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What To Do With Old Laptops?
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."
A gallon of gasoline and a match.
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Seems fairly common, but should be easy enough.
Turn them into picture frames. http://repair4laptop.org/notebook_picture_frame.html
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
...I'd taken an old P2 200, flipped the screen around, threw a wireless card in it, and made a digital picture frame for my grandmother for Mother's Day two years ago. Been meaning to revisit that project. Another option is just as a heads-up display. I've got an old Compaq Presario hanging off my wall which does nothing but shell outputs of the status of my network, as well as a buffer for the latest SNMP traps. It blinks in big red text if anything goes particularly sideways (fatal trap). Took a fair bit of scripting, but it was fun.
Informatus Technologicus
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.
Create a virtual virus zoo.
the real question you're asking is Will it blend?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Donate to a charity - there are many developing 3rd world countries that I am sure would love to get their hands on something like that.
...To try to get Vista running on one of them.
Then again setting yourself on fire would probably be a much more pleasant experience.
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
http://www.puppylinux.org/
Runs great on older systems. Just the thing to breathe new life into those old lappies.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
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.
Send them to me. I'll find a use for them. Hell, I'll pay your shipping.
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here, do this: http://www.computerswithcauses.org/
Since OLPC seems to be voiding its own warranty, after a manner of speaking, why not stick an older Linux distro on them, like RH 7 or so, and give 'em away to some local kids who are into sci/tech but maybe don't have a lot of money?
I'm sure that relevant teachers at the local high school or something might be able to hook you up with the right kind of kids, and you maybe could get a tax deduction out of it, even if they required a tad bit of work on the power supplies or batteries I'm sure you'd still come out ahead, even if only morally.
There are many folks that would really benefit from a computer with an productivity suite and Internet capabilities. Install linux and open office then give away on freecycle.org. Caveat that there is no support available.
I realize that you have already have a number of computers to play around with, but why not use these? Even if they are old and slow, they will still run Linux (or Windows 2000/XP/2003 if you prefer, just not as well). It will also save you a little on your monthly power bill.
Or you could ship a good one to me. I'll give it a very good home.
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I use a Kurobox (266MHz PowerPC w/ 128MB RAM) running TorrentFlux as a Bittorrent server; it functions remarkably well. I'm sure those laptops are at least as powerful as that.
It doesn't need to be "poor people" necessarily. Sanitising and http://www.freecycle.org/ are good starts. Granted, I presume the poster didn't get them from CL or FC...
I would check ebay prices (final selling prices, not mid-auction bids) because I'm surprised you don't think they'd be worth the price of shipping. My experience is that used working laptops have surprisingly high prices because many people know they just need something simple for doing schoolwork etc. I mean, look at this (then again maybe those guys are just crazy - $930!!??). Linux should run great on those laptops. P3's in particular really are not bad computers and might even have a DVD reader.
Most laptops fit easily in racks, and can be used either as consoles or VNC terminals. They can basically function as the poor man's rack KVM and display & I/O tray. Another thing more relevant to the first use is that OLD laptops still mostly have real serial ports and all, whereas those are getting harder and harder to find on new laptops.
Front end for a myth box... most laptops have one or more video outputs, are quiet, small, and energy efficient!
PULL!
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
Use them as coasters.
I hear the air force is looking for some computers for a Bot Net
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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.
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i would take old laptops, install Linux on it with a bittorrent client, load it with lots of mp3 & mpeg files that make the MPAA & RIAA really angry and find a good wifi hotspot and plug the AC adapter to a spare outlet and abandon it, (be sure to wipe any fingerprints off beforehand)...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Use them as control terminals (one for each room, maybe in the wall somewhere) and servers for your houses living controls: thermostat, phone, tv, music, lighting, and maybe some web-cams and other security features, to name the big ones I'd want.
Install Freenet 0.7, give it a small bandwidth allotment and a huge datastore, hook it up to your router, and keep it running. You'll be helping people all over the world to communicate securely and anonymously.
I was looking into this and it seemed that the two biggest costs were the lcd screen and the bulb. If your a hobbiest it might be something to consider doing with one of the lcd screens in the laptops. But your still left with the rest of them.
Not sure what else you could do with them. You could donate them to some local school and say have the kids fix them up to use as some kind of club. though the children probably have better computers already the little brats.
You could try taking all the LCD screens and making one big display, sounds like too much work though. Not alot you can do with some left over laptops. I know you said you didn't want to sell them but if you sell them on ebay for parts they can sometimes grab a couple hundred bucks after shipping.
They'll make great terminals. All you need is a simple boot image to get each one to attach to the network and connect to an Linux Terminal Server.
At that point you've got a nice farm of small terminals with a big powerful server behind them. If you don't need this for yourself, consider donating the whole setup to a local school, church, or other organization that could use a low-maintenance multiuser computing environment.
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Bathtime surfing!!
and when one goes splash, just get out another.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Ok, just kidding... Well sort of. I don't know if it helps you out or not, but I know what I would do if I had an extra laptop or two lying around. I would repurpose one of them into a laptop for my 4 year old. He loves using the computer for TuxPaint and other games. I have an old computer that I set up for him, but my house's layout keeps it from being in a convenient spot for him to use. A laptop could be used by him on the couch, on the floor, in the car (while the battery lasted at least), or anywhere else. If you have any young nieces/nephews or if you have friends with young children, you could see if they want a laptop with Edubuntu installed. And speaking of Linux....
;-)
After having a laptop for my son, I would install Linux on a second spare laptop to play around with/learn Linux. Again, I'm not sure if this applies to you or not. I run Windows on all of my machines. I've wanted to try Linux out and have run a few LiveCDs (both boot-to-CD and inside VMWare), but it would be nice to have a whole system boot into Linux to try out. My two laptops are right now my work laptop (they probably wouldn't like it if I messed something up during my Linux install) and my wife's laptop (she definitely wouldn't like it if I messed something up during the Linux install). With an extra laptop, I could mess up and not really care about anything going wrong. From what I've heard, Linux shouldn't have a problem with the older systems (though I could be horribly wrong... I'm sure other users could clarify this point). So you could use one laptop as a test bed for various purposes. Get a nice system setup going, make an image of it, play around until the system is messed up, restore the image, play around some more, repeat.
Of course, if you seriously consider sending out old laptops to folks here, can I be the first in line?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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.
My old laptop's LCD died. This was one of many parts that had died over the last year or two, including the HDD (twice), the motherboard, and the RAM. So I got a new Asus G1 lappy which continues to serve me well.
But what to do with the old lappy? Well, it still boots up and connects to an external display... Bingo, a web server! Generally, if you're running a personal server on your home connection, as long as you're not adversely affecting your ISP's network, they won't care (or know about it). If your battery still works (mine does not, alas), you've even got a built-in UPS!
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Attach some wooden legs to them and use them as end tables. I have made many a nice furniture piece using old computers. Including a coffee table, night stands, and even a fish tank. The last one isn't finished yet because of leak issues.
Somewhere in a dark place you will find:
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Any laptop with a real serial port will be treated like gold and gladly put to good use at any research lab as a data logging tool connecting to some oddball piece of scientific equipment. Computers age much faster than instruments, and so often the interface software needs some old out of date OS and hardware to run. Try giving a call to the research focused department of your choice at your local university- and try and talk to the lab folk doing research, not the IT support who deal with student & email issues.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
And, laptops are low-profile. Shove them in a closet or under your desk. If they'll run too hot, spend $5 and get one of those cooling-pads with fans built in. remote control the laptop server whenever you need to. If you need console access-- it has a built-in keyboard, mouse and screen.
If you can fit 2 nics in them, they'll make excellent firewall appliances. Most laptops will come with a NIC built-in. Add a second PC-MCIA nic. If they're P2/P3, they might even have a modem built in. You can add fax-capabilities onto the server. Heck, if you're ambitious enough, set it up as a PBX. Have fun automatically routing telemarketers to an eternal on-hold "Chocolate Rain" message. Automatically reply to fax-spam with Hello.JPG.
If you are going to go the donation route, then look into making a portable lab for a school. Install wireless nics on each computer, and configure them to talk nicely to a wireless router. Then donate the whole shebang to a school. Schools need a computers for a lot of students, but not necessarily all at once. A lab of 10-20 computers that can be moved room-to-room is perfect for a lesson that needs computer access in a place other than a computer lab. (Taking it into a science lab so they can run spreadsheet calculations on experiment results, eg).
If it's a P3, it should be powerful enough to make a usable HTPC out of. Most P3 laptops I've seen have TV-Out built into them. Hook them up to a TV. Transfer media files to it as needed (I assume they have a 8-12GB HDD). Alternately, slap a large-capacity USB hard drive onto it and make it double as a fileserver.
Lots of uses.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I have an old PII/266 which runs DSL (Damn Small Linux) very nicely. I put XMMS on it, and hooked the speaker out to one of the alternate audio inputs on my stereo. It's not phenomenally high quality stereo, but at least better than most FM reception, and you've got hundreds (thousands?) of online radio stations to pick from.
DSL has some problems, such as shutting down the system if I close the lid on the laptop, and then not recovering the ethernet connection when I open it up again, but for the most part, it's better than tossing out the laptop. It's a lot smaller and cleaner looking than trying to get a full blown system with a monitor and keyboard to do the same thing.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
The one reason that older Laptops retain value after their life expectancy have run out is that they are complete compact computers that comes with screen, keyboard, storage ready to use right there and now.
...yes..it's more compatible with my old style centronic port rather than those windowsy modern equivalents that absolutely wants to control all the hardware by itself... this old unit has full "dos" control and can run old "protel" software to create those Nice Direct-to-plotter pcb layouts that make the life of a nerd a bit easier and cheaper.
What do I use them for?
I've refurbished one of the smallest laptops in the world (3010ct) from Toshiba (Weighs around 1.2 kg) as a lightweight practical surfing machine that I can take with me anywhere (take THAT pricey Macbook AIR!) cost me 15 dollars plus 10 bucks for the wireless CF card + adapter - downloaded some russian win 98 usb hack to give it usb powers + some wifi cf hack to give it wifi...voila...it's a fantastic Wireless surfer.
I've got a couple of nice IBM 600's that I've turned into portable Commodore 64's! Thanks to FRODO it instantly boots into a Commodore 64 within 10 seconds (take THAT you SLOW SLOOOW booting modern pcs that take 1-2 minutes to boot win xp!) This one can play all the cool games of our past years...and provide a nice prototyping platform to quickly try out some programming theories...
I've turned my Olivetti Echos 100E into a super-Eprom-Programming station! Yes - Todays modern PCs'doesnt come with Parallel or Serial ports (sure...usb is some sort of ultra fast serial port..but it doesnt work...and converterboards suck in general so...) I use this one to burn EPROMS with those nice 80-90's eprom programmers!
I've turned my other laptop into a Plotting Machine to make PCB's (Printed Circuit boards)
So yes - There's life in them old lappies still! I love'em!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
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db
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
I recently heard from someone who manages a mailroom in a large firm that _none_ of her staff knew how to type, so they were really unable to apply to move up to any other job in the organization.
They were locked into the low end job slot.
I got an old laptop, erased Windows from its tiny old hard drive, set it up to boot DOS (FreeDOS, I think) and installed an autoexec file to run an old copy of Typing Tutor III -- which is still probably the best thing going to learn the home row then slowly add keys and build speed and sequences.
You can still find it for sale, look around.
No eye candy, no other programs, no mouse, nothing to fiddle with.
It remembers different people so they all are using it -- and now they're competing with each other to get faster and better.
Typing Tutor was an incredible simple DOS program.
Enter your name. It remembers where you left off and what you need next.
And it has a lovely little Letter Invaders game -- falling letters, lower case and upper case, that's tied to your current level of keyboard experience.
Put headphones on the laptop so nobody bothers the student because of the music it plays.
There's _no_garbage_ on this setup. I pulled out the floppy/CD drive modules.
All it does is -- teach people to type.
Show them just the home row ASDF JKL; and tell them where to put their fingers at the start.
That's all you need.
** I know it seems incredible but there are a _lot_ of adults still who never learned to use a keyboard. Poor family. Poor schools with no tech at all. No tools, no teachers.
Help someone out with your old laptops. Set one up so you know it works as needed and then shop it around.
Figure it's a throwaway -- tie it down maybe, but make clear it's a doorstop, tell people they can borrow it, take it home, it's not worth stealing.
All it can do is teach.