[SOLVED] Test Computer or Door Stop?

[Coastie]

If the computer club gives me an old XP computer to play with, I'll give them the doorstop. They can sell it on E-Bay if they want. Not worth the hassle to do it myself. 

[N4RPS]

Hello!

By all means, get a buck out of it on eBay. You'll get a lot farther along with an old XP machine.

If you can get one with a dual CPU, all the better. Just check the motherboard for bulging and/or open cans on its electrolytic capacitors...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[Coastie]

Hello!

Unless you're bored and have nothing better to do, the best thing to do is to either recycle it, or turn it into a doorstop. ...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

Not that bored. 

Tried to reinstall DOS and Windows 3.1 tonight which I have done before I thought that would install my CD drive and driver. DOS reinstalled without finding CD drive. Windows 3.1 won't reinstall because it thinks some program is running. I give up! I think I have wasted enough time on that old doorstop.

On the bright side the local Windows computer club said that because they are getting so many XP computers donated that they will give me one. 

[rokytnji]

Gee,  I'll sell mine as a antique before recycling or a doorstop.
I guess no one here is aware of antique computer part prices.


Look at ebay for starters on what antique hardware sells for, I guess.

[N4RPS]

Hello!

Unless you're bored and have nothing better to do, the best thing to do is to either recycle it, or turn it into a doorstop. With a lot of effort, you might could find an ISA LAN card (10BaseT) for it and go nuts trying to find Linux drivers for it, but even as a test box, I don't think it would be very useful anymore.

With enough LAN cards, you could turn it into a router, but with routers as inexpensive as they are nowadays, even THAT use just doesn't make much sense anymore...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[Coastie]

If I can get my CD player driver installed, I may be able to use the old computer for a Linux test box or install and play with OS/2 v.3. Reading old manual and books with no luck today. Tomorrow, I'll open it to see what kind of CD is in it. I should have a driver on a floppy for it. (I am a pack rat. Still have floppies for DOS and Win 3.1, and floppies and CDs for Window 98 and XP Home.)

When I tried to install OS/2 it said it had a DOS error when trying to install the Demo Disk. Appreciating Linux even more with all the drivers I have needed already on the DVD or CD.

[anon222]

That PC could be anywhere from 80386 to Pentium MMX. Not much you can do with with that. Most likely it has those old DRAM or EDO DRAM memory modules.
I wouldn't even bother with that unless I would want to play old DOS games.

[avj]

Just a thought on very old hardware, systems from around 1995 came with small power supplies and you could easily overload them by adding extra HDD or CD drives most of them in my experience were under 200W, I have seen some with as little as 75W. Its just something to keep in mind if you decide to go for more storage space.  A little more info such as brand and model of computer might help, info on bios type, as there may be a bios update that could be done to get cd to boot if it is an issue.

[avj]

I found a couple of resources that might help if you decide to go forward on making it a linux box.

Mini-Linux, boots from HD, FD, CD; runs in 4 MB RAMdisk, based on Slackware 7.1, complete shell, easy editor, many useful utilities, well suited to Internet use: can dial ISP, browse Web, send/receive email, download files.
http://mujweb.cz/basiclinux/

Open Directory listing of tiny Linux Distributions
http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/Linux/Distributions/Tiny/

[ChrisL]

Guess it depends on what you would like to do with it and if you are looking for a project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocomputing
I personally would be more tempted to try run it with the original OS so you could run some of the software of "the day".   But it's a personal thing I guess; getting it running on Linux would be a fun project as well.  My problem with these type of projects is that I would ultimately get it going, and the "what do I do with it now?".  On really old stuff it seems like the problem becomes connecting to the net.
Just my 2 cents, keep us posted though - interesting.

[rokytnji]

Tiny Core ?

http://www.tinycorelinux.net/
(not for the faint of heart)

Sheng-Chieh

What are the minimum requirements?  An absolute minimum of RAM is 46mb. TC won't boot with anything less, no matter how many terabytes of swap you have.
 Microcore runs with 28mb of ram.
 The minimum cpu is i486DX (486 with a math processor).

 A recommended configuration:
 Pentium 2 or better, 128mb of ram + some swap

That is for Tiny Core
MenuetOS
KolibriOS

ZipSlack

I forgot to mention. Your gear is so old. You need to look into the kernel 2.xx range also probably.
My IBM 390E ran good on a 2.xx kernel series using AntiX.
http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2009/07/fixing-old-gear.html

[shengchieh]

Tiny Core ?

http://www.tinycorelinux.net/
(not for the faint of heart)

Sheng-Chieh

[rokytnji]

This Sounds almost like my Blue Flops laptop. Not a doorstop. But it sits on shelf.

http://oi44.tinypic.com/1t3fk7.jpg

Not a test computer for me. I have lots of those. More of a antique that I hope makes me some money eventually.
It runs Windows 95 alright also. No CD drive. Just a floppy drive and older 1 slot pcmcia that takes a Wireless B
non WPA wireless capable netgear cardbus. The ball on the dash is the mouse wheel and the buttons on the side are r/l click.

Runs in cli mode OK and surfs with Links OK when I turn off wireless security on my router.

Some other old gear I blogged/posted about also. I sold that one believe or not with Linux on it.

http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2008/09/compaq-armada-1540dm-running-windows-95.html

http://www.techie7.com/threads/damn-small-linux-4-0-install-on-compaq-1540dm.57933/

If you decide to get your hands dirty and learn something the hard way like I did. Because I am self taught.
I suggest you bookmark

http://video.linux.com/categories/how-tos-and-tutorials

My advice. If wanting to install something. Like MenutOS or whatever. Pull the internal hard drive. Install it in a another laptop.
Then install. I have a couple of ide interface laptops that serve that kind of function.

If not available like I suggest.

https://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/things-to-do-with-an-old-computer/

I grew my wisdom teeth reading his blog on a daily basis.
Once you get it working.
Then I guess you can donate it.

[avj]

One of the biggest problems I can think of with an old computer that came with dos is the bios not being plug and play compatible. Plug and play came out around 94 or 95 to the best of my knowledge. A lot of the systems that came out around that time had to have software drivers for the cd drives to work, I don't know if that will be an issue with your machine but it could be depending on the age of the bios.

[Scott]

Hi Coastie,
I'm not sure what you'd do with it if you were able to get it to boot, on the other hand getting it to boot could be a fun challenge/project.
I suppose the PuppyLinux forum is a good place to start looking for a small distro
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php
The first two posts in Puppy Deriviatives section has lists of the different Puppy distro's
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php?f=35