> Speaking of landfills, most of those computers had RTC on board, and were powered by batteries, which tend to explode and "rot" away the board. It's likely ve

> Speaking of landfills, most of those computers had RTC on board, and were powered by batteries, which tend to explode and "rot" away the board. It's likely very few of them will be salvageable in an easy-to-repair way if they sit for another 20 years. Yup. During the lockdown I had time to waste and checked various YouTube videos and they scared me enough that I started checking my old computers for batteries. Found one in an old Apple computer (I forgot if it's a Classic or Classic II or Plus: one of those "inside" a 9" CRT) and indeed the battery had started leaking. I took it out, cleaned what I could, and the computer was still working. But a few more years and it would have been badly damaged. And it's not just batteries: capacitors may sometimes start leaking and destroying the PCB too.