Watch a commercial shredder devour an Asteroids cabinet

Bigshredder is the YouTube account of SSI, which makes gigantic industrial-capacity shredders. Asteroids is turned into a muesli of woodchips and silicon in about 20 seconds.

A dumpsterful of computers practically bubbles atop the whirling crushers:

via DVICE

[#1 posted by dculberson , June 10, 2008 1:04 PM]

(Jumping, arms stretched out, trying to intercept the Asteroids machine:) NOOOOOOoooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

[#2 posted by Enochrewt , June 10, 2008 1:18 PM]

*Sniff* Wouldn't restraining bolts be more humane?

[#3 posted by ZehnKatzen , June 10, 2008 1:19 PM]

Man, I hope they stood back from that.

There's some nasty-a** shite in those that they promptly got to breathe in if they stood too close.

[#4 posted by royaltrux , June 10, 2008 1:39 PM]

:(

[#5 posted by dacker , June 10, 2008 3:37 PM]

What a waste. Not only did the Asteroids console have a toxic CRT still embedded inside, you end-up with a mix of materials which are impractical to separate and recycle.

The 2nd video really brought that home. They could have separated the plastics from the metals and gold-laden circuit boards. Up here in Portland (OR) we have Free Geek, a fantastic non-profit which (amoung other things) takes old electronics apart to sell and recycle the materials. The even take apart old floppies and separate them into plastic, metal (the hub and shutter) and the magnetic medium.

[#6 posted by OM , June 10, 2008 4:02 PM]

...You know, out of all the arcade games I didn't like, Asteroids was probably tied with Space Invaders for first place. Although I liked Space Wars - the one with the black hole in the middle, and was two players - the whole control system for me sucked [insert hated politician of your choice]'s [insert private part here]. I always felt a bidirectional knob control worked better, and anyone who played the "sit-down" or "Captain's Chair" version of Sega's Star Trek arcade game usually tends to agree with that assessment of, as I've always called it, Hemorrhoids.

So, it should come as no surprise that I watched that clip about 10 times, and applauded 21...:-)

[#7 posted by ZehnKatzen , June 10, 2008 4:48 PM]

@5: representing for the FreeGeek, oh yes!

http://freegeek.org .

[#8 posted by Anonymous , June 10, 2008 5:21 PM]

But, will it shred Chuck Norris? That is the question... ::cue music::

[#9 posted by snagglepuss , June 10, 2008 7:36 PM]

Hmmm.......Not Bad, Not Bad. I run a medium-grade shredder at my job. It can devour steel-belted radials and 2x4's, but it's used for document destruction.

But the most fun thing we ever sent through it was an empty plastic 5 gallon cooking oil jug from the cafeteria. Trust me, it goes off like a mortar round. BOOM!! A blast of air that you can feel from twenty feet away. Wheeeeeeeee!

[#10 posted by Aaron T. , June 10, 2008 7:37 PM]

WTF?! I mean, WTF?!? Some collector would have been happy to give that Asteroids upright a good home! (Not me though, I already have one.)

[#11 posted by the specialist , June 10, 2008 7:52 PM]

it is a REALLY BAD IDEA to shred computers. Ultimately, for the human race to survive, EVERYTHING MUST BE 100% RECYCLABLE. Computers contain some extremely toxic materials, and once shredded, all of it must be handled as hazardous waste.

too bad.

[#12 posted by David Carroll , June 11, 2008 12:22 AM]

In the future someone will make a fortune using intelligent robots to mine garbage dumps for precious metals and whatever else they can separate refine and sell. Probably get a fat subsidy for cleaning up the environment too.

Funny thing about the first video: There is a "Jib" (AKA boom or crane) camera shooting straight down into the hopper, and a hand-held ENG camera right beside the game as it is being picked up. Where are those shots? I hope the Jib operator was using at least a decent UV/protection filter because otherwise all that flying debris would have toasted his/her lens.

[#13 posted by Anonymous , June 11, 2008 12:28 AM]

Am I the only one who could practically hear the scared and pained screams in the latter clip?

[#14 posted by Jack , June 11, 2008 12:41 AM]

Ootini!!!!

dasjksadjkdsajklsdaasdsda98289322jkdlhdsajha bfh....

Guys, sorry some brown hooded smelly dwarves are trying to.212112

sa.sa.as.sas.asa
sa
a
sa
sa

saaaaas

[#15 posted by dw_funk , June 11, 2008 3:25 AM]

Look, I love the environment and all, but in the pre-youtube internet the little flash movies this company produced were internet gold. There's something intensely satisfying in watching really ridiculous things being turned into confetti.

I would, however, advise trying to use the product of the shredding as confetti, however; it's probably rather sharp.