case and install windows, day 2 install driver’s and update windows, over clock the processor and ram, then run a programme to stress test and find a stable over clocking. Day 3 tidy all the wiring and zip tie all cables, job done.

[@JasonWjddphotography]

I'm way down in Des Moines, but stumbled across this today. Commendable job, you all!

[@bsoundlighting]

This Earth needs more of these places!!! Reduce e-waste, satisfy us geeks and give opportunities for those who cant afford fancy tech!

[@jonathankleinow2073]

That Que! Fire drive was also my first CD burner, and I bought it specifically because it matched the case on my G4/450. My parents won the very base model of those Technics CD players, kind of like the one on top but without a remote control, at a murder mystery dinner in the mid-80s.

[@kvandy8161]

What a treasure trove! As an upstate new yorker, I would practically swim through the great lakes and hitchhike to MN to visit here if I could

[@zincmann]

@Greg Briggs Im in Rochester NY wish we had something like this but with WNY it would all be overpriced.

[@fsfs555]

VAIO stands for (or at least, was originally) "Video Audio Integrated Operation" which explains why most of them were pretty compact with most things built-in to the main board along with at least one A/V port and i.LINK port on them. They often had MiniDisc audio drives in them (or at least, available for them) back in the '90s and early '00s.

[@neoasura]

I'm kind of glad I'm over the retrotech phase going into my 40s. It's crazy seeing stuff sell for just as much as it was new almost thanks to the pandemic.

[@kirusyaga]

7:40 Is that Epson 3LCD projector an educational model? Does it have orange plate on top?

[@Wythaneye]

12:16 Last time I was in there, I raided the bin for the smaller IDE drives. Hopefully they've been able to restock the

[@DrazenX195]

I wish I loved closer to this. So many useful things I could get from here.

[@Fred_Raimer]

Ya know, just think of what a broad and beneficial "stimulus" this could be if startup money was provided by the govt rather than just tossing money around. Everything from education, environment, tech and business activity and a myriad of stuff I can't think of right now. This is such an awesome program on so many levels that is an absolute shame it isn't available in cities all across the country (especially in Atlanta, where I am!) Thanks so much for bringing this to so many people's attention, Colin. Perhaps one of us watching will figure a way to expand this all over.

[@lcutting87]

God I wish we had places like this over in the UK 😭 Although I'd certainly be poorer if we did! 😂

[@mattcintosh2]

Reminds me of my garage. I work with a recycler in Minnesota, and my full time job is selling retro tech online. Just today I picked up a Compaq Presario CDS 526 All in one, and might make a video about it

[@arthurmann578]

I'm in for the video! 👍👍

[@mattcintosh2]

@@arthurmann578 Unfortunately, I plugged it in and could hear some crackeling. Opening it up, I plugged it in again and there was a solder joint connected to a capacitor that I could see some arcing, and the joint was pitted. I unplugged it, took a few pictures and listed it on ebay for someone else to try to fix.

[@arthurmann578]

@@mattcintosh2 Oh...OK...maybe on the next one you find. Be well out there! 👍👍

[@mattcintosh2]

@@arthurmann578 The video is here kzbin.info/www/bejne/ep_GkJWqmd-Kg80 I cut it short after realizing that I wasn't going to be able to do anything else to it.

[@arthurmann578]

@@mattcintosh2 Thanks bro! Will have a look and subscribe to your channel! 👍👍

[@bstaznkid4lyfe392]

We need Free Geek in every cities..

[@videobenny3]

I’ve volunteered at FreeGeek in the past. If you purchase PCs / laptops from them, their prices are extremely competitive, PLUS each system has had a burn-in time that you probably won’t get from a regular Craigslist sale.

[@thewalabee1414]

I live in Minneapolis and didn't know this place existed. Thanks for introducing me to this store! I will be donating and perhaps buying!

[@zepplinc20]

Glad to see vintage stuff not being thrown away. Wish I had a place like this around here. :(

[@Delirious365]

2:43 YES 📺 2:32

[@pedromms8908]

7:19 Nice Samsung SyncMaster (226bw???) on the back. I still have a 931bw from 2005/06 working flawlessly on a daily basis.

[@keithp6689]

Thanks to Colin for bringing this place to my attention. I really like what they're doing at this project, so more power to them! I have a feeling I may well buy my next Lenovo laptop from Free Geek. Excellent video, as always, btw!

[@stan.rarick8556]

Every city deserves a place like this.

[@Kylefassbinderful]

Who here remembers the Weird Stuff Warehouse here in the Bay Area? Sunnyvale to be specific. It was featured in the doc "Triumph of the Nerds" by Robert X. Cringely.

[@p_mouse8676]

I am so jealous to your side of the world. It's just non existing here, people don't care and people care even less fixing these kind of things. Great video!

[@christtt]

please tell me you picked up that cube

[@ThisDoesNotCompute]

Already have one!

[@lightmagick]

Am I imagining things or did literally everyone at one point have that Panasonic VCR(9:26) with the blue strip on the tape flap?

[@audiocrush]

This is an awesome place Nice to see an active community creating something awesome like that :)

[@Rod-bp8ow]

The Respective Brands does not go outdated, its custom fit to serve, provide leisure time, create still and moving images into moving arts. No dead pixels. The brands are always complete features no one can refuse, tangible standards designed for excellence soft and hardwares and peripherals. SMEs........respectively.

[@Buzzygirl63]

I can't WAIT to see the "new" store! I love Free Geek and am really interested in your retro tech!

[@Mr.Unacceptable]

I wish we had a free geek or hacker space near me. So much gets tossed here because to do anything else is an hours drive or more away. Wonder how tough it is to start one?

[@nbrowser]

We have a Free Gook up here in Vancouver BC Canada, seriously amazing work they do redirecting useful tech away from the landfill. Also being able to find that oddball stuff is just too easy at their thrift store, need more of these places.

[@tetsujin_144]

4:47 - Ha, I got one of those! It was actually my first laptop. I didn't feel like it was worth buying a laptop in the 1990s (too bulky, poor battery life) but in the early 2000s I wanted one for doing panels at anime conventions, and decided to go for a Mac because I felt it would be less of a hassle than trying to setup a Linux laptop. I kept running it until about the time that support for the PowerPC processors started to really get dead-ended. It was a nice little machine, for sure.

[@majaisakszon1475]

Did you get the retro laptop in the end?

[@DaiAtlus79]

11:28 doesn't hurt that a lot of those cards have at least SVideo output so they can hook to a CRT TV, and on top of that, can usually run 'emudriver' which allows for proper native rez support for a LOT of retro video games.

[@jordansime6684]

6:01 Wonder what's in that adobe box on the free shelf...

[@nyccollin]

5:30 I paid a company in the U.K. to get past the activation lock on the iPad I bought used on offer up. As long as it hasn't been reported stolen they'll do it. It's NOT impossible.

[@jb888888888]

But how much did you pay? Unlocking one item might be worth it to you, but Free Geek has a bunch (based on this video) and not a lot of money to invest in that sort of thing.

[@noahlangseth5196]

This is awesome. Lived in the twin cities most of my life and had no idea this place existed.

[@jarodspillner5364]

So odd thing the 2 servers at 15:50 I ended up driving from central Wisconsin to pick up they work great and the poweredge had lots of spare parts

[@Raphaelwelingston]

I would absolutly love to run such a shop like this here i live ! The benefit of having to tinker with old hardware an make people happy at the same time is vary appealing ! Shame it doesn't really exist in france

[@3mate1]

Damn, I was just google searching places like this in the Twin Cities metro area a night or two ago, and I just happened accross this video right now. Weird.

[@Gatewayuser200]

It looks like they are using a lot of what appears to be new USPS boxes inappropriately. Those boxes are the property of the postal service and are intended to be used for shipping only.

[@henry55430]

I live in Minnesota. Isn't the storefront closed for covid? How'd you get a tour?

[@ThisDoesNotCompute]

The store reopened a few weeks ago!

[@douro20]

I used to find some good industrial handheld PCs on the $1 table when the local computer surplus store was still around. They all seemed to come from the Chicago Board of Trade back when they were the first exchange in North America to offer digital trading on the floor. I prefer the TI-86 over the TI-84 Plus.

[@mnoxman]

I hope they are getting more parts in. Do they save floppy disk drives? They are a great source of stepper motors. I am also a bigger server geek too.

[@Silent.Stacker]

Great video. A very LGR Thrifts vibe - always a popular format. That place is the bomb. Would love to visit and drop some cash if I lived anywhere near.

[@JacGoudsmit]

Great to see a place where they actually seem to know what they're doing. I'm so tired of going to surplus stores where random electronic parts are stacked up two stories high between piles of dog poop and used pizza boxes, thrift stores where all the good stuff gets shipped away to be sold on eBay and you have to dig through isles full of old people's clothes and 1960s nicknacks to find anything, and city surplus stores that are only open 2 hours a week and don't know anything about what they're selling. If I would have a store like that in my neighborhood, I would first clean out my garage, and then sign up as a volunteer. And I would probably fill my garage right back up again hahaha

[@sagisarius]

Wow, I'm in the Twin Cities, and I had no clue this place existed. I've even been looking for something like this. I'll have to check it out.

[@lbsiuk]

13:30, Oh my god. Lenovo Horizon 27 for only $410? How? (It's actually a 27" tablet that runs Windows 8. Has a battery, the stand can be folded away and it has a touchscreen)

[@RamLaska]

4:23 I totally read that as "¡Que! Fire!" 4:35 I don't miss the translucent grey plastic trend (1999) as much, but I DEFINITELY miss the translucent colors (1998). 6:14 Okay, THAT is something I never thought I'd see, and honestly never conceived of in my life. Even in the old days. I'm so glad we're living in the days of dirt cheap optical mice. I remember when the first ones were around a hundred bucks! Even BLUETOOTH mice have finally gotten down to the $15 price point -- they were $50 or more for the longest time! 11:28 Oh man, I haven't even heard "AGP" mentioned in so many years. I had an AGP Tseng Labs ET-somethingorother in the mid-90s. I remember its most advanced feature (other than 640x480x24bit or 1024x768x8bit video modes) was a hardware-accelerated mouse cursor. As in, a single, solitary sprite. XD 12:40 Those are worthless, IMO. Out of a handful of Express and Extreme units we bought a few years back, only the one Extreme unit is still working well. 14:42 Oh man, the old Sylewriter. I remember when that came out, I was working at the university computer store. They were pretty forgettable, hapless little things. Typical mid-90s Apple: overpriced crap.

[@TV-jv6rr]

Is there any advice out there on how I could start my own computer shop like this one? I'm really interested in retro technology as well.

[@Kee-Lo]

Gosh, wish we had a Free Geek in the UK, specially in the North West!

[@MobCat_]

8:50 Nope, your looking for a chrome bezel and sometimes black bezel not gray for native ps2 back compat. It would still play ps1 and ps3 games though so It would still be worth it. Phat ps3s are a little easier / better to hack so it would still be a good machine.

[@Queso305]

I'd love to visit that place!

[@THIRSTYGNOME]

As a Minnesota native currently living in Houston (work), I wish I knew about this place before I moved. How are their prices? I would live to bring home a retro Thinkpad when when I visit this summer. I don't trust eBay listings where I can't see the hardware working

[@danz409]

wish there was a place like this around cincinnati. there used to be one called cincinnati computer concept that used to be something kind of close to this. but since covid they closed there doors to general public and only deal with large donations to school groups (mainly work from home/school batches) and the rest is sadly e-waste before it even has a chance to be gone over by enthusiasts/retro collectors.

[@GreNadeMusicNL]

Good to see you going back to freegeek, really enjoyed your last mini documentary about them

[@taylorlimbeck6854]

Just stumbled across your channel. I’m local to the TC and can’t wait to check this place out

[@DaarkCloud]

I live in Duluth and now I'm thinking of driving down there to take a peek. I've been looking for a particular processor. I wonder if they'd trade?

[@Choralone422]

I would LOVE to be able to visit them. That kind of place is right up my alley. Heck, I'd probably even want to volunteer there! But sadly according to the almighty Google it's about 350 miles away from where I live. I'm glad to see them continuing to do well despite the pandemic. We need more places like this across the US!

[@rwdplz1]

$200 for that Panasonic VCR is a steal if it works, that's one of the best VCR's ever made.

[@isaacwright2247]

Actually, they're closed to online sales, local pickup only.

[@ashwindwivedi]

This place is amazing.. I'm adding it to a "must visit" if and when I visit Minneapolis. Thanks for putting this video out there..

[@Hungryghost01]

1:59 "If you missing a remote, they have it here (evil laugh)

[@AKSoapy29]

I had always heard of Free Geek, but never visited it myself. Thanks for this video into it, I'll have to stop by sometime!

[@silentfanatic]

Love this video of your trip. Man, I'd love to just clean out their retro gaming section.

[@gabrielvazquez7913]

Is that the 8-bit Guy in the reflection of the screen at 2:41?

[@smiththers2]

2:08 I had one of those ibm desktops back in the day, my first pc as I switched from a mac. Would love to do a retro build in one of those!

[@P5ychoFox]

Fantastic that places like this exist.

[@SenkJu]

I would definitely be interested in a video about that VAIO all-in-one!

[@startedtech]

Well now I have to ask, did you get one of your titanium's from freegeek?

[@ThisDoesNotCompute]

Nope, the titanium G4 from the previous video is one I’ve had for a while now.

[@EinChris75]

It's good to see that all those bits and pieces do not end up in a land fill.

[@jimmiles33]

My old IT job had a “recycle room” that was emptied out periodically to local recyclers. We all had first pick to stuff in there, so there was a time where I had maybe 10 laptops and 25 desktops and servers in my house. Then my wife said I can’t keep them all. :-(

[@KayvonJavid]

It's like a dream goodwill!

[@eriknokc]

I’m so jealous. I wish we had a store like that in OKC. I would have so much fun looking at all their stuff.

[@KameraShy]

Then start one.

[@FixTechStuff]

What a fantastic place. I would volunteer there every week if there was one where I live. Spotted a Yamaha RX series Amp, I did a video where I repaired one of those. Go into your iCloud now and remove any old devices people!

[@brownranger1797]

Amazing! New follower of the channel and I never knew we had something like this here in the twin cities!

[@tcindie]

How have I not known about this place?! I must visit.. and have things to donate even! 👍

[@ColinJK]

The collection of vintage Mac items freegeek has is pretty great! If I was up that way, I’d love to pick up a thing or two

[@MrGridStrom]

This is so cool, I really love old hardware. Im currently playing around with a Compaq Evo D510 that was released in 2001. I've installed Lubuntu 18.04 and ive been able to use it online with the Dillo web browser, ive also had it on IRC while streaming some icecast radio. Brought back alot of memories.

[@Slevin-Kelevra]

My ISP gives out the hardware for free & installs free. But you need to give it all back when you leave or you ger dinged full retail for when it was all new if you don't.