I have an old PC and am wondering what to do with it.
It’s a 486 DX-2, 25 MHz, with a 247 MB hard drive, 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy drives, 33k modem, 1 empty bay, 235-watt fan. It has MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 on it. No monitor.
Can anyone suggest new uses for maybe $100 or so in upgrades, or shall I kiss it goodbye & give it to charity?
It depends on what you want to do with it. If I had an old 486, I would load Linux on it and use it as a firewall.
Spend no money on it. The only use is as a firewall for your internet conection.
How would I go about making this machine a firewall?
Give it to Goodwill.
They sell them here for $50 a system and raise money.
True story:
When I was developing software in the 80’s I bought one of each of IBM’s machines, to test compatiblity.
I even had the PC-Jr. My dad still uses it every day to play a game of chess.
The modern machines are too fast for him to feel like it’s a realistic opponent.
Yeah, I know you said it’s a piece of shit, but you’d be surprised how many people pay big bucks for computers…even old ones. For some reason people get in these bidding wars at the last minute, and the price skyrockets. I had a Pentium 100 with no hard drive and got $215 for it.
Yarster, after seeing your post, I popped over to ebay. Just for sh*ts and giggles, I searched for one of my old machines. The high bid right now for an Epson QX-16 is $2.25, buyer pays shipping. Maybe I’ll list my QX-10 to see if I can buy a subway token or something.
-Valdocs and Peachtree software included at no extra cost.
Your other option is cannibalism. Remove the power supply, the 3.5 in drive and the 33k modem; unscrew the fan from the CPU if you have one. Use the 3.5 in your next home-built system for a savings of $8. Keep the power supply, CPU fan, and modem in case of emergencies.
Give the rest a Viking Funeral.
I’ve never done it, but check the Firewall HOWTO. Plenty of other information on www.linux.org. I’m not sure why a home user would need or want a firewall though.
If you have multiple computers, there are some useful things you can do by networking them together. This of course requires a network card in each computer plus a hub, but those components are about $20 each. (Actually you need those to make a firewall too.) You can use an old computer as a printer server and/or file server. At home we have one old system in the hallway with an MO drive and laser printer connected to it. All other computers in the house are networked too, so we only need the one printer. Also, if you want to use two printers (say, a laser and a color inkjet), networking two PCs and hooking one printer to each PC can be easier than trying to connect both to a single computer.
The only catch is, if you want to do these things with Windows, you really need Win95, which needs 16MB memory. If you have less (but at least 8), you need to use Linux. If you already know unix or want/need to learn, then no problem. If you have less than 8MB, I think it would get tricky to set up. In that case I’d do as Sofa King suggests.
You could always sell it to some poor college kid. Better yet. Make a little scholarship for a poor yet aspiring high school graduate.
A word processing machine can come in very handy when its in your room. Leaving and working in crowded computer labs isn’t the most fun on earth.
Do you really want to pay for another computer to run while you’re on the net? There are lots of great free software firewalls you can run on the PC you’re using. Unless you’re running a bunch of computers on a LAN and would rather play with one firewall instead of 28 then, yes, it might make sense.
I say keep it, get 2 ethernet cards and have the extra one ready if someone wants to use the net while you’re downloading porn.
go to http://www.newdealinc.com and get some great software to make your computer like new again. This company was recently featured in wired magazine in a story on computer refurbishing.
You can do an upgrade with one of the Pentium chips that replaces the 486. I used one made by Evergreen to stretch out my 486/33 a few years ago. I bet you could get one on Ebay cheap. It ran Windows 95 OK. You didn’t say how much memory it’s got.
Drop w95 on it & the software from Juno.com. Then it can get completely free internet & free email. Give it to someone you know or a thrift shop & take the $250 tax write off.
Sofa King, I loved the Viking funeral - LOL!
Thanks, all, for your suggestions. Although I could do some of the things recommended here (it does have 16 MB RAM), I’m getting the feeling that it might be more trouble than it’s worth at this point.
Time to find a new home for this baby…
Yow!
Is there something wrong with those ABIT motherboards? I used that same model to build a computer last summer and it has crapped out. I have often wanted to send it to a fiery death…