what to do with 20 old computers?

[TheoPetro]

so this school near me had an auction where i grabbed 20 comps for $20 (just the comp no monitor or anything else) now these are pretty crappy ones im guessen (dont really know what they were) so what do i do with them?

im looken at network hubs now to get them all on the same lan but what can i do with these? i will prob keep a few out of the LAN to load up some linux distros on to tinker around with.

so what are your ideas?

PS: im gonna need to access them all from one monitor prob a room or two away. im guessing video quality wont matter so how do i go about doing this? can i access them all once there part of the LAN?

PPS: i dont know if these have eithernet cards in them. im assuming they do but incase they dont whats a decent cheep card i can get 20 of?

 

[Wahsapa]

recycle or fold

 

[TheoPetro]

i thought about folding but is that all i will be able to do with it? i mean this is gonna have a decent amount of power cant i use it for something fun allong with folding in the off time?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: TheoPetro
i thought about folding but is that all i will be able to do with it? i mean this is gonna have a decent amount of power cant i use it for something fun allong with folding in the off time?

doorstops?

EDIT: before you spend money on 20 NICs, maybe you should decide if you're going to have anything useful to use these for.

You might want to check in the Distributed Computing forum about how much your power bill could go up from running 20 computers.

 

[TheoPetro]

hehe i guess thats an option. im gonna take a few out for some sweetass modding too. ill post the pics when i finish em. thankgod winter break is 1 week away ill have time to work on them.

 

[alimoalem]

do u mind giving specs on these? how old are these?

 

[BlacKJesuS]

^^^ ditto

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I know of atleast 3 people that could use them. They just need e-mail machines, and would love them. I wish I could find deals like this.

 

[eno]

12g Benelli w/ 3.5in Magnum rounds?

Rootin Tootin good time, hey skooter where's my moonshine at? Yee-haw! *Hill Billie Dance*


Benelli

 

[Hacp]

I bet they are 386 computers .

 

[boran]

if they're 386 you can hold a DOOM lanparty with 20 ppls !

 

[TheoPetro]

honestly i dont have the specs. i dont even know what brand they are. the school was totally redone in 2000 and they got all new comps then so there from ~2000.

 

[Finns14]

Yeah 1.6 lan parties would be sick

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: TheoPetro
honestly i dont have the specs. i dont even know what brand they are. the school was totally redone in 2000 and they got all new comps then so there from ~2000.

So you are probably looking at the higher end Pentium II's if the scholl bought cheap back then, or you are looking at Pentium III's in the 500Mhz + range.

 

[TheoPetro]

im not expecting anything fast at all but i thought there had to be something i can do with them. if nothing else i just grabbed 20 HDDs for 20 bucks. if i cant find anything to do with em ya may see some in the FS/FT thread in a bit lol. (cheep of course)

 

[theMan]

hey, from 2000, thats not so bad. you could have a lanparty of old games. that would be fun. i would donate them to charity. there is a lot of people that need computers that just cant afford them.

 

[TheoPetro]

thats another thing i thought about. i dont know why the school didnt do that but i know a few that can use some. ill see if i can grab the 50 more and donate em.

 

[Gatecrusher]

hmmm, I'd hook em up on a lan than use them to render my stuff form 3Ds Max, and Lightwave.. cool thats what you can do man.
the combined CPU power might amount to something, there are programs out there that can use network machines combined cpu power for calculations. (Brice,3ds max.. so on)

 

[TheoPetro]

could i use these for like hardcore CAD modeling? or use it with something like matlab?

 

[Greenman]

Do all twenty have a copy of windows installed? And did you buy the OS with the computers? Thats worth $50 a pop.

 

[linkinpark342]

how bout a renderfarm?

 

[Rubycon]

Make a monitor arch (MonArch)

:laugh:

 

[thescreensavers]

Originally posted by: C6FT7
Make a monitor arch (MonArch)

:laugh:

Thats funny

 

[TheoPetro]

lol i didnt get the monitors with them. they were an extra dollar a pop. i dont know about the windows thing. im assuming the school had a bunch of licenses but they prob whiped the comps before getting rid of them. guess i had to learn linux sometime

 

[pkme2]

You could convert them to Linux and depending on the series, you might consider an extreme project like a Beowulf Cluster.