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[–] 68 points 4 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Can confirm. Back at the beginning of my IT career (mid 1980's), I worked as a temp for a computer manufacturer in their refurb repairs department. In those days, kit was so expensive that everything got repaired if it went wrong, and one of my jobs was repairing keyboards - PC keyboards, and dumb terminal ones - and the first part of the process was stripping and cleaning them. There was a lot more room for crumbs and dust back then, too, and man did they get full. Crumbs, staples, paper clips, hair grips, all sorts. I had literal mould growing in some of them. I remember the ones coming in from Italy were the worst for that for some reason.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    A couple months in a shipping container is likely the cause of that.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    It didn't quite work like that. They used to arrive boxed in batches. The keyboards were worth about £100 back then - so would be worth a lot more in today's money - and they were looked after with care whilst in transit. It was the end users (in offices) that put the gunk there.

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