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How to turn an old "junk" PC into a nice workstation
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spystyle:
ChatTower, you are in Mass? I am in Maine, we live a 3 hour drive apart and neither of us has ever static fried a PC - Maybe the bad weather we endure is good for something after all.


Vigo:

--- Quote from: spystyle on November 08, 2006, 05:11:56 pm ---ChatTower, you are in Mass? I am in Maine, we live a 3 hour drive apart and neither of us has ever static fried a PC - Maybe the bad weather we endure is good for something after all.

--- End quote ---

You may appreciate the lack of static, but I still feel bad for you.

I don't think I could live in an area with  :badmood: around me.
spystyle:
Well, in my opinion

New England : Humid as hell in the Summer, cold as hell in the Winter. But Spring is good, Fall days and Summer nights are nice.

We are close to the ocean but it's too cold to swim in (Atlantic ocean). We don't get earthquakes, tornados, or floods. And there is nothing of military importance here so we won't ever get nuked.

And we're close to Canada if we should ever have to flee the country

Plus the bonus of being able to vacuum our computers

It's not so bad I guess

DrewKaree:
I have no idea how it ends up happening, but a vacuum (not the machine, the suction) through plastic can build up a tremendous amount of static electricity.  Perhaps not as severely with a shop vac, but I know that dust collection systems for tools need a grounding wire run through the ducting so you don't blow your house up (or cause a fire or whatever else can go wrong with a static discharge within the closed confines of a dust collection system.  I work as a landscaper, and the newer blowers we picked up this past year also have a wire running through to the end of the plastic tubes.  Stihl 4Mix models.

:dunno

Thanks for the writeup too.  What options are there for a Linux Mame setup on something like this, or is that beyond the scope of such a machine?
spystyle:
Howdy Drew,

For MAME on a P1 I recommend DOS. Either Fraggal's boot CD or mine will get your P1 running Dig-Dug in 20 mins.

The scope of this thread was to create workstations from P1 computers. Honestly - how many parents today walked into Wal-Mart and put down $400 on a PC so their kid (or themselves) could browse the web, chat, and do word processing? DSL Linux makes that possible on a $10 computer.

I found it while looking for an installable version of Windows CE. You *can* install Windows CE on computers but it is super expensive for the liscence ($400-$1000) and extreamly difficult in the install process (like debugging and writing drivers) - what a drag.

Lucky for us, the Linux devs have nothing to gain from keeping us in "the perpetual upgrade cycle" so they make full featured operating systems that run on 486DX and up. I find that very respectable.

They also have interesting features like running the OS entirely in RAM (for mad speed) and multiple desktops (in Windows we get explorer shell only).

Interesting distros like GeexBox - a boot CD that supports TV out and loads in RAM so you play divx CDs on your TV without installing anything. and it's all free - surf on over to openoffice.org and get a full featured alternative to Microsoft Office for free, no 30 day trial, no CD-key. Totally free. It's cool.

I'm not implying you should completely ditch Windows (I still use 2K and TinyXP) I am saying take a look at Linux distros, there are so many you're bound to find one that suits your project.

Cheers,
Craig
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