Twisted Posted June 6, 2003 Posted June 6, 2003 I have a old Pentium 1 200MHZ computer system with a AT case and mainboard sitting in my basement and since I was bored I decided to throw in this 200MB junk hardrive I found laying around to see if it even worked. Sure enough I installed the hardrive and got it to boot up then I installed one of the many extra cd-roms I have laying around. Since it is only a 200mb hardrive windows 98 won't fit on a 200MB hardrive so I wrote the hardrive to 0 and then reformated it and installed windows 95. After I was finished I pulled the cd-rom out. Now it runs with a little over 100MB left with windows 95. What am I going to do with this you wonder? Oh nuthing really. I was just bored. Next time I am bored maybe I will take that old computer out of the case and make it into a night stand computer or something. LOL Here is a picture Quote
ThinkDigitally Posted June 6, 2003 Posted June 6, 2003 You could turn it into a router or firewall Quote
Twisted Posted June 6, 2003 Author Posted June 6, 2003 I could but I probably won't. I do plan on buying a router though with a built in firewall sometime but it isn't top on my list of things to buy since I already got a hub laying around. First thing I am getting cable internet and dumping dial up. I would get dsl but then I would have to run new phone lines in my house and that would be a waste of time since after I get high speed internet I am canceling the house phone and getting a cell. Quote
darkwoof Posted June 6, 2003 Posted June 6, 2003 Hmm.. I'd save it. Maybe you could find a bigger hard drive next time... It's fun to play one of those old games that only runs on Win98 every now and then... Many of them wouldn't run on my new "XP-only" machine... Quote
rayners Posted June 6, 2003 Posted June 6, 2003 Why bother with Windows? Install FreeBSD (or NetBSD or OpenBSD) or one of the many flavors of Linux (Debian being my favorite). I had an old 486 running Linux working as a dial-up router for my parents place years ago. And eventually, I plan on using the same machine to replace the Netgear cable router that I'm using in my apartment right now. Heck, there are a number of free firewall/router packages available on the internet these days (some of which don't even need a hard-drive to work). You can see what I found when I went looking a few months ago here. Quote
Twisted Posted June 6, 2003 Author Posted June 6, 2003 I did think about installing linux on it after I get a bigger hardrive since I have never played with linux before. I may do that next just to past the time. I have been looking for a cheap hardrive around 5GB or so to buy for it since the comptuer isn't that important to me to begin with. I can still buy ram for this old hog. It runs 72 Pin EDO. Right now it only has 64mb of ram (2 32mb sticks, 4 ram slots total). I thought about upgrading it to at least 128. Quote
rayners Posted June 6, 2003 Posted June 6, 2003 My 486 router box has only 8MB of RAM. If all you want to do is just route packets, that's enough. And there are some Linux distributions that run directly off CDs (like, Knoppix) or even floppies (the Linux Router Project). I've never tried any of those, but it'd be worth just playing around with it to start learning. Quote
Twisted Posted June 7, 2003 Author Posted June 7, 2003 yeah I'm still not sure what to do with it. Btw I am calling tommorrow to order cable internet. Then after I get that setup then I will call up my current isp and cancel dial up. Quote
rayners Posted June 7, 2003 Posted June 7, 2003 Well, I'd say just pick an operating system you've never tried. Install it. Play around with it for a while. If you like it, great. If not, pick out another one and start again. Quote
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