Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What To Do With Old Laptops?

Posted by kdawson on from the aside-from-warming-old-laps dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I've recently acquired a few old P2/P3 laptops. Most either work properly but are slow, or have various problems with power supplies and/or batteries. Attempting to sell them would probably earn less than the cost of shipping, so that's out of the question. I was hoping the Slashdot crowd could give me some ideas on what to do with these old computers. As somebody who already has ~10 computers lying around the house there is certainly no need for an additional computer to 'experiment' with, so I was hoping for some more creative suggestions."

5 of 620 comments (clear)

  1. Kids by mrbcs · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I bought 5 thinkpads for about $50 and paid about $50 for shipping. Turned all into poor mans xo? laptops. They use less power and space than a desktop, play all my kids Jump Start programs and are easily portable.

    Fix em up if you can and give em to a kids. I'm sure you could get at least a couple goin out of the pile, no?

    I've put win2k on them and they seem to be fine for this purpose.

    --
    I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
  2. basic services by ArcherB · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use old laptops for things like serving up web pages, running an FTP site, portable web-cam host, print server, file server, repeater, router or whatever other services where a power efficient, portable computer can be used. If you have it set up to run a single service or two, then performance is not going to be that big of an issue.

    For a web server, for example. I install a low-overhead Linux distro with Apache, ssh and maybe vnc and copy my www directory to it. BAM! Web server! It uses less power than any of my PC's, and it allows me to reboot my "real" machine without taking the web page down.

    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
  3. Nah, thin clients. by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Thin clients. Install a wifi card and mount one to the wall or cabinets in your kitchen. No battery necessary. Install LTSP or similar on a server and bammo! Instant kitchen terminal.

    --
    My blog
  4. Re:Bonfire by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Interesting
    An environmental disaster to burn them with gasoline...

    But why not build an image wall placing them side by side and play something using X-Windows.

    Just install Linux with X11 on each and you have a multi-screen solution!

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  5. Mount it under the cabinet by cvd6262 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    KDE (and other window managers) makes inverting the screen trivial. mount the laptop upside down under the cabinet like one of those Bose CD players. The screen flips down like in a minivan DVD player.

    Add a wireless keyboard and (as you said) bammo!

    --

    I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.