[olug] Old and BROKEN hardware...

[Daniel G. Linder]

Eric (any anyone else who is getting rid of hardware):

For what it is worth, there is a use even for that motherboard with the blown chips, the hard drive that only clicks when powered up, and that mouse that stopped moving long ago....  Ask the local school if their computer education classes could use a "junker" PC to let the kids see the "magic" inner workings of these machines.

Sure, they might be a Pentium 75 or an old 486-33, but my wife's class just *LOVES* the fact that there are pieces of a computer they can get their hands on and look at up close -- have you ever pulled the cap off of an EEPROM and looked at under a good microscope?  Another great thing is that you *should* be able to use it as a deduction from your taxes ("I am not a lawyer, please see a real one for further details." --Dan).

This year I plan on taking an old P-75 with a small 500MB HD and installing a bare-bones Linux install on it (and lock it down accordingly).  My wife can then take the pieces one by one, show the kids how they go together and then have a working system at the end of class -- of course with a smiling Penguin on the monitor!

If the equipment is still functional, you could also look at donating them to smaller private schools that are hard up for money.  My youngest sister went to a non-denominational Christian school and their "latest, greatest" computer of the time was about 4-5 years old and the average was probably a year or two older than that.  They might not be Linux converts, but with the draconian pricing schemes that Microsoft is imposing, Linux might be their only legal recourse!

Dan