The fans are useful in greenhouses etc for moving the air around if you attach a solar panel. Door stops?
-----Original Message----- From: Derek Smithies [mailto:de...@indranet.co.nz] Sent: Tuesday, 12 May 2009 3:36 pm To: linux-users@it.canterbury.ac.nz Subject: uses for old computers Hi, So what do you do with the old computers that one tends to acquire? They are "old" so the hardware is borderline for reliability, so there is not much point in putting lots of time in them to making them do big important jobs. An old computer as a fileserver - will work, but when it fails the blood pressure goes up (the kids want their videos to watch) and it is not good. The WAF is poor - they don't seem to appreciate when their videos are not available.... fileserver yes, maybe. Bit limited on ram, so is a bit slow. firewall - yes, the throughtput is low cause ADSL is quite slow. But I only need 1 firewall and I have "lots" of the old computers. On the old computers, the harddrive is often thefirst thing to go, so maybe a liveCD running some application is the way to go. Yes - but what? As a book end - well, it is a bit big for this.. Hmm, - two computers + some planks of wood and we have a respectable shelf.. Just a bit big. What about a really exotic use? Some custom software, custom hardware, use the computer power supply and we could have a really high speed battery charger.. ---Does anyone know of such a project ?--- Ahh. A teaching tool. Yes, - show kids how they work - pull it apart. Remove cover on the hard drive, and scratch the platter as it it attempts to start up. Makes a horrible sound, but the kids see that when the disk surface is scratched, the computer cannot even begin the boot process.. Install win98 on it, and run all the old games which are still available. Yes, but it is of questionable legality to install pirated win98 isos. Comment?? Derek. P.S. In fact, the most common use for old computers is to take up space in the garage. -- Derek Smithies Ph.D. IndraNet Technologies Ltd. ph +64 3 365 6485 Web: http://www.indranet-technologies.com/ "The only thing IE should be used for is to download Fire Fox" ********************************************************************** This electronic email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. The views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and may not necessarily reflect the views of the Christchurch City Council. If you are not the correct recipient of this email please advise the sender and delete. Christchurch City Council http://www.ccc.govt.nz **********************************************************************
