Good use for old computers.
 

http://after310.free.fr/public/computador%5b1%5d.jpg

http://www.pinewood.schoolreference....rade-game.html

Normally, I keep everything that I have, who knows when you will need that old P2 350Mhz CPU?

What do you guys do with your parts after an upgrade?

Hmmm I have a bunch of boxes up in the attic I use to use for SETI. I guess I have barbecue grills for life!! Nice picture!!

That's awesome man. I think my old linux box is going to be turned into a hotdog grill...

Now that is thinking outside the box.

I never thought of setting up an old box on the network for the gf to use for recipes and the such. thanks

Hahaha.. that's a great picture. I turn old laptops into digital pictureframes which is always fun.

I use one of my old computers pretty much like a server. I added a 80gig hard drive, don't even have a monitor or keyboard hooked up to it. It's just on all the time.

I have 2 old boxes that i was going to set up as little servers but the picture above gave inspiration.

Thanks
:thumbsup:

Instead of a Linksys (Netgear, etc.) hardware router, I use my old PII-350 running Smoothwall Express. Two network cards, an old 20 gig drive, no monitor, mouse, or keyboard. It's bulletproof, way more flexible than a hardware router, and free. :D

i used my crappy computer to install longhorn and linux on because i've always wanted to try linux. But longhorn didn't work out too well.

I have a friend who turned his into a boat anchor.

I generally find some crazy use for them. Webserver, firewall/router, tinker box, mail server... No reason to throw it away!

Now with limited compatibility in XP, I use mine as a game machine.

The latest craze in the mac world is to make fish bowls out of your old classic/se/se30 or imac machines. Check out http://www.lowendmac.com/compact/macquarium.shtml

"Latest"? That's been around for YEARS. Nonetheless, from the site bushboar linked, I request that everyone read the howto by Andy Inhatko (written in 1992). This man is a genius.

Isn't that a waste of electricity?

you sir are not touching my 486 still going strong (sorta) routing my traffic.

I just keep mine laying around the basement, really pisses the wife off! But hey, you never know when you might need a spare part! :)

I use mine to play slightly older games. Got a pIII-450 running Win 98 SE, 16 mb vid card, 256 mb ram, and 8 gig hard drive, 17" monitor, and all the parts needed to run a machine. I got it all for $15 at a work auction. I use it to play Dark Forces, Full Throttle, Duke Nukem 3d, and similar games that don't work well in XP.

Shoot! I tossed mine ages ago...I'll keep that in mind when I need to upgrade next time.

I'm doing this also, but I'm in the process of figuring out which distro I'd like to use...torn between Gibraltor, Clarke Connect and now Smoothwall.

I like that kitchen PC idea! :o

Mine is on the Kitchen Counter, been messing around with Linux deciding if I want to make it a server or not.

Give it to charity

Mr Mephisto

I second Mr Mephisto's suggestion. Also it can be used as a router or a distributed computing cluster. Nice pic!Looks delicious mmm...

Just a FYI for anyone around Essex County in NJ:

A recycling dropoff is scheduled for Saturday, 16 October at South Mountain Arena in West Orange NJ. Half-dead monitors, adapters & Modems, motherboards, whole computers....

Don't toss it in the trash.

I like the fish tank conversions... they look very nice!



http://www.amherst.edu/~camiller/macquarium.html

I've never used the first two, but Smoothwall is a piece of cake to use. It literally took me 15 minutes to install and set up. If you've got a fairly standard network setup, it pretty much works right out of the box, no tweaking necessary.

Depends on who you ask. My answer would be biased as I use my extra ones for Folding, though. ;) I'd rather have my old junk trying to help find data on proteins that may one day save me at the E.R. To me (and probably the other guy), folding/seti is a hobby, competition, and a way to help further scientific knowledge. I pay the electricity bill so it's all good in the end.

I've written an application that creates a fullscreen dynamic HTML jukebox interface using Windows Media Player that hides the operating system from the user. One of these days I want to get a touch screen to use with it.