this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2026
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One thing I learned after using computers for 34 years: As soon as you throw away a cable, you will have sudden and very unexpected need for it. I cannot see how that could be true for VGA and old centronics printer cables, but I shall not risk to find out.
I found out the hard way. I need an HDMI to VGA cable. You'll never guess what I gave away a few weeks ago.
I used a VGA cable just last week to attach a screen to an HP micro server.
Many things still fall back to VGA, like old projectors.
Sure. But it is not like own the shit to plug my modern hardware to VGA.
You, next week, browsing eBay: an 8K dpl projector, in box, with mounting kit, $15, no bids, ending in 8 minutes?!
You, a few seconds later: WHY IS IT ONLY VGA WHAT THE FU-
hence my drawer of converters having Whole partition just for vga converters. I've needed all of them at least once.
I think I have a USB to D-SUB adapter somewhere. Just in case:)
Lots of stuff abused the DB25 and the DB-whatever it was parallel port
This goes double for any cable that will be hard to get a new one of, so hold on to those centronics cables!
my boss has the biggest, ugliest old printer. it's half the size of one of those big office printers, only it's supposed to be a "goes in the corner of your desk" printers. has a feed for dot matrix paper and everything.
it has never broken once.
it has never had any network problems.
when he retired and the firm closed, and we all had a free for all looting the company, if we were the type of people to come to blows over things we would have come to blows over that printer. we settled it over a game of "i'm your boss, i get to take my printer home. go steal a box of pens and one of the other printers"
the monstrosity uses LPT cables. I don't know how it connects to anything anymore, but every once in a while my old boss sends me a letter on dot matrix paper and that gives me a chuckle.
I know the sort of beast you mean. Solid enough that you could drive a car over it, and can probably be serviced with just a hammer and a wrench. It was undoubtedly an excellent piece of kit, and I envy your old boss!
you'd need one hell of a ramp and the car would take more damage than the printer, yeah. one of those. gets fifteen pages to the gallon
The moral of the story is: don't throw away your unusual old cables.
List them for sale on ebay.
It's still pretty common to see vga cables in use here in Brazil, and I believe that in many parts of the world as well. These old printer cables, they're useful for arduino uno boards
Just this past year I had to buy a usb-c to vga adapter/cable for a trade show setup. Shit's still in use today.
I lost my BT earbuds 2 months ago, have a Type C phone, and just chucked out my ~5 Type C earbuds, because I had never used them since I got the Bluetooth one. I only left a pair of Jack earbuds. Guess where my Type C to Jack adapter went...
As with any other thing that is kept 'just in case', the size and effort to store in an organized way will be the reason for keeping or discarding something. I also keep at least one of each connector that I still have could possibly use either by something I own to tech that isn't too old for me to aquire due to needing something a week after throwing it out and having to buy an overpriced replacement.
Yes, this means I do have some ribbon connectors because I have older mobos and drives with those and VGA connectors since some of my monitors still have those as options.
My limit is one plastic tub though, with the older stuff on the bottom like sedimentary layers. When it gets full I pull it out and ditch the oldest stuff I no longer need and stack it back in. The next round will probably prompt me to ditch the older ribbon connectors and drives that use them.
Na, at that point through the device away.