Slashdot Mirror

Bah you CAN do that with a PC, and at a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than those old consoles! Right now I have a closet FULL of dead consoles...two PS 1, a SNES, a Sega CD, A Genesis, and an original Xbox that works but it is too much of a PITA to mod the thing. Trying to find games and parts? A PITA unless I wwant to deal with the "fun" that is the ripoff land known as eBay.

Compare that to the PC side. I have a pair of 733MHz PCs that dual boot Win98 and WinXP. Cost? Nothing for the machines themselves, as I found a school that was doing an upgrade and talked them out of the machines for giving them a hand on a lazy afternoon. If I were to have bought them? Maybe $20 off of Craigslist. Cost to turn them into gamer PCs for old games? I paid $10 for an MX400 64MB and $15 for an FX5200 128MB, both PCI. If anything short of the motherboard goes? Prices are so cheap for things like HDDs and RAM it is a joke to even mention them. Hell even if I blow a cap I got a neighbor that will happily change caps for me in return for keeping his PCs going. Added a couple of Soundblasters I got for a whole $0.50 at a yard sale, and one $20 4 port KVM I bought for work.

So as you can see for BOTH machines I have a whole $50 invested, and not only do they play every single game I've thrown at them from the DOS era up to around 2001 thanks to being able to boot into DOS from Win98, but they have plenty of other uses as well. For example when the youngest had his PC blow a PSU I was able to hand the MX400 one as a spare until I could get his new PSU in, and the FX5200 one isn't even in my possession ATM as my GF is having to live 2 hours away to help with the family farm after her dad had a heart attack and so she has it as a spare in case anything goes wrong while she is up on the mountain.

But with those machines I am already able to play ANY consoles OR PC game up to the N64 via emulation, and even with the original controllers if my youngest wouldn't have snatched my USB console adapter for his PC. Thanks to the dual core and 4850 he got for Xmas (his brother wanted and got a laser printer) he can play ANY console or PC game up to and including Gamecube via emulation, and it is a hell of a lot easier than dealing with scratched discs or switching consoles around due to limited TV connections and space. In most places one can simply walk down the street if you want an old PC to game on and find one on the curb that just needs a wipe and reinstall, or simply spread the word and you'll end up with more than you can deal with. I have friends keep an eye out for PCs for me at junk and yard sales and the MOST I've ever paid is a whole $10 for a PC. Frankly there are just so many no longer wanted desktops the pickings are good and cheap.

So frankly unless you are living in a closet there really isn't a point in emulation for older games, not when so many good used machines can be had for nothing. There are plenty of places one can get a two port KVM for under $10 (such as this) and I can add a speaker set that plugs into a CD ROM slot for a whole $8. Even if you are short on space something like that 733MHz in a SFF that sits under a monitor is easy to find and again cheap. And as for lasting? Lets see, my first 100MHz PC is STILL running, now as a DOS 3 CNC controller, with my 233MHz running as a backup, my 1GHz Celeron is running an XP Lite install with a cousin as a Nettop, I am typing this on a 1.8GHz Sempron I got for $40 off a build from a client, and my last 4 P4s are with my oldest, my youngest, my mom, and my GF. Out of those I had to replace a grand total of one mobo and one PSU, both of which were again cheap.

So again it really isn't hard to put together a PC that WILL run all older software, and console games as well. My advice from experience would be to add a cheap soundblaster (which the site I linked to above has them for a whole $2) along with a cheap AGP or PCI GPU, any older Radeon or GForc

Ironic ain't it that you can buy Sun Ray Thin Clients for less than $20 now with free shipping. But I'll probably get hate for saying it but Sun deserved to die. Lets be honest folks they have been flailing around with no real business plan or clue for longer than most would like to admit. One day they were "yay Linux!" the next "Linux boo!" one day "yay SPARC" the next "X86 roxorz!". At least with oracle buying them Solaris and SPARC will continue, and will actually probably gain some share.

My prediction is that Oracle setting a new DB record is a sign of what is to come: Oracle will offer a customized SPARC running a highly tweaked Solaris with both made from the ground up to maximize Oracle DB TPM. For smaller companies they will offer an "Oracle Cloud" solution where you can have Oracle host the DB and get crazy TPM without having to have the crazy hardware, and for the larger enterprises they will have a combo cloud/offline solution where you can host it all with them, all on site, or any combo you desire.

As much as the FLOSS guys want to cuss at Oracle, even they should be willing to admit old Larry knows how to make a ROI, and honestly they should be thanking their lucky stars as it could have been MUCH worse. Imagine if some patent troll would have bought out Sun. It would have made the SCO mess look like a Sunday tea party with all the patents they had. And the GPL still says you can have the code, just not the patents and copyrights. So I really don't get all the Oracle hate around here. Sure they're not throwing their weight behind FLOSS but you know what? why should they, Oracle isn't Red hat. And frankly I don't see the FLOSS community being big Oracle customers anyway.

Funny you should mention Sun thin clients, because I just got an advert selling Sun Ray Thin Clients for $20 with free shipping and Sun dual core Opteron workstations for $300. Oh how the mighty have fallen, although at those prices I'm tempted to pick up a Sun Ray even though I don't know what the hell I'd do with the thing.

While everyone here says "It isn't Open Source's fault!" in a way I'd say it is. Just magically making everything Open Source isn't gonna cause RMS to show up in a Santa suit with bags of money you really need to know what you are doing and have a damned good business plan ready to go. Everyone here talks about Red Hat, but how many failed Open Source companies are out there? Hell even with Red Hat look at how many enterprise admins we had here on /. about to have a heart attack when it looked like CentOS was gonna go tits up, why? Because even admins at enterprise companies like free as in beer more than they like paying Red hat, who actually spends all the money on R&D.

I'd argue that trying to make a living as a purely open source company is damned hard, and the pickings are slim compared to the proprietary world. With something like Adobe or MSFT the threat of the BSAA hammer of doom will keep many companies in line, what does FOSS have? Basically folks like Red Hat just have to hope there will be enough willing to pay them the big bucks rather than using Red Hat's product for free via CentOS for them to not only stay in business but to be able to afford the R&D to keep up with the competition. That ain't easy folks and just because you say Open Source don't make it any different. Just ask McNealy.

Funny you should mention Sun thin clients, because I just got an advert selling Sun Ray Thin Clients for $20 with free shipping and Sun dual core Opteron workstations for $300. Oh how the mighty have fallen, although at those prices I'm tempted to pick up a Sun Ray even though I don't know what the hell I'd do with the thing.

While everyone here says "It isn't Open Source's fault!" in a way I'd say it is. Just magically making everything Open Source isn't gonna cause RMS to show up in a Santa suit with bags of money you really need to know what you are doing and have a damned good business plan ready to go. Everyone here talks about Red Hat, but how many failed Open Source companies are out there? Hell even with Red Hat look at how many enterprise admins we had here on /. about to have a heart attack when it looked like CentOS was gonna go tits up, why? Because even admins at enterprise companies like free as in beer more than they like paying Red hat, who actually spends all the money on R&D.

I'd argue that trying to make a living as a purely open source company is damned hard, and the pickings are slim compared to the proprietary world. With something like Adobe or MSFT the threat of the BSAA hammer of doom will keep many companies in line, what does FOSS have? Basically folks like Red Hat just have to hope there will be enough willing to pay them the big bucks rather than using Red Hat's product for free via CentOS for them to not only stay in business but to be able to afford the R&D to keep up with the competition. That ain't easy folks and just because you say Open Source don't make it any different. Just ask McNealy.

If you are talking standard PCI and not PCIe, then no. PCI is dying for a reason, in that it just don't have the throughput for anything more strenuous than USB ports and such. Those PCI cards were put out to let those old Dells run Vista/7 NOT to give you any kind of graphics performance. I had a customer who actually tried running games on a new Radeon PCI card, not pretty. With PS you are talking some heavy lifting going BOTH ways, as any changes to the controls and layers will have to be fed back and forth, and PCI maxes out at just 66MHz. That is simply too slow to be feeding the huge textures we are talking about.

So I'd say the best bet is dual boot, or hell, even just having two boxes and a KVM. You can buy a nice AMD Quad for around $300 fully loaded at Tigerdirect, slap a good sub $150 DX11 card and you have a damned nice graphics workstation. Since Linux don't take much he can use a cheapo off lease SFF HP from some place like this, place it under the monitor and use the XP License on the new build. Voila! He'll have a nice Ubuntu box for Linux and a nice XP workstation for his PS and rendering. I had a customer who I set up a similar deal for, only with him it is a 2GHz running win2K and Macromedia Xres, and his AMD dual core workstation is running XP Pro. The nice thing about doing it this way is one can work on both boxes in real time, like if he is doing one job in PS on his dual he can finish up another job that would be quicker in Xres on his Win2K box and just switch back and forth.

Uhhhh...you DO know there are places like Surplus Computers where you can pick up older machines like this 600 Mhz Tegra laptop all day long, yes? It isn't like finding older machines is exactly hard. If you were talking about old SPARC desktops or maybe MIPS I'd agree with you, but x86 is as common as dirt and just as easy to find.

Ninite works beautifully and oh yeah...NO TOOLBARS! That's right, no stupid Java trying to push Yahoo toolbar, no toolbars at all. it all just works. As for the PC? I would go with this one for the budget, as it is a 2.8GHz (more than most folks need) with a 40Gb HDD and 512Mb of RAM. As for not being able to run XP on 512Mb because of AV? well let me say BAM! Here you go, no problemo. Comodo uses around 10Mb of RAM, and that is including the superior firewall instead of Windows Firewall, and is 100% free to boot. Simply add Comodo Time Machine and you have a machine that even your grandma can recover, even if she manages to screw it up so bad it won't boot. Of course you could probably pick up a 512Mb stick of DDR on eBay for $10-$20, still cheap for a good PC.

So as you can see it really ain't hard to go cheap with a Windows box. All told we are talking a price of $109 with shipping, with no need for antivirus subscriptions or spending a penny on software. And I bet you are gonna love Ninite. I have been using it since it was beta and it really is top notch and simple. Oh and if there is any freeware you would like added to the list? Simply fill in then form and they will look into it. I asked for Klite codec pack (because with its built in DXVA support it really is a "one stop shop" for hardware acceleration on modern machines) and voila! There it is. A really great bunch and if you need even more their pay version lets you set up custom repos on your own network so you can have any third party apps ready to go for your users. And it is so easy even the most clueless of users can choose and install their own programs with it.

Give it a try, I bet you'll find it a "must use" website like I do, as it really takes the sting out of setting up a new Windows box. Between Ninite and Autopatcher allowing me to keep all windows updates from XP-Windows 7 X64 on a network share it has really cut down the amount of time and bandwidth needed to go from a bare drive to a fully loaded Windows PC.

Step one, pop drive out. Step two, use cheap ass USB IDE adapter to put OS on drive Surpluscomputers has a nice one for $20. Step three put drive back in. Step Four...there is no step four as you are done.

See how easy that was? Hell of a lot nicer than dealing with...gag shudder wretch...floppies.

You can get one at Big lots for $10 for a 4Gb, or if you check with surpluscomputers occasionally you can get bundles of 1Gb to 2Gb sticks for dirt cheap. So get a really cheap stick and then get the Computer Repair Utility Toolkit V2 which is like the Swiss Army Knife of PC Tools. So much more than simple malware repair it has fixes for networking, file recovery,info, scripts and tweaks, and it is simple to add you own. Just add Malwarebytes Antimalware and portable Firefox along with updating the included ClamAV and you have a one stop PC shop in your pocket.

but trying to guess what is a nasty and what ain't, especially when dealing with dialup, is simply a fool's game. There are literally thousands of new pieces of nasty released every day, and even if you guess right on this one there is no telling what else could be on that machine. Take the Toolkit I linked to above, add installers for Comodo AV and MalwareBytes, along with the latest Firefox, and simply stick the flash on your keyring and be done with it. Just plug the stick into any PC USB port once a week to update it and you have a full toolset in your pocket. So what if you don't do it everyday? The few times you DO run into something like this you will be able to handle it easily and look like a genius at the same time, all for a few dollar flash stick and less than 5 minutes a week.

Why wouldn't he? As I said I just retired my 1.1GHz Win2K box and replaced it with a circa 2005 AMD Sempron 1.8GHz. Folks shell out a couple of hundred for nettops with single core Atom CPUs when that 1.1GHz ran rings around an Atom. For surfing the web, checking webmail, what is the problem?

My GF will be down to spend the weekend with me and will take her P4 3.0GHz with a replaced mobo with her when she goes home. For the past 4 weeks she has been using an old office box I had donated to me, a 733MHz P3 with a maxed out 384Mb of RAM, XP Pro, and a Geforce 5200PCI. And you know what? She says it is an adorable little thing and has been quite happy on it! For what she does, play her little Facebook farm game, chat with her friends, check her webmail, surf with Firefox, it works just beautifully. I just turned off unnecessary services and replaced Windows Firewall with Comodo AV/firewall and system restore with Comodo Time Machine and it is a whisper quiet little nettop that does everything she wants to do. So I told her to keep it for a spare that way she won't ever be stuck again without a PC.

So please don't get hung up on the age of a machine. While the OEMs and MSFT would love nothing more than for you to shitcan your machine every couple of years, working PC repair I've found that a good whitebox or off lease business class will last you many many years of good service with just a little TLC. The only reason I retired the 1.1GHz is the PSU finally died and it is an old HP that won't take a normal PSU. The 1.8GHz Sempron that replaced it is so quiet you can't even tell it is on, doesn't heat up my apartment, and with 1.5Gb of RAM is more than enough for the web. I can tell you that most folks buying these new dual and quad cores have the CPU sitting at less than 2% 99% of the time. They just don't have enough work for them to do. And hell you can go to places like this and buy good off lease machines for under $100. Any of these would be better than an Atom nettop and cheaper to boot.

I don't know about him but I can tell you what I give my customers who want that style of setup, and it is Mediaportal. It is easy to use, thanks to plugins you can do all sorts of extras like program guides and Internet radio/TV, they have a pretty good list of supported capture cards in all price ranges so finding one that will fit your budget shouldn't be hard. And if you have family the interface is VERY easy and friendly.

That is of course if you are wanting a lightweight one, as it runs great on XP Home/Pro. If you go Windows 7 I would suggest Media Center, as it has pretty nice features like program guides and Internet TV as well. Oh and if you need a cheap box to build it in that looks nice I would point out this one if you are not the DIY type. I have sold a couple of these to customers and they are quite happy with them. They are not too big, are easy to work on or add cards to, and the all black design looks good in a TV cabinet as I can attest to as that is what the last one I sold is doing right now connected to a 50in widescreen.

If you don't mind one that looks a little more "PCish" there is this which has both x1 and x16 PCI-E slots, so you can do transcoding and GPU offloading. But hopefully this has given you a few ideas on where to begin. With Mediaportal and a cap card just about relatively decent PC can be turned into a nice HTPC with a an easy to use interface. Good luck!

I don't know about him but I can tell you what I give my customers who want that style of setup, and it is Mediaportal. It is easy to use, thanks to plugins you can do all sorts of extras like program guides and Internet radio/TV, they have a pretty good list of supported capture cards in all price ranges so finding one that will fit your budget shouldn't be hard. And if you have family the interface is VERY easy and friendly.

That is of course if you are wanting a lightweight one, as it runs great on XP Home/Pro. If you go Windows 7 I would suggest Media Center, as it has pretty nice features like program guides and Internet TV as well. Oh and if you need a cheap box to build it in that looks nice I would point out this one if you are not the DIY type. I have sold a couple of these to customers and they are quite happy with them. They are not too big, are easy to work on or add cards to, and the all black design looks good in a TV cabinet as I can attest to as that is what the last one I sold is doing right now connected to a 50in widescreen.

If you don't mind one that looks a little more "PCish" there is this which has both x1 and x16 PCI-E slots, so you can do transcoding and GPU offloading. But hopefully this has given you a few ideas on where to begin. With Mediaportal and a cap card just about relatively decent PC can be turned into a nice HTPC with a an easy to use interface. Good luck!

Or you could just slap in a $60 card and get DVI and full hardware accelerated decoding. And computers are REALLY cheap for off lease now. As you can see here they have models starting at $39.

For a nice pretty black one that would make a good HTPC you could get this which at 3Ghz is more than plenty for 1080p. I have sold a few of these to customers and they are compact, quiet, easy to work on, and built like tanks. Just add a capture card and mediaportal and you will have a nice HTPC.

So if somebody wants to buy a Ps3 for playing games and have BD as a bonus, cool. But buying one just for a media center does seem like extreme overkill to me.

Or you could just slap in a $60 card and get DVI and full hardware accelerated decoding. And computers are REALLY cheap for off lease now. As you can see here they have models starting at $39.

For a nice pretty black one that would make a good HTPC you could get this which at 3Ghz is more than plenty for 1080p. I have sold a few of these to customers and they are compact, quiet, easy to work on, and built like tanks. Just add a capture card and mediaportal and you will have a nice HTPC.

So if somebody wants to buy a Ps3 for playing games and have BD as a bonus, cool. But buying one just for a media center does seem like extreme overkill to me.

So you add a cheap PCI card, in this case an 8400GS for a whole $42. You could go even cheaper, but if you want to drive multiple monitors and have decent resolution this would be the best bet. This is the best one for Linux as well, due to the fact Nvidia drivers are better ATM. If you would prefer something with open drivers (I heard the older Radeons are well supported now) you can save a couple of bucks by going with a Radeon 9250 instead at $40.

Adding the $42 to the $75 for the machine you come out at $117 which is still far below the $200 that the poster said he wanted to spend. With a 1.7GHz CPU, 512Mb of RAM (expandable to 2Gb) and 20Gb of offline storage I still think this is the best thin client candidate for the $$$. Where else are you gonna find a thin client that can drive multiple monitors, has enough power for decent video resolution without stutter, and plenty of offline storage, all for less than $120?

And if he wants to spend a whole extra $20 he can nearly double his CPU to a 2.4GHz, double his offline storage space, and even have a copy of XP Pro to use when the network is down, all for less than $160 with the extra video card. I doubt VERY seriously he is gonna find a better deal on a PC usable for a decent thin client any cheaper.

So you add a cheap PCI card, in this case an 8400GS for a whole $42. You could go even cheaper, but if you want to drive multiple monitors and have decent resolution this would be the best bet. This is the best one for Linux as well, due to the fact Nvidia drivers are better ATM. If you would prefer something with open drivers (I heard the older Radeons are well supported now) you can save a couple of bucks by going with a Radeon 9250 instead at $40.

Adding the $42 to the $75 for the machine you come out at $117 which is still far below the $200 that the poster said he wanted to spend. With a 1.7GHz CPU, 512Mb of RAM (expandable to 2Gb) and 20Gb of offline storage I still think this is the best thin client candidate for the $$$. Where else are you gonna find a thin client that can drive multiple monitors, has enough power for decent video resolution without stutter, and plenty of offline storage, all for less than $120?

And if he wants to spend a whole extra $20 he can nearly double his CPU to a 2.4GHz, double his offline storage space, and even have a copy of XP Pro to use when the network is down, all for less than $160 with the extra video card. I doubt VERY seriously he is gonna find a better deal on a PC usable for a decent thin client any cheaper.

Well here you go a 1.7GHz off lease Compaq desktop for a whole $75 with shipping. That is pretty much the only choice if you don't want to DIY, because thin clients are a niche that will cost you $$$ that it doesn't sound like you are willing to spend. This is small, can fit under a monitor, and has 20Gb of local storage. Perfect for a thin client.

The simple fact is that is as cheap as you're gonna get, because PCs have economies of scale and thin clients don't. If you just have to have an OEM thin client be prepared to shell out the $$$ buddy.

Second that, pfSense is awesome. Get a cheap computer here http://www.surpluscomputers.com/348231/dell-optiplex-gx-p4-2.4ghz.html stick in two more NICS and hook up the old wireless router as it's own subnet off pfSense. whole thing for $140-$150 plus VPN to boot. I have some of these running and they are rock solid.

But since we are talking about SEVEN year old machines he can actually just pick up some nice off lease machines, save a ton o' cash, and give them much better than they are running now. Here is a ten pack of dual Xeon servers for $1200 shipped. With something like that he could set up 2 in each office (so he has fail over) and at 2.4Ghz they have enough power to run VMs no problem.

With SMBs IMHO it is all about getting the best bang for the buck. They will typically keep machines for longer than larger businesses, so getting a decent amount of hardware now at a good price will help in the long run. With a good deal like this he can even have a couple of spares set up and ready in case of disaster recovery off site. Just load the latest image and off you go.

Dealing with plenty of SMBs over the years I have found to this be the main issue, as they simply don't have the budgets for the latest and greatest, and frankly they don't need the latest either. I have bought plenty of off lease gear from SurplusComputers and never had a bit of trouble. But for the setup he is talking about he might even be able to get by with just one in each office if he has a seriously tight budget. Maybe something like this. But he didn't say how many offices he has, nor how tight his budget is, so if he has more than a couple of branches to deal with he'd probably be better off with the 10 pack.

Sure we would all like new gear with nice support contracts to back them up, but in my experience most small companies just don't got the money, hence the 7 year old gear still in use. Better to get decent off lease stuff and have fail over than to only buy a single new machine because his budget is too tight. And if they are still running 7 year old gear I'm betting his budget ain't great to start with.

But since we are talking about SEVEN year old machines he can actually just pick up some nice off lease machines, save a ton o' cash, and give them much better than they are running now. Here is a ten pack of dual Xeon servers for $1200 shipped. With something like that he could set up 2 in each office (so he has fail over) and at 2.4Ghz they have enough power to run VMs no problem.

With SMBs IMHO it is all about getting the best bang for the buck. They will typically keep machines for longer than larger businesses, so getting a decent amount of hardware now at a good price will help in the long run. With a good deal like this he can even have a couple of spares set up and ready in case of disaster recovery off site. Just load the latest image and off you go.

Dealing with plenty of SMBs over the years I have found to this be the main issue, as they simply don't have the budgets for the latest and greatest, and frankly they don't need the latest either. I have bought plenty of off lease gear from SurplusComputers and never had a bit of trouble. But for the setup he is talking about he might even be able to get by with just one in each office if he has a seriously tight budget. Maybe something like this. But he didn't say how many offices he has, nor how tight his budget is, so if he has more than a couple of branches to deal with he'd probably be better off with the 10 pack.

Sure we would all like new gear with nice support contracts to back them up, but in my experience most small companies just don't got the money, hence the 7 year old gear still in use. Better to get decent off lease stuff and have fail over than to only buy a single new machine because his budget is too tight. And if they are still running 7 year old gear I'm betting his budget ain't great to start with.

Have you ever tried surplus computers? If you keep an eye out there you can often score a server for cheaper than the cost of a RAM upgrade. Just last week they had a shipment of nice HP dual 2.2Ghz Xeons they were selling for $59! It is one of those places where you need to get the newsletter or check in once a week to see what they've got, as they just get a load of this or that and often sell dirt cheap if they get a big load.

So if you keep an eye out you might be able to score a better server for less than the price of RAM for the 700Mhz. And while I agree if what you have is working then there is no point going apeshit on the RAM, when building a new PC the price is so cheap it is just nuts not to load her up. And I have bought plenty of gear from the surplus guys in the past and never had a bit of trouble. Sadly older RAM is often more expensive than simply replacing the box with better hardware, and as you can see they have some pretty powerful server gear for less than $300. Just keep an eye out and they will get another awesome under $100 deal.

Well, if you have that many old rigs lying around, I bet you have some monitors too, don't you? Well set one up with DSL or Puppy and let them try for themselves. I had that same problem but I set up the machine with Puppy and said "why don't you just drop by and try it? All it takes is a little bit of your time." and after they see how easy it is to work(just make sure the start button is in the lower left. Nothing scares a Windows user like having the button at the top Ubuntu style) they will usually jump on it. There is also freecycle and bulletin boards at the local grocery stores and coffee shops. I also point out to them they will never have a BSOD, never need to worry about viruses or malware, and all the programs are free.

You know, I'm shocked that you didn't say that you're working as a DIY PC repair guy. Most of the old gear heads I know make good money running a little shop out of their homes(plus we get good access to boxes and parts!) and it isn't like you have to have a degree or anything. I've been doing it since the days of Win3.1 and just got around to getting a degree in 2005. While you won't get rich at it, it is a good way to earn a little extra scratch and put some of those old boxes to use. I either sell them cheap, don't ask me why but folks seem to think cheap is better than free a lot of times, or put DSL or Puppy on them and when someone asks about it I'll tell them it is free to a good home. A good example is that Compaq SFF Deskpro. I ended up with a dozen of those, ranging from 500MHz to 733MHz. I kept a couple and turned them into DVRs(you can buy analog Capture cards from places like here which had some for $7) and the rest I gave away. I maxed out the 733MHz with 384MB, kept the XP that was installed and added Win98. Makes a great box for playing MOH and Mechwarriror 3.

Now as to the P4, let da feet enlighten you as to why they die. It is the fans. They NEVER put the correct fans in a P4. Never. The trick with the P4(and I have several going back to 2GHz still running, so I've gotten this part down) is to NEVER go half ass with the fans. You should ALWAYS go overboard with the cooling of a P4. The Netburst Arch is wicked fast but it is also one hot arch so you really need to crank up the cooling. In mine I have a copper 80mm(always use copper) CPU cooler with a 120mm pulling the hot air out of the back, along with a 80mm blasting cool air in from the front. Yes it can sometimes sound like a F14 taking off, but even under full load with my Geforce 7600 512MB OC cranking out the pretty in Bioshock it never gets above 115f, and anything under 100% load it sits at 105f. I know they say that the P4 can take temps in the 150 range, but that is BS. If you want a P4 to last as long as a P3(and I have customers that are still using the first gen P4s thanks to my cooling) then you REALLY need to go overboard with the cooling. And NEVER use those stock Intel CPU coolers unless we are talking last gen Celeron. They are just crap. Always pick up a copper bottomed CPU cooler from Newegg or Tigerdirect. The difference in temps is huge. Foll da feet's advice and that P4 will last just as long as one of those P2s you have in your barn.

Well I hope I have given you some ideas on where to find good homes for your older machines. Any bulletin boards near the poor side of town is a good place to start, along with freecycle. And if you decide to make you a little extra cash fixing boxes you can always use those machines as a parts stash. It lets you undercut the competition since you don't have to actually buy parts like they do. Plus it lets you build up good contacts for finding PCs good homes. I have a heat and air guy that does a lot of work in older/poorer neighborhoods and anything over 200MHz he can find a good home for. I just set them up as a dual boot with whatever Windows CAL they came with and Puppy Linux. That way even if they bone the Windows side they still have a working PC. You

I agree about having portable software, which is why I love checking out the portable freeware collection since they always seems to have something new. Being in PC repair I have also found having the computer repair utility toolkit on a flash to be invaluable.

Now as for how many read/writes you are going to get with your apps, why use your main drive for apps? When there is places like surplus computers where you can pick up multipacks of sticks so cheap, and the things are so small on your keyring, it just doesn't make much sense to me to waste read/write cycles on my large flash when I can just pick up a pack cheap. That way if the one I am using for an app on a stick dies, who cares? Just reach in the drawer and grab another one. Slap the apps on and I'm good to go. I just use FEBE to keep my FF bookmarks synced with my Netbox once a day and I'm good.

But with multipacks being so cheap and the things being so handy it just doesn't make sense to me to wear out my big drive using it for apps when I can have a handful of new drives in a drawer ready to go. After all, portable apps aren't bloated. Plus having spare means that I can try different things like Live USB OSes without risking screwing up the ones I use for work. Better safe than sorry.

You can check with Computer surplus, they buy used servers and computer equipment. check them out:>> http://www.surpluscomputers.com/

A EEE is probably a little too expensive for a time capsule,and you'll have to worry about the batteries busting if you don't take it apart first. I would by a little cheap used mini-PC like this one for $50 slap in a cheap 1Gb DDR stick and use an IDE to flash convertor so I wouldn't have to worry about dead hard drives.

As a nice bonus he could stick in a couple of extra flash cards with a USB reader filled with video,messages from the class,some small videos of the campus,etc. Plus if the PC has a Linux OS and XP they'll have fun playing with the "dinosaur" Operating System. Kind of like how my nephews laughed their asses off when I plugged in my VIC20 and showed them what I had to do to get anything running on the thing. I'm sure in 25 years that PC I linked to running Ubuntu and XP will look as laugh worthy as my old tape driven VIC20. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

I buy off lease office equipment with the Win2K or XP CAL still stuck to the side,so that my users don't have to worry about me selling them pirate software. And in the case of XP I activate it if it hasn't been activated already,but usually they are pre activated from the factory. I do a lot of business with Surplus Computers and never have had a bit of trouble from them.

In fact I just sold one of those $79 dollar specials to a graphic artist who has a piece of 14 year old software (Xres) that refuses to run on anything bigger than a 2GHz. He had me build him a really nice Athlon machine but this one piece of software simply refuses to run on anything newer,so I set him up a KVM with a crossover cable so he will be able to simply switch between the two. But the bottom three models have been selling quite well to those customers that simply want a reliable machine for email,surfing,and document creation. I give them Firefox,Avast,and Open Office and they are quite happy with them. And I am quite happy with making cash on a machine that takes less than 15 minutes to set up. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Looks to me like someone has never heard of Pricewatch.... Since you seem incapable of using a search engine, I'll help you out... here is one that I found for you http://www.surpluscomputers.com/store/Main.aspx?p=ItemDetail&item=com10775
Its $200 and surpasses your demands.... should you need more, they sell a dual core for about $100 more. If that will be all, I'm outta here. Thank you, I'll be here all week.

Here is a wireless color spycam for under $40. While I haven't messed with surveillance much,I have bought a ton of stuff from this company over the years and never had a bit of trouble from them. If you would rather go wired,here is a wired camera from the same company alongwith a capture card designed for surveillance. I hope this helps and good luck!

Here is a wireless color spycam for under $40. While I haven't messed with surveillance much,I have bought a ton of stuff from this company over the years and never had a bit of trouble from them. If you would rather go wired,here is a wired camera from the same company alongwith a capture card designed for surveillance. I hope this helps and good luck!

Here is a wireless color spycam for under $40. While I haven't messed with surveillance much,I have bought a ton of stuff from this company over the years and never had a bit of trouble from them. If you would rather go wired,here is a wired camera from the same company alongwith a capture card designed for surveillance. I hope this helps and good luck!

Here is what I use, and it is $10 cheaper than that. The thing I like about the porta case is that with the case popped off it is just as small as the cyberguys one and just as easy to pop drives on and off, and when you need to move some files somewhere you can just pop the case back on and you have a rugged usb hdd. It is great when you have those 20-40gb drives lying around and need to haul a few dvds worth of data somewhere. It is also great for troubleshooting, as you can keep a 20gb full of repair tools and simply pop it in the drive and go.

While it's agp and not pci,most boards made in the last 10 years have an agp,so here you go. http://www.surpluscomputers.com/store/main.aspx?p= ItemDetail&item=CRD10801

> prices for a computer can't go below about $200 no matter what is in them due to component count and size

I see stuff like this all the time. Sure it is a sale, but a frequent one.

866 MHz 128 MB PC for $60
http://www.surpluscomputers.com/store/main.aspx?p= ItemDetail&item=COM10685

Sitting beside me now are four new-in-box Intel Pro/Wireless 5000 wireless access points.

PC Magazine, 5/21/2002:
"...optional support for 802.11b and a reasonable price make the Intel PRO/Wireless 5000 802.11a Access Point worthy of consideration if you want to be an early adopter of 802.11a."

C|Net, 7/31/2002:
"With its simultaneous support of 802.11a and 802.11b, the Intel Pro/Wireless 5000 LAN dual access point is well suited to open office areas packed with wireless PCs."

2002 price: $449 list according to PC Magazine, $649 according to C|Net.

I got mine from an outfit called surpluscomputers.com for four bucks a piece. Plus $12 shipping. Here's a link to the product if it's still in stock (it is now, but probably won't be after the Slashdotters hit it).

The moral of the story: compatibility with the next standard is fine and dandy, but in three or four years, you're going to look back and either laugh, cry, or hurl.

You beat me to it. I was going to say, "Sleek... if by sleek you mean not as sleek as the PQI Intellistick." An alternate vendor (since NewEgg seems to be sold out) is Surplus Computers. I bought my my 512MB USB 2.0 Intelligent Stick from them over a year ago (before NewEgg stocked them) and it has been running like a champ ever since. I keep it in the plastic credit card holder (just one stick though there's room for another) free in my pocket. Have never had a problem. It is the ultimate in portability and very easy to connect to computers with poorly layed out USB ports (i.e., it fits in tight spaces).

http://www.surpluscomputers.com/store/main.aspx?p= ItemDetail&item=SWW12421 not pro but std

This site sells a somewhat modern one for $20. It's an inexpensive way to try it out. I would imagine it has improved since the late 90s. Never heard of any other brands that sell those. http://www.surpluscomputers.com/store/main.aspx?p= ItemDetail&item=CRD10186

I'm in the process of building my own "ultimate workshop" and I've already got the computing side set up. I'm using a disk-less workstation connected to a cheap 14" monitor. That monitor is also connected to a DirecTV box via a video to VGA box I got from a discount place for about $40. Added an old set of computer speakers, and I have a set up where I can watch TV (discovery channel in the background usually), listen to music (via DirectTV's music channels) or use the computer (X terminal into my home server). I tied all of this into one little box that I have a fan sucking air into through a filter. The box where I have this is is made positive pressure by the fan, keeping most of the dust out. I sealed it with a piece of plexiglass with magnetic tape around the edges. Of course, my workshop is already wired with Ethernet- as yours should be!

For the keyboard, I couldn't anything I really liked that was sealed (though I'm still looking), so I bought a $10 keyboard at Fry's- I figure I'll just replace it as needed. I'm using an optical mouse- less likely to get gunked up by the gunk on the workbench.

I tried to make sure that mothing I installed had any internal fans- those are the things most likely to get gunked up with dust first.

Of course, once things do get dusty, I have shop-air to blow them out (air-compressor outside, copper piping inside). Watch out- you can generate a lot of static electricity with compressed air- which is why I'll be grounding all the copper piping in my system (which should reduce it somewhat). Blowing out electronics systems is probably not the best idea, since there is usually some water in the compressed air- I've built in a condenser type system to try to get rid of some of the water, but it's not really perfect.

This is a project in continual change (as all proper geek type projects should be)- I'm trying to make it just as I like, but with the ability to change in case I want/need to reconfigure.

A.K.A. SurplusComputers

Old rack mount systems, SCSI drives, motherboards, and a lot of cheapo tools.

However, one of the cooler places locally has got to be TRIANGLE MACHINERY & TOOL COMPANY in San Jose for engineering supplies of all kinds.

* They have no web site.
* They have no air conditioning.
* They have no posted prices.
* They are hard to find.
* Their staff is not helpful. (but their customers are)
* Don't wear nice clothes, because everything they sell is greasy.
* Be prepared for heinous traffic on the weekends, because they're just around the corner from the Berryessa flea market.

But you know all those things in the Grainger catalog that are so cool but so expensive? Triangle has them. You can touch them and play with them. And if you're not afraid to haggle a bit, you can get an awesome price on them.

Chris Owens
San Carlos, CA

Ignoring for the moment the fact that the phrase "deal-seekers that use SCSI" is practically an oxymoron...

Surplus Computers has as good a deal as any you'll ever find on 10k rpm SCSI drives. I've had two of the 36.7 GB drives for six months and they've been nothing but a pleasure to use.

I have no relationship to Surplus Computers other than that of satisfied customer.