New Life for Old Computers
 

With the purchase of a new computer, I find that my basement is once again becoming an old computer graveyard. I just don't have the heart to throw out old electronics equipment, especially computers (OK, I mean recycle--I know about the environmental impact and all of that).

So my question to the forum is this: What are your thoughts on a cool use for an old computer (or 3)? I know I could play around learning Linux or something like that, but I'd really like more of a short term project. I remember reading an article about turning an old laptop into a digital picture frame, and another on retrofitting an old radio/jukebox into an MP3 player, so I was looking for similar ideas for things to do with my rather large paperweights.

Thanks.

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

what I did was take my old/burnt out motherboards mount them in a shadow box thing I build . . it makes for nice art.

Ill post a pic here soon

edit:
http://www.pearcerobotics.com/HPIM0342.JPG
http://www.pearcerobotics.com/HPIM0343.JPG
http://www.pearcerobotics.com/HPIM0344.JPG
http://www.pearcerobotics.com/HPIM0345.JPG
http://www.pearcerobotics.com/HPIM0346.JPG

now that I look at them maby 4MP was a little too big . . ohh well

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

Digital Photo Frame & Display Your Digital Wonderland from Popular Science.

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

Is an idea. There was an article for TechTV a while back on how to make a drink cooler from foam-insulating holder, a heatsink, and cpu fan.

Other items such as processors you can mount on things for display.

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

Plug them into a personal home network to use as network hard-drives. ;)

I still have a P1 200 MHz computer in my basement that's so old it doesn't even have a USB port on it. But its 4Gb hard-drive and its Ethernet card still work just fine as a network hard drive. At the rate that I eat up storage space, I need a new 250 Gb external hard drive every 8 months, so every bit of storage space I can get is definitely work it.

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

You can also use it to host servers for lan parties (depending on the game/ quality of your comp)

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

As Art mentioned, old computers do make good network attached storage devices, but they can also be used as print servers, game servers, or media servers. If your computer runs silent enough you can just hook it up to a stereo system and play music through it. In my opinion, using Windows 98, ME, or 2000 probably works the best, because they don't require too many resources, you can easily install VNC on it, or you can use BrowseAmp or similar software on it to control it over the LAN. Plus, you really don't need anything more than a P2 for this.

If you watch lots of video podcasts, or have a lot of recorded TV, or record TV yourself, you can use something like a P3 or better, and Windows or Linux will work equally fine for playing videos into your TV. I hooked my neighbor's old Athlon computer into my TV using a spare graphics card and it played all my videos fine in both Win 2k and Linux. I've since replaced it with a P4 and am putting my TV tuner card into it for mythTV purposes, which is very slick.

Learning Linux is also a fun thing to do, but if you're looking for useful things to do with your computers, modding them into various different devices like mp3 players, file servers, other servers, etc is very useful. I'm planning on taking an older computer and putting it into a smaller case complete with speakers that can be a portable mp3 jukebox for robotics meetings that everyone can queue music onto.

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

If the system is integrated enough (matx mainboard with video on board) and small enough, u could get a low cost DC-DC psu, boot it off a thumbdrive/compactflash and use it as a processor for any -large- robots :p

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

I had been doing this, but a 100 MB hard drive isn't what it used to be. :)

I guess I should elaborate a little. I have 2 early model P2 desktop computers that have been sitting around collecting dust. I also have 2 decent newer model laptops, a P3 desktop that is being converted to a firewall, and my new dual core. I guess what I'm looking for is similar to the picture frame or cooler ideas instead of what I might consider a "computer project", ie a server or such.

Actually, I don't know when I'll find time to do any of this while I'm starting a new team (2014 - go Spartans!), but it's fun to think of things I could do if I really did have spare time.

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

An interesting project that an older computer might be ideally suited for is retrofitting a mill to be a CNC if you have access to a mill for your team. The articles might seem a tad dated, but that's acceptable; so are P2's (nothing against them- I still have an old P2 as well...which I should really do something with :p ... ).

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

Got an old laptop?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/23797?

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

I have many old computers and parts, and sometimes I use them for stress relief.. :D

Anyways..I'd say keep the parts, and see if you can build the best one from the parts you have. Thats what I would do. See if you can sell them, or use them in some kind of artwork.

I have dual monitors on my computer: possibly you would enjoy it also? If you have 2 monitors, flatscreen or not, it is very cool to make your computer a 'dual display'. Definatly worth considering. Its awesome on my comptuer: just make sure you have a graphics card with 2 ports, and is awesome enough (like mine :) ) to support them.

cool!

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

3 is better...lol :) problem is each monitor uses electricity and leaving them on most of the day costs quite a bit to power them. if i had some old laptops lying around i would try to interface them and build robots that help me to usefull things like vacuming and such.

Re: New Life for Old Computers
 

I'm actually in the midsts of trying to restore a Commodore 64 just for laughs. I'm also using one of our old computers for practice for my A+ Certification class.