Nice suggestions Arun,
In fact we can use them especially with dot-matrix printers to print
pre-printed stationary. Fortunately dot-matrix printers are available
today.
With any preliminary RDBMS like dbase, we can put them on cash counter
with dot-matrix printers to give receipts. It is really fun to use
command line on them. You can really use them in various ways. In fact
exploiting their power is a great skill that students should learn.
I started my computer journey in 1989 with IBM pc XT, 4.77 MHz (Not GHz
!) and 64k ram. I enjoyed working on them (mouse was not there on most
of the machines).
486 is a feast for me !
On Tuesday 26 July 2016 12:58 AM, Arun Khan wrote:
On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 8:53 AM, Harsha Godavari <[email protected]> wrote:
I am looking for information regarding the use of older hardware from i486 and
up. Ofcourse I am only thinking of end users who consider a computer as just
another tool to get done whatever they are doing.
Considering that many distros are beginning to require 64-bit CPUs running at
Ghz speeds, needing Gigabytes of RAM and HD space, I was wondering if the old
hardware is really E-waste or can still be used for some Email/Web surfing ,
nothing fancy . I would appreciate any info / sources you can provide.
The problem with email and web surfing -- the content has become
*bloatware* People send MBs as attachments and links to video
material and they require fairly high speed 'net access and cpu/ram
on the client side. Today, this is the *expectation* of the average
Joe/Jane user. In my experience, most video content is still Flash
and it tends to consume CPU/RAM (htop is great as a monitor).
Virtualized desktop may be the nice middle ground. You use these
legacy hardware as "thin" clients to connect to a LTSP server and
maximize the usage of old hardware. On the flip side, they need
legacy power supplies running in the range of 250W per seat -
definitely not green.
My 2 cents.
-- Arun Khan
--
http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
