A bunch of you emailed me about the “Things to do with old PDAs” post, so here’s another, but for computers…
I seem to be magnet for old computers. It’s not a bad thing really — people assume that an old or broken laptop will likely find some use when handed over to me. It’s true. Photo frames, music servers, print servers, robot brains, postage stations, MAME (retro gaming)… whatever, I’ll do something with an old computer before ever consider throwing it out. I’m sure many of you have the same collection somewhere. But the thing I like to do the most when receiving an old laptop is to wipe it completely and set it up for a kid or someone who doesn’t have a computer to use. It’s the most rewarding thing you can possibly do. You never know what will spark a mind to become interested in science and technology but I think a computer increases the odds. I fill the drive with PDFs of some old science texts and bookmarks to all the sites I think are fun and educational. It’s a bit of a lottery ticket approach, maybe these kids will just goof off, but if just a few end up solving some of the challenges ahead because they tuned in early it’s worth the hour or so I spend fixing up these old machines.
Here’s a round up of some of my favorite “new lives” you can give an old computer:
- DIY Home music control system. Use an old computer to control and play music in your home.
- Free TiVo: Build a better DVR out of an old PC.
- Make a digital picture frame out of an old laptop.
- Transform an old laptop into a MP3 player.
- HOW TO - Convert an old PC (386 or 486 or Pentium) into a network print server.
- Build a MAME Cabinet in 24 Hours.
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by Rob / October 8, 2008
I’ve turned a couple old computers into network firewalls for home - one with parental content filters, virus scanners, etc. etc. There are many great Linux distros for older hardware which you can use as a firewall. The current one I’m using is smoothwall.
Another project which I haven’t completed yet is to turn a bunch (approx 12) old Macs into a cluster. This is more challenging cause they have small (500 meg) hard drives which must boot into the mac os first - i can put a second drive for linux, but it’s taking a bit of tinkering to get it to work. I’ve built a custom kernel but have to load it on the other servers. I was thinking of setting one up as a distro server and doing network installs as a way of saving time but that’s all down the road a ways yet.
My final work in progress at the moment is to turn another old mac into a media server extension - i have one that has rca outs for audio and video - i think i can turn it into a satellite music server - one that plays music off the central computer over the network and plays it into an old stereo system outside.
I have a couple old computers (PC) that i’m going to set up as webservers so my teenaged son can learn about webservers as well.
by Tom / October 8, 2008
I just stumbled onto your post through the Make feed, and I was wondering if you have a list of the pdfs and links that you include on the PCs. I rebuild old computers to give away, and would like to include that kind of thing on them.
by davi jordan / October 11, 2008
I do pretty much the same thing but with linux. I get old machines all the time that people throw away. or leave for someone else to use. I picked up three or four machines in the last month or so. I use mythtv to do all the media stuff and stuff. I used another old machine to be a file/print/web/mail server. I have done all of this without having to purchase any windoze licenses. .I even have on machine that acts as a security system using webcams. If people only knew what you could do with old machines. You do not need the latest technology to do all kind of wonderful things.
by Ricky Cadden / October 12, 2008
The greatest thing I did for media in my house was take an old desktop tower and hook it straight into my router. There’s no monitor, it’s just a base XP box with LogMeIn.com, Orb, and uTorrent loaded up. I can access my movies/tv shows on any computer, be it on the same network around the house or on the road over Orb (optimized streaming, for use with a mobile phone or my Nokia Internet Tablet). It’s brilliant, works great, and is really easy to use.