You're going to donate this? Seriously?

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

Okay, slightly befuddled older lady, sure we can format the drive in your old tower so you can donate it to some needy person.

Hey, wait a minute, this is an AT machine... that happens to be a 486 DX2 with 8MB of memory.   Do you hate who you're donating it to THAT much?  I don't think whoever you give this too is going to be able to use it for much in the way of modern computing. If you want to donate a cheap machine, then get a netbook.

Comments

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

It teaches resourcefulness. like how to scavenge up more memory and use xubuntu rather than winblows.

--H

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

honestly? on that? even plain pentium is no longer supported, let alone a 486DX. Even my phone has more CPU than that, and it is just a crap Motorola.

And I hate to say this, but on a slow machine (P2 266 256MB), Win2000 ran faster than a customized flavor of Ubuntu.

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

I'd lay money that she just didn't want to pay the recycling fee to get rid of the POS. And, she'd probably write off the purchase price as a charitable donation.

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

pretty much. I'd always tell people I'd take their tech for free instead of them buying those $50 BOXES at Office Depot.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Oh come on. That system'll run Wolfenstein 3d just fine.

[historychick49.livejournal.com]

Win!

[melstav]

Dude. A 286 with 640K of RAM will run Wolf3D just fine.

[preserver3.livejournal.com]

I was thinking XCOM UFO defense.....

It would play it, very, very well in fact. Probably better than the DOS-Box version provided for 15 dollars on Steam....

Number one game for many, many good reasons....

[bamatone.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking TIE Figher!

[vulpisfoxfire.livejournal.com]

*peers at this, and the responses below* You kids do realize that there are *other* uses for a computer than a gaming, right?

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

honestly, your mom sounds like a perfect candidate for Ubuntu indoctrination ;)

[vulpisfoxfire.livejournal.com]

Wow--you're obviously a fairly recent-comer to the computer biz, aren't you? Happy Shiny Uber-Graphics Games Machines aren't the be-all and end-all to computers.

You do realize that said machine is perfectly fine for doing things like, oh, resumes and similar word-processing so that the needy recipient can work to find a decently paying job in order to be able to afford a more recent-vintage machine if they desire it. And if they can get a basic net connection of some sort (not sure how many dialups are still around, and if you can afford decent broadband you can probably afford to save for a cheap pre-built these days), it also serves as a useful point-of-contact for those potential employers without having to rely on libraries and similar being open. (Granted, I'd rather go with plain telephone in that case, but some companies like e-mail contact as well.). Of course, MS no longer supports Win9x at all, or the older versions of IE, but if they can get it onto the machine (or for that matter, the Linux idea isn't that unreasonable, presuming that the machine will go through another, tech-savvy party to get to the needy) they'll have access to a web browser, providing them to even more capability to job-hunt. Yes, it won't handle all these flash-bloated pages that are around these days, but that's actually not that important when the alternative is nothing at all.

I swear, kids these days. The system requirements needed for practical computing and communication were surpassed a decade ago--the primary thing driving hardware upgrades these days is gaming. Take a look at most of the components in your current machine, and ask yourself 'If it weren't for wanting to play Game X, would I have needed to upgrade this?'.

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

I've been doing this work 10 years or so.

Yeah, sure, you could slap a stripped down version of Linux on it, and it might run something resembling well enough to use. But there comes a time when stuff just needs to be scrapped. And for this machine, that was about 6 years ago at least. It's not like you can get serial port mice for it in a store anywhere.. or a parallel port inkjet, for that matter.

Personally, I wouldnt donate anything much older than a PII era system. Anything older than that would just be cruel and unusual punishment.

[wibbble]

This machine doesn't even meet the minimum requirements for Ubuntu. A 486 with 8MB of RAM really is beyond usable for anything other than novelty value, even with Linux.

Also, you're a bit of a dick.

[preserver3.livejournal.com]

To avoid flame bait, let's simplify this. There are COBOL compilers and IDEs that won't run on a 486dx with 8MB of RAM, there are many other compilers and even some bash environment scripts that would be hard pressed to provide good parsing of text files and systems with such limited resources. While I could do a resume in VI, check the web with lynx for many websites, and run a host of programs, and even grep through systems, the ease with which a non-tech savvy person could perform these activities would be moot. Web safe browsers, needed to look at many job sites won't run there. While I've seen a few webservers running on old 486 boxes, it is fairly difficult to run the monitoring daemons and the scripts needed to serve the apps on such simple machines. While it's true the bleeding edge is mostly for games, the financial, engineering and information output engines follow the leading edge of this material and put it to excellent use. To the decade figure, I look back at the machines I worked with in 1999, and consider the Pentium Pros, Pentium II's and III's and wonder what you're talking about here, given heat issues, memory faults and failure rates of those early machines. It was a hard row, to a happy now. I have a functional commodore 64 that can do more than merely game, but it definitely has its limitations.

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

No, this is a horrific idea. Just trying to get these machines to talk reliably to anything modern is totally pointless.

Said user would be better off at a public library with a $10 jump drive to save their work.

[sdx.livejournal.com]

Many ISP's are no longer supporting 90/me/2000, so would this archaic machine support Windows XP?

[jjjiii]

I think the battery charging circuitry on a netbook has more processing power than that thing.

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

In further news, it had a 385MB maxtor HDD in it. =)

[jecook]

Yeah. Two words:

Boat. Anchor.

[miertam.livejournal.com]

The best thing she could do is turn it into a reputable recycling center. Not only because the aforementioned slowness of the machine but the thing is probably a toxic nightmare. Let it get reborn as something new and cleaner.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

It's more than enough to be a simple internet terminal.

There's a group of locals I know who scrounge up both in-person assistance and second-hand goods for arriving refugees who often have literally nothing. The group helps them with government forms, learning things like English, literacy, driving, and the general way things are done in the local society, and forms a basic network of people that the refugees can call at any time.

They provide translators, educators, food, clothes, shelter, help with getting a rental place, furniture, occasionally a car, and yes, computers.

The computers aren't fancy. We're talking Pentiums, 486s, sometimes even 386s. CRTs, floppy disks, anything, as long as it runs. Slap on a skinny Windows build of the appropriate generation and use it to teach typing, touch-typing, word processing, and basic GUI navigation. Eventually, maybe get them a dialup account and introduce them to email and Google.

A later-generation 486 might not be of any use to someone who wants to dive right into the current IT scene. But for people who have had literally no exposure to computers at all, a free 486 is infinitely better than nothing at all.

[jecook]

THIS.

I've seen a couple 486DX2 machines run windows 98 better and faster then my current machine and a fresh install of XP.