What to do with a very old pc?

Mr_Grinch

I've just been given a P133 (MMX no less!) in one of the largest cases I've seen in a good long while! Can't get it home (or crack it open) at the moment so I can't see what else is inside. I could hazard a guess it's about 128mb ram, 8gb hd and no sound card (I can see the lack of sound from the back!). It's got two USB sockets though!!!

Suggestions thus far have been:

Make a box-car racer out of it
Chuck it.

Before I resign it to the bin, have you any suggestions what I could do with such an old machine? Could it be put to any use on my home network? Any distributions of linux work reasonably well on it?

Comedy and real suggestions both welcome!

Samphis

I'd suggest using it for old DOS games that won't run well on newer stuff.

TheSonicRetard

I'd normally suggest scrapping it for HTPC parts, but damn that's old. I'd probably use it as a retro-gaming PC like the above poster suggested.

whuppins

I don't know what you can do with it, but if it's really a P133, there's no way it has that much RAM. I'd guess 32 megs, maybe even lower. And the HDD estimate may be a bit high, too. I bet it's closer to 2 GB.

Mr_Grinch

Yeah, the temptation is for old dos games, but the lack of a sound card puts me off a little bit. Unless I can locate a really really old ISA sound card!

I do fancy a bit of Ecstatica and Wing Commander though!

Mr_Grinch

whuppins wrote: »

I don't know what you can do with it, but if it's really a P133, there's no way it has that much RAM. I'd guess 32 megs, maybe even lower. And the HDD estimate may be a bit high, too. I bet it's closer to 2 GB.

It's been a while since I've had my P133, my memory has obviously failed me as to what was standard back then

whuppins

WAIT I just thought of something: Overclock it to 4GHz and remove the heatsink.

Samphis

Heck, if you could get Windows 95, you'd have another box for Starcraft and Diablo. Network it with your current machine, and bam! Instant LAN parties all the time.

Mr_Grinch

I can't view that at work, but I have a feeling it'll melt...right?

How many years back are we looking for a P133, what era games can I think of?

kathos

Experiment with case modding or whatever (I know cases go for a as cheap as $15 but still, free is free) or even experiment with explosives , thermite and/or bleach bombs+empty parking lot+beer=extreme win.

whuppins

More like explode. It's awesome, watch it when you get home if you can stand the foreign accents.

Anyway, P133's were coming out in late '95/early '96. I remember getting a P200 with MMX and feeling like a total badass... until they came out with Pentium 2's, like, a month later.

suadeo

Either retro gaming or you could throw linux or a *BSD and mess around with it.

Crashmo

I vote either a baseball bat or some type of gun/explosives. Very satisfying, though somewhat brief.

Kelor

Samphis wrote: »

I'd suggest using it for old DOS games that won't run well on newer stuff.

This. I have an old 486 in my shed out back I've been meaning to do this with for ages.

A retro PC would be really nice to have again.

kathos

Another idea; leave it out in the backyard and let the neighborhood rodents sleep in it, or chuck in at a hated neighbor's front door.

Mr_Grinch

last time I wanted to destroy something it was a Venga Boys CD and we strapped it to a rocket and launched it in to the sky.

Then we destroyed the case by doing the same but tying two rockets together and sticking them FIRMLY in the ground so they wouldn't take off.

I recorded it all, but it's largely just I and a bunch of friends giggling to ourselves in the dark with the odd explosion.

Death to the PC is an option, but I may try to get some retro fun out of it. Once I get it open I'll see how big the motherboard etc is and see if I can squeeze it in a smaller custom case.

area

suadeo wrote: »

Either retro gaming or you could throw linux or a *BSD and mess around with it.

A couple of weeks back I tried to get an old P166 working as a stepping stone from my Dreamcast to my network so that I could play online again - it didn't work (driver issues) but I can recommend a HDD install of Damn Small Linux as something that ran surprisingly snappily and looked great.

Rook

My phone has more power than it . Just dispose of it to your friendly toxic recyclying place.

Lave II

XCOM/UFO ENEMY UNKNOWN DEDICATED MACHINE

LewieP

Buy a brand new, top end PC from PC world, take the receipt and the old PC back and see if the staff will process it as a return.

Khavall

I have a suggestion.

It starts with "X"

And ends with "-Com"



Here's another suggestion: It starts with "Master" and ends with "Of Orion", or "Of Magic"

Mr_Grinch

LewieP wrote: »

Buy a brand new, top end PC from PC world, take the receipt and the old PC back and see if the staff will process it as a return.

I'm going with this one up to now.

Being that I have X-Com running quite nicely on a virtual machine at home anyway

emnmnme

Isn't there some amount of lead in PCs? I think you have to recycle it ... for the good of the environment.

Mr_Grinch

If I have to recycle I'll be annoyed, I was either planning on using or simply taking it to the council dump. Although they do have a section there for PCs and electrical stuff so I take it they know what they're up to.

Salvation122

Fileserver and DOSBox machine. No question.

Lave II

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

LewieP wrote: »

Buy a brand new, top end PC from PC world, take the receipt and the old PC back and see if the staff will process it as a return.

I'm going with this one up to now.

Being that I have X-Com running quite nicely on a virtual machine at home anyway

Damn you, it runs quite funky on my iBooks, DosBox.

Still I would rather get the definitive Amiga A1200 version of it working if I can, as the music is much much better. But I'm too lazy to keep swapping the disks these days. And my Amiga's disk drive is pretty fucking surly.

emnmnme

I suggest you get into your time machine and travel back to 1993. Then sell your rig for $5,000 to a Pentium 90 user. Then travel to 2013 and use that $5,000 to buy a PS4.

Glal

Retro gaming rig, Linux router and/or file/web server.

emnmnme: that'll only get him the Core version, though.

ArcSyn

whuppins wrote: »

WAIT I just thought of something: Overclock it to 4GHz and remove the heatsink.

That video is so fake. Please tell me you don't believe that they actually o/c'd that proc to 4GHz and it exploded?

If it was running 4GHz they would need a peltier(sp?)/water cooling setup to keep it stable enough to boot and run cpu-z to prove it, and the CPU fan wasn't even spinning.

That, and a over-heated CPU wouldn't blow out of the socket, there was a firecracker under it (or something similar) and the hole was pre-drilled/cut.

Xaquin

take out the insides, mod the case, and put new stuff in it

that or make an indoor planter out of it.

ihopius

Possibilities: (some of which others have mentioned):

dos-box/old gaming box
fileserver / printserver
hardware firewall
( this and fileserver require more throughput than processor speed, so you may need to get some faster nics )
install linux / bsd and play around with it
get a bunch of old PCs and experiment with clustering and ad-hoc space heating
target practice
recycle it (this will probably cost you)
start your garbage dragon horde

Glal

I'm using a P166 as a Linux router / web server, does its job just fine. Unless you expect to have upload speeds higher than 3 megs a second, then you might need to invest into a 3Com ethernet card with an onboard processor to handle the load. ;-)