read edit...^ dont know why i did it that way ..

That unit posted in the quote above is a terminal. Regardless of the application, it’s still a terminal unit. You either hit it big or not at all with them. I’ve had IBM and DEC terminals give me junk boards and wires. Wires...wires!
(Note to IBM etching was invented for a reason! Seriously nobody else uses board wires in 2019!!!)
And I’ve had generic nobody terminals give me a dozen socketed gold caps.

Do keep in mind gold only jumped very recently. Even into the late 90s and early 2000s it was still an afterthought expense concern.

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I gotta ask, where does a person go to get in on these?

Those were thru an online auction.
Some of the stuff I bid on is school surplus, city surplus, law enforcement surplus and / or seizures. Without naming the auction companies (not to advertise for them and to stay in compliance with Boardsort’s forum). You can search for govt auctions or online auctions in your area.

The three main auctions I watch cover from Houston, TX to mid-Oklahoma (north and south) and Louisiana state line to San Antonio, TX ( east to west).

Clearance, close out, surplus, and bankruptcy.
Key words for before or after auction.

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fedbaitstickfight, (really, I have a comment, and not just replying so I can type that name), look carefully if you are buying thru online auctions. Luckily, I usually can visit and inspect the lots before hand. Until I started inspecting before bidding on line, I was winding up with a pallet lot of towers, which were missing memory and harddrives You will probably find that is the case when you are buying government/county/school surplus. At one auction, there were a hundred towers in one lot, but they were offsite, not available for inspection. The photos appeared to show, to me, that they were completely stripped: a buyer paid 300 for the lot and sure enough, he got 100 metal boxes,worth maybe 30 bucks at current scrap steel prices, as these had been used teaching a repair tech class. Not a happy buyer.

Hard drives will almost always be missing from anything other than a private individual sale. Even there not always. I never sell computers with the drive in them.
As such I don’t expect them when I buy either.
It’s just a matter of data security realities.

Do read carefully though!

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I am looking at a few lots of 10 each, which appear to have two 500gb drives each in some of the towers.

Lol. I did mention “almost”. ;)

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Yes by all means be careful bidding blind.
Here is an example of why.....I bid on a small lot it was supposed to have 7 new in box video cards and some other misc. stuff I bid on it and got it for $19. Went and picked up in a hurry I never looked at the boxes until I got home. There was NO video cards in the boxes just empty packages and mounting brackets.
I am starting to see more and more computers with the HDD’s removed.

And in all honesty I am kinda shying away from the computers, because they are selling for way more than I can scrap them for. I am venturing in to other electronics such as office phones, mobile video recorders like in school busses, police cars, medical equipment, DVR’s really about anything.