What to do with second, old system?

[Syndicate]

Hey guys,

Forgive me if this is the wrong place but I was just wondering what everyone does. My second system is a Pentium 2 300MHZ, 128MB PC100, 15GB HD, pretty old but is actually running Windows XP fine. I've got a cable connection. It's pretty much just sitting there so I was wondering what all you guys do with your second systems? I'm sure many of you use them to house MP3s, or other storage files but I haven't got a large hard drive. I know folding is also done on alot of second systems. I don't really see a point except to help the folding teams Things I've considered using it for;
-Turning it into an emulation station (old NES, SNES, playing some old PS1 games etc)
-A web server (don't really know what for except to start a webpage )
-A TV recorder (I'm pretty sure theres no way even with a hardware PCI recorder I could do this)
-Learning Linux via Redhat

I'm up for any suggestions! Could sell it but I don't really think shipping is even worth it.

 

[narutofan36]

http://www.videora.com/


ive never tried it but it sounds like a great idea. Its like tivo but you use bittorent to download files and its free ^_^

 

[thecolorifix]

all the ideas you listed sound like good ones

any computer illiterate friends or realtives you could put on?

anywhere you could donate it to? a cafe? a school?

 

[Syndicate]

all my friends are computer literate..lol. I'm in college, in a frat house. I'm thinking I'd probably have trouble donating it around here... I'm sure I could find somewhere to place a post "Free computer", but I was actually looking for a more selfish approach

 

[corkyg]

Consider giving it to some kid in your town who can't afford one.

 

[AzNPinkTuv]

donate it... go to ike church or something and its good for your taxes too =)

 

[Syndicate]

I know I can donate it. I was looking to see if there was anymore selfish ways to go about keeping it?

 

[Painman]

My extra computer wears lots of hats - emulation station, legacy PC gaming, occasional gaming server duty, secondary logon to Battle.net for muling, self rushing, etc. in Diablo II. Handy as hell.

And it just got upgraded I sold my bro in law an A64 system core I had sitting here, and he asked me if I wanted the old guts. OF COURSE I wanted the old guts, I sold those to him 4 years ago when I upgraded to a P4. Top notch Crucial RAM, Alpha heatsink, and a PIII 700 that likes to pretend it's really a 933.

I shouldn't say "sold" when it comes to family members, it usually ends up getting rented out for 75 bucks a year :laugh:

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: Painman
My extra computer wears lots of hats - emulation station, legacy PC gaming, occasional gaming server duty, secondary logon to Battle.net for muling, self rushing, etc. in Diablo II. Handy as hell.

And it just got upgraded I sold my bro in law an A64 system core I had sitting here, and he asked me if I wanted the old guts. OF COURSE I wanted the old guts, I sold those to him 4 years ago when I upgraded to a P4. Top notch Crucial RAM, Alpha heatsink, and a PIII 700 that likes to pretend it's really a 933.

I shouldn't say "sold" when it comes to family members, it usually ends up getting rented out for 75 bucks a year :laugh:

What does that mean Painman?

 

[JRack]

Just a suggestion, you can try to install old network games on the machine, such as warcraft, and have a gaming party with friends.

 

[Painman]

Originally posted by: Zim Hosein
What does that mean Painman?

Eh, sorry too much D2 slang. Muling is when you put useful/valuable items you found or traded into storage by transfering them to a character that's retired, or created just for storing stuff (a "mule"). It's way safer (and faster) when you can hand the item right over to a character logged onto your second computer. Less risk of Bnet eating your items, and no risk of other players ripping them off.

Rushing is what it sounds like. You use a high level, well equipped character to fast forward a low level character to a later area of the game. Very handy if you're making a character only for dueling (they often suck at killing monsters). There are also certain quests that give very useful rewards when completed - you can make a disposable character, "rush" them to the part of the game where a certain quest is activated, complete it for them, reap the quest reward, then delete the character. Again, faster and easier when you can do it w/o any help.

 

[hater2win]

I would install Kubuntu on it (It rocks) and learn linux. But if you don't do that with it, set up a file server for yourself. And if you can't find anything else to do with it, give it to me, my little brother's computer just fried and now he is fuckedd cuz I don't live in the same house as him and now they don't have a computer anymore, heh. Charity!

 

[Syndicate]

I just don't understand why I would have a file server... Like for the intranet here. I have all my files on my drive on this computer (Opty 144 @ 2.8, 2gb, 120GB) so I have no need to stick files on there... If I had an HTPC it would make sense.