Technology

Yeah, I had that problem.

I then had a coworker who was a sysadmin, and randomly dropped into his cable box at work and realized what I was doing wrong. Get a bunch of cable ties. Coil up each cable and cable-tie it.

And honestly, one has to keep perspective. Yeah, I've occasionally used a really old cable, but let's say that the worst happens and I need to occasionally get a new cable. It's...probably not that much of a disaster. It can be hard to get some old computing hardware, but even very elderly cables are generally commercially available.

I tend to think that keeping around things like IECs and analog audio cables are more-worthwhile since they're slow-moving standards. Most old PC cables just haven't found much use, in my experience.

Cables used to be something that brick-and-mortar stores had a large markup on. I remember a guy I once knew who had worked at a PC store telling me that the store made more (like, in absolute terms) selling the parallel cable that came with the printer than with the printer. Back then, having some cables around could avoid that, and having a few on-hand was a good idea. But online retailers have made the competition a lot more intense.

I typically have gotten cables at Monoprice if I'm getting a bunch at once, which in the US has historically has had pretty good cable prices, though I haven't tried comparing online retailer prices recently.