uses for an old computer?

[Brian48]

I can use a print server right now myself.

 

[mrwxyz]

turn it into a dedicated game server

 

[trevinom]

I heard of Freenet (free net access at local library)taking one of these up to a height of 5 stories and dropping it as a fund raiser. They sold bids on how far the farthest piece would fly. They made a couple hundred dollars out of this.

I know, this has nothing to do with the topic...but thought it was kinda interesting.

 

[vapidtransit]

Get a cheap-o vid card that has TV out. Get a couple game control pads.

Download all the ROMs you can find, hook it up to your TV and use it as a MAME box. Best part about that is, you can still use it for many of the other things people have suggested in this thread. A rom collection that occupies 2 GB or so will consist of enough games to keep you and your guests occupied for a long time.

 

[heartsurgeon]

if you pay taxes..donate it and take a write off as a charitable contribution

should work fine for web surfing

i have turned a old computer into a automated "picture frame"..
load it up with jpegs, get a slide show program, ahve the monitor just cycle through lots of pictures..
actually can be quite nice.

certainly you can make it ultra quite and use it as a mp3 jukebox/player for all you music (may need a hd upgrade if you have lots of tunes.

give it to a local school

sell it at a flea market..

firewall, router

 

[stringcheeseincident]

i use zonealarm with this computer and have had no troubles. also, my router has a built in firewall which is working just fine. i see no use for a router/firewall box in my case. my mom has her own laptop and my brother has an older box that works just fine for him. i'm loosing a lot of space on my 80gb harddrive on this, maybe if i find a hot deal on a bigger harddrive, i'll jump on it and throw it in there. use it to serve some mp3s, movies, that good stuff. i'll probably run linux on it, and use it as a back up box if my main rig goes down. the only fan it has as of now is a 40mm to cool the processor, i have a few quiet fans laying around i could throw in to cool it down a little more.

i can't find any stickers on the motherboard, and the only thing i know is it's a socket 7 processor. what type of RAM do these motherboards take? i think i'm going to look in the for sale forum for a nic, video card, and some RAM.

 

[1sikbITCH]

I live near a university, and have tenants (students normally). There is the occasional stick up, B&E, and car theft in our neighborhood, usually targeting the college kids.

I will be using an old cheap computer (only slightly better than that) for video surviellance. I am putting a Multiport tuner in it, and then will hook it up to 3 or 4 cameras which I will mount in the rear of the house and one on the front door. The box will sit in the basement and will only be set to record only when there is motion, so I won't be filling up harddrives every 2 days.

Yours wouldn't handle that but it could handle a single webcam mounted in your back window, or in a baby's room, or even to catch your wife doing the nasty while you're at work

Edit: Since you live with your mom, maybe you don't want to catch anyone doing the nasty :Q

 

[stringcheeseincident]

haha, my wife...i'm only 14. i guess that means i have a lot less uses than you guys.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: jagec
how so? explain.

Firefox was eating up 15-20% of my CPU consistently. Mozilla nibbled on 2-5%. 20% CPU is too much for a browser when I'm not using it.

(at the very least I'm sure we can both agree they're worlds better than IE)

Yes.

strange...it uses virtually nil on my personal computer, even with tons of windows open, and on my work computer (PIII-450 class hardware) it still uses only 2-4%, and drops to 0-1% when it's not actively loading pages.

 

[wkwong]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Hop it up with some side windows and cold-cathode lights, LED fans, a fan controller/temp readout, etc. If your apartment gets broken into, guess which PC they'll steal, if they can only carry one.

~ decoy!


You can control it by means of VNC, I've got one at work that I run like that. If you want to do a DC project, some guy with too much time on his hands cooked up some DC FAQ's a while back: article

lol

 

[Maximilian]

Hmm socket 7? 500 mhz? that says K6-III to me. Ive got a great idea of what to do with it, slap a stamp on it and ship it over here to good ol Briton and ill take it

 

[stringcheeseincident]

haha....we got to talking about linux and he asked if i've tried it before. i told him no, but i was interested, and i was looking for an older computer someone to run it on. he said "i think i've got just the thing" after handing me the mandrake 6.0 cd retail box and showed me the system. he said the "chip is around 500mhz, it has a cd and floppy, and that i need to get some ram for it." good deal for me.

 

[Maximilian]

"i am a poor kid trying to save up to buy an mp3 player" :laugh: LOL has that link in your profile had any donations?

 

[meltingplastic8]

plug a radio into the line in and setup shoutcast and you can broadcast the channel you tune in all over your network simply by going to the ip of that computer

 

[ForceCalibur]

HTPC. Definately, since HTPCs don't require anything much out of a comp except quietness.

 

[stringcheeseincident]

i like the radio idea, and the old school ROM idea. thanks a lot for that guys, i'm gonna see what i can do.

 

[FrustratedUser]

MP3 player.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: jagec
how so? explain.

Firefox was eating up 15-20% of my CPU consistently. Mozilla nibbled on 2-5%. 20% CPU is too much for a browser when I'm not using it.

(at the very least I'm sure we can both agree they're worlds better than IE)

Yes.

strange...it uses virtually nil on my personal computer, even with tons of windows open, and on my work computer (PIII-450 class hardware) it still uses only 2-4%, and drops to 0-1% when it's not actively loading pages.

Maybe it's just the sites I had open, but Mozilla seems to be much nicer to me than firefox. Crashes less on 2 of my systems (the others don't have GUIs :Q).

 

[Metron]

Load up Mandrake....

Go to Free Linux UT 2004 Server download

and set up a dedicated Linux UT2004 server for your friends.

Metron

 

[Delorian]

Originally posted by: vegetation
P3-500 isn't even old. If we were talking about a pentium classic, then...

I beg to differ my fellow spacefaring friend. A P3-500 is roughly 5-6 year old technology, with today's games/OSes and etc. this processor will not be able to keep up. I think Anything under a Ghz will simply not do for any decently resourced programs that have been made in the past 2-3 years. Of course there are some functions like MP3 playing, using it for simple network functions or even to play old games that won't run on current OSes and hardware, which could be useful, but for a main system anyone doing more than surfing the net and listening to music needs to spend $100 and get at least an athlon 1800+ setup or better, which I don't even consider entry level anymore.

 

[imported_Cybercop]

hmmm.. how abt p1 and p2 systems? 133mhz and 266mhz? wat uses they have? think they're collecting dust now in my living room..

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: Delorian

Originally posted by: vegetation
P3-500 isn't even old. If we were talking about a pentium classic, then...

I beg to differ my fellow spacefaring friend. A P3-500 is roughly 5-6 year old technology, with today's games/OSes and etc. this processor will not be able to keep up. I think Anything under a Ghz will simply not do for any decently resourced programs that have been made in the past 2-3 years. Of course there are some functions like MP3 playing, using it for simple network functions or even to play old games that won't run on current OSes and hardware, which could be useful, but for a main system anyone doing more than surfing the net and listening to music needs to spend $100 and get at least an athlon 1800+ setup or better, which I don't even consider entry level anymore.

Hes got a K6-3 anyways not pentium 3.

 

[Delorian]

Well ok, maybe a little faster then

 

[stringcheeseincident]

again, anyone know what kind of ram this thing takes? the ram slots are around 6 inches long.

 

[Maximilian]

SDRAM most likely