10 replies to this topic

[martvefun]

Hello,

My previous laptop was kind of old. By old I mean :
from 1999, 256mb of RAM, 10gb disk space, one usb port (certainly great for that time), no touchpad but trackball (broken), 13" and twice heavier than my current 15",...

One problem is that it doesn't have wireless and ethernet port.
I need to plug a card (which I don't have any more and I don't know which one I need) to connect to the web.

I was thinking of turning it into a wab server I can access with ssh but I don't really see the use I could have...

Do you have better idea ?
What do you do usually with your old computer ?

thanks

[webishqiptar]

Maybe you can sell it, I bet you could not find a buyer . What's the point in turning it in a web server??

[martvefun]

who would like a computer like this ?
old, not really powerful, the trackball and the opening mechanism of the screen are broken,...
even if I find someone who want to buy it, it won't be for much...

turning into a web server is interesting for the technical aspect. I can store some files (not many) that I can access from everywhere and stuff like this

but it was just an idea

[Baniboy]

You got a gold mine! Build a mechanical machine that uses up that power under the hood just for fun. Like you said, there isn't much left to do with it anymore... You might be able to sell it to a collector tho.

[anwiii]

donate it. when i went to africa, they were VERY short on computers. i was told they would take anything thaty worked. didn't matter how old. they were short on everything and computers in some parts of africa are non existent, but needed. so donate it and know it will be put to good use.

[martvefun]

Great idea anwiii, I hadn't thought about it.
They'll certainly find better use than I could have

[k_nitin_r]

As Anwii suggests, you can donate it and it'll be used by folks in India or Africa.

I worked with a group of students in India in developing software for computers that were to be donated to centers in rural India. The fact that many computers didn't have wireless or ethernet ports didn't bother us as we would use the serial and parallel ports of the older computers and hook them up to a server that had plenty of serial and parallel ports through another box hooked up to it (something like USB hub but for serial/parallel ports). Sure, it's a slow transfer, but they wouldn't be playing networked Crysis on it :-D

[mahesh2k]

Donating is good idea. But only thing i would like to see is that the donated computers goes to right sources. Many times these people resale or dis-assemble the parts of that computers so in such case it gives me a doubt. So unless you have idea about the source where you are donating the hardware better hold. You can donate to organizations which are into free software, charity or teaching institute who use that. In such cases don't forget to check if they are genuine.

[Quatrux]

I agree that donating is a good way, I personally give away my old computers for somebody, if it's better, to a neighbor a friend, sometimes for a little fee

But be careful, avoid donating or giving your hard drive disks, or if you need to give them too, I suggest to not only format it, but overwrite all your files by connecting it to different format and filling it with quite big files, that all the old files would be overwritten and nobody could undelete your private data, also you can use tools which does this for you, usually it's called Drive Wiper or free space wiping.. By only formating, it's quite easy to restore your old files..

I personally suggest this method:

1) Format your partitions
2) Destroy your partitions, create a different number of partitions, if you were using 2, create 4 partitions (Depends on the hard drive space)
3) Format new partitions
4) Fill those partitions with movies that it would be 100% full
5) Format all partitions
6) Wipe free space on them
7) Destroy partitions

This is a killer method

To tell the truth, it's enough to just delete all the files and fill the hard drive disk with different files, like movies that it would be 100% full and later just format it.

[Iniyila]

if you haven't donated it already, i have found an interesting way to destroy an old laptop. i have build a second monitor for myself with it. i bought a tft lcd controller (it costs 30$) and now i have another 15inch monitor which isn't really a bad idea. the only thing to do is to detaching laptop lid and remove the connected socket to the motherboard of your laptop and connect it to lcd controller (mine looks like below one) and then you can use your own built monitor (it has some config buttons for backlight and etc).

actually the board itself may not look nice but i have designed a wooden box for it and placed it under the monitor so it looks like a real monitor now.

Edited by Iniyila, 22 December 2010 - 01:18 PM.