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Bungo Pony
August 13th, 2007, 07:28 PM
Anyone else bad like me and just have to give an old PC sitting by the trash a new home? I dragged a nice monstrosity home - an 8088 PC XT. It's got a 5 1/4" floppy drive (360K), a 20M hard drive in it and 640K RAM. I wasn't all that surprised that it worked when I powered it up. What always gets me is how people can throw out computers with their data still intact. I've been reading the previous owner's journal. Wow, what a mess their life is! Well, at least eleven years ago. I had the joy of experiencing her divorce as I read the entries.

So, I connected my laptop and uploaded the entries. I'd rather read them in a REAL text editor instead of Wordperfect. Always hated that one.

Now, I wonder if DSL will install on this thing? :D

So what have all of you come across sitting by the curb?

arsenic23
August 13th, 2007, 07:46 PM
Better computers then that by far. Though it could be said that I'm a pro when it comes to fishing PCs out of dumpsters and the like. It's kind of rude to read through other peoples files though, don't you think?

Anyway, most recently I was able to get myself a handfull of old slot loading Power PCs. Hell, the first 3 machines I ever owned were garbage-can discount, including:
Old Epson gwBasic workstation
Random 133
and my little Apple SE30, which I still use as a paper weight, because he's just so cute.

dannyboy79
August 13th, 2007, 07:46 PM
well I work on computers as a side job, Hardware issues, software issues, virus/spyware/malware etc etc cleaning. OS reinstall and whatnot and it's funny, I go over to people's house and they have old hardware sitting in the basement wondering how to get rid of it. I wipe the drive in front of them using DBAN (per their request) and then they give it to me. So I have keyboards, mice, speakers, I've got like (1) 13" monitor, (3) 15" inch monitors, and (1) 17 inch (all CRT's). I just got a 233mhz Dell XPS something or other. I got a Dell Dim 8200 with 256mb RAM and a MX 440 Nvidia card (that's my best free one so far! I am testing Gutsy on it to help with bugs) I have found plenty of Celeron 500 thru 700mhz with anywhere from 64mb ram to 256mb. I am going to be making a home made router which will run either Smoothwall, Shorewall, or IPCop. I just hate all the different RAM specs!! DAMN IT. Anyway, my spare bedroom as become my COmputer Business office and it's pretty much full of old hardware. I even got an ancient laptop, it's an IBM ThinkPAD 360CSE. It's got a 486 350mb hdd, 20mb RAM. I was planning on installing some text based linux on it and maybe use it for bash shell programing (i want to learn it) I also have a Hitachi Visionbook Plus 266mhz Pentium MMX with 128mb ram with a NeoGraphics 4mb vid card. Xubuntu works on it but just a tad on the slow side. I just tried Zenwalk on it and that was just as slow. Sorry, getting off topic.

That's about it for now although I imagine I'll run into more crap but I am getting to the point where I can open up a used computer store. I'll load linux on each one and try to get people to convert, I'll just give it to em if they promise to stick with it! ha ha ha

Nice thread by the way as you can see I had plenty to say in regards to this subject.

Dragonbite
August 13th, 2007, 08:29 PM
I was helping out a guy who was the IT department for a bunch of Small/Medium businesses. In one place we upgraded their PCs (to XP) and their server. When we asked what they wanted to do with the server they said "throw it out".

I took it home instead.

When I booted it up I found out it was 2x as powerful as my (then) CURRENT system! Woo Hoo!

It also made me feel like I am reeeallly behind the times when it comes to hardware ;) Oh well, Linux runs fast enough on it!

crthomas
August 13th, 2007, 09:21 PM
My buddy found a computer in a dumpster, and now it is my Monowall router.

Hildsvfar
August 13th, 2007, 09:25 PM
I've honestly found at least 10 old computer from the same house before lol, it's been awesome when they were pentium II's that were better than mine. Other than that I found a lot of pentiums and 486's. I still took them though lol.

igknighted
August 13th, 2007, 09:25 PM
I got an Athlon 2100+, 256mb ram, 40gb HD, DVD+/-RW computer off the curb one time. After snagging the DVD writer its now my little brothers computer.

regomodo
August 13th, 2007, 09:50 PM
Only places i've heard of getting discarded PC's where i live are at the back of PC World (in their bins) or in skips around my uni's campus. Friend got one (after being shouted at) and managed to get XP on it so it can't be too bad.

I wish PCs were laying about the streets where i lived.

Bungo Pony
August 13th, 2007, 10:00 PM
Here's something I could do with it.... Turn it into a Linux dumb terminal:

http://www.sorgonet.com/8086/8088_linux_dumb_terminal/

Dragonbite
August 14th, 2007, 02:19 PM
Here's something I could do with it.... Turn it into a Linux dumb terminal:

http://www.sorgonet.com/8086/8088_linux_dumb_terminal/
Yup, I'm hoping to set up Edubuntu thin client environment at home and use the old machines at clients so the kids can both get on at the same time but I only have 1 machine to maintain :)

-grubby
August 28th, 2007, 07:20 AM
I found a IBM Ps/2 model 30 with a monitor and printer.
although when I picked up the printer it fell apart:lolflag:

Warren Watts
August 28th, 2007, 07:37 AM
You might be a computer geek if....

You bring home every PC you find in the trash and try and install Linux on it...