Dear All,
So, what should one do with old and (at least mostly) working computers? I mean 1990ish PC clones, not Vic-20's here.
My mom has been bugging me for a while to figure out what to do with an old 286 and 386 that she has around taking up space; and my friend Melissa has an old 486 or something in the same useless condition.
Old Computers
ziggy on 2002-11-28T16:29:25
The 286 is pretty much a lost cause. It was a great advance when it came out, but that was also before Ronnie Raygun outlawed the Soviet Union. Don't expect much from this machine unless you can use software from that era. (I don't think that even Win3.x will run on it. XENIX would be "fun" if you can find a copy and deal with the pain...) Embedded systems today are using Pentium class processors, so a 286 doesn't even merit the rating of "glorified calculator" anymore. (If it were an Apple ][, a C64 or a Vic20, there might be some nostalgia value in resurrecting it, but 286s are pretty worthless.)
The 386 and 486 are a little more interesting. The 386 will obviously be more of a challenge, but you should be able to do something useful, like run an small Linux kernel on it. The easiest project I can think of for these machines would be to throw them on a network and make xterms/remote workstations out of them. They're perfectly workable for that use, especially if you've already got a network in place where storage and CPU capacity aren't an issue. If you're lucky, you should be able to get a decent screen resolution and better than 8bit color.
What to do with old computers
TorgoX on 2002-11-29T07:03:36
I mean more like: In getting rid of these computers, is there something smarter than just throwing them in the garbage? Suggestions of interesting charities, etc.
don't toss 'em
wickline on 2002-11-29T11:27:44
Start reading
on this page around 'Keeping electronics out of garbage also protects our health and the environment'. This isn't a canonical resource AFAIK, but just the first thing to turn up in a google search. Throwing away computers is a bad idea.
At my place of employment, we have folks who make sure that all the bits that can be recycled do get recycled, and the bits which have to be disposed of as toxic waste are so-disposed. I don't know how one goes about that sort of thing on an individual level though.
Until a week ago, I had stacked in our guest room a large pile of old computer equipment (much of it in original packaging, hence the largeness). The pile had been there for over a year and included a desktop system, laptop system, three monitors, three printers, external hard drives, etc. All of this was excess equipment once the wife and I bought new machines.
I told myself that I was going to sell it all to somebody. However, I didn't want to deal with a zillion small individual sales, so I wrote up a flyer to sell the whole mess at one price. Nobody bought it. I told myself I'd sell it on ebay. I never got around to it. I told myself I'd give it all away. I kept not getting around to it.
Finally last week we took it all to the Salvation Army (along with some bags of clothing and other stuff). It had been sitting around the house so long that I was just glad to be rid of it, and didn't give a hoot about not getting money for any of it!
If you can't find an in-house life for old machines (as router, print server, mp3 server, dual-ethernet NAT/firewall etc), and you can't be bothered to sell them, please don't throw them away. Your environment will thank you. (OK, it won't, but it
should, and I'm sure it would if it could.) Offer to set the system up for your neighbor's kid (we have no neighbors with kids), or call your local Salvation Army or Goodwill.
-matt
Goodwill
lachoy on 2002-12-01T15:17:40
I'm not sure if they're everywhere, but a Goodwill store in Pittsburgh has a separate store for electronic equipment. If nothing else creative artsy types will nab stuff from there cheap and make fishtanks or something...
