If that's not within your budget, check h-node and ebay for alternative dongles.
X60 and X200 are hitting the government surplus sales on ebay and both can be Librebooted if you're handy. Bricking a $20 laptop in the course of learning a valuable life skill might not be such a bad use of your resources.
I would keep the T42 offline use if I were you. That thing is a classic!