I totally recognise where you're coming from. I was the same, skip raiding, etc. One Christmas I asked for a present which was a job lot of ex-mainframe PCBs I'

I totally recognise where you're coming from. I was the same, skip raiding, etc. One Christmas I asked for a present which was a job lot of ex-mainframe PCBs I'd seen advertised in the back of an electronics magazine, Can't remember the cost, but a significant chunk must have been delivery, because it was a fair haul. The boards were just stuffed with 74-series TTL DIP chips, and a lot of red LEDs too. Pretty much every logic chip I used throughout my teenage years came from those boards, and I know for a fact I still have some of the LEDs in my collection - I recognise them by their rather pointed profile, not as cylindrical as modern ones.