Saw a thread about this over at instructables (man, I love making cool stuff), and thought that this would be something you guys might enjoy discussing. What do you with your old technology (besides give it to mom with a fresh copy of Ubuntu). For arguments sake, lets say any computers that come up are under 1 GHZ. I, being the cheap muther I am, have found many uses for old PCs. I agree with the statement that they are better suited towards specialized tasks, rather than general computing. My currents include: Jukebox - PII 233, running Win2K, but hope to switch to either debian or Xubuntu for some more speed. P2P - PI 100-something, again running Win2K and some remote access software (don't remember, haven't needed it yet), runs headless using uTorrent's WebUI. Very quick when you access the webui, but not so fast actually using it in person. NAS - PIII 1GHZ, couple o' hd's, runs FreeNAS, which is pretty much the business for this sort of thing. Ideas: Practically ANY box would work as a router/firewall/vpn/VoIP utility. GeeXbox roxors my soxors, and also runs pretty good on most fairly recent systems. (Ran smooth on my 233) Recipe box (hope to implement my own) should run on just about anything. It would be just a database. And my more out there idea: i assume you could use an older computer to run a digital interface for a kegerator beverage distribution system. I think they did this at some tech conference. seemed nifty.
I've really tried to think of things to do with my old <1GHz computers, but with no luck. My main PC does everything at once that I need - it plays music, it downloads to the hard drive etc. If I want a router, I'll build a retail one - takes up much less space and probably a lot less power. P3s and their equivalents are very capable of running certain small servers for the home, I admit - but I just can't justify the need for more than 1 computer for myself, yet.
Sounds cool but don't forget with all these extra computers around you're going to be using a lot of power =\
I rarely use my main PC (see sig) these days. It's 3.5 yrs old and still overpowered for my day-to-day usage. My Celeron 440 based laptop flies along under Xfce and is cheaper to run. My download PC is a PII 400 running passively at 300Mhz. It runs a SSH server, Samba, NFS, SABnzbd, utorrent via Lighty and MySQL. Over next year or so I expect to acquire a few more medium/low spec PCs as friends and family jump on the Vista bandwagen.
Power certainly is an issue. I've tried to combine the NAS and download into one, but being the linux ignoramus I am, have failed several times, and I can't afford to have my NAS down long enough to work out the problems. Do fans take up a lot of energy? Or is the passive cooling for silence?
i have a 133mhz dell i use as a doorstop everything else gets broken down into components and recycled among friends.
i'm using a 386 laptop as a paperweight, does that count? But I give all my old hardware to charity, there is a project here that building computer for families that can't afford one, so that the childern don't fall behind in school. Thought i've done most of my educational carrier with pen and paper, even today. I think it's a nice way to recycle computerhardware
I have a lot of old hardware. I use my main rig day in day out for games, internet browsing etc... I have an older 1.2 celeron which my dad uses for day to day use (which is being upgraded soon). I've got in the cupboards 5 or so P2/3 400/500 (boards and processors) A fair few Socket A chips which all need testing along with the boards. I was using a Dual P3-500 as a download box untill recently (which contained all my old SCSI stuff) then I stopped using it due to a few software problems. I then thought well i've got 6 HDDs in this thing, 2x9gb, 2x4gb & 2x2gb thats a lot aint it? Compared to my main rig, whats the point. I do @ some point intend to put comps in the kitchen, bathroom etc.... to be able to play music, but I find the problem with half my old hardware is, I don't have the exact thing to do what I want with it! Regards GiGo
I've got way too much old kit kicking around here. Got a duron 900 base unit I got offmy cousin as she was just going to skip it. Thats how I end up with lots of junk, I hate to think that someone is going to bin something that is possibly going to be useful for something.
I was using a P3-450mhz as a win98se/DOS box for my old games, but I since upgraded that to a P4 1.8 GHz machine. Win98se is so fast ...LOL "Fastest BSOD I have ever seen" There are just a few DOS games I don't want to let go of and running in an emulator is so funky.
I saw a show about the different ways gold is mined. One of the ways was this recycling plant that took up all the boards, cut them up, burned off the residue, and reclaimed gold, platinum, and tin. It takes about 100 computers to make an ounce of gold.
<200MHz => Router (IPcop/linux based) 200 < x < 1GHz => All kinds of servers (NAS, Backuppc, apache, ...) > 1GHz => Not junk
I've got a 950MHz Duron lying around which I aim to put Linux on. I'm awaiting an RMA of my EPIA 5000, which will be used as a test webserver and I've got an AMD K6 450MHz laptop that I'm yet to find a use for.
i just run everything on one box virtual machines are awesome then again i am building another box to run them when i take my fileserver with me
