Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Everything Else => Topic started by: ChadTower on September 28, 2005, 09:07:48 am
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...I'm picking one of these ancient laptops up in a couple of days. I believe it's a 486 SX 25. I'm sure it has some Vantage type use...
Ideas?
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Funny, I have one of these collecting dust in my closet. The LCD screen is WAY too crappy to be used as an arcade monitor, picture frame, or anything else that I can think of.
Do they even have PCMCIA slots (I'm not at home to check right now)?
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Doubtful... I wasn't really thinking anything elaborate, but were I to build a small table top type deal, I could make it so that I could simply swap it out with a better laptop when one comes my way.
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I have one I'm using as a door stop
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Do a gravity test off the side of a tall building.
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I had a 100mhz version of that laptop. I gave it to some little girl in my apartment complex a few months ago. You could use old version emulators on it, but the LCD screens on them were terrible for games other than RPGs.
You won't be happy with any games with lots of motion.
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Yeah, I may just give it to my son to mess around with... I wasn't thinking anything with much effort, but maybe something quick would work.
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dont bother with vantage i used it on a old 486 laptop and the screen is just useless
plus thats a passive screen isn't it?
a digital picture frame is best :)
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I have a real digital picture frame, though.
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I am torn between putting stripped down Linux on it and giving it to my kids, to expose them to Linux... or just slapping vantage and some very basic pac etc games on it and keeping it in a place we can all get to it easily.
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Not exactly *great* ideas, but:
You could dump a decent hard drive in it and run it as a NAS server. Check out the free diskette bootable NASLIte+ http://serverelements.com/ I use this app for a backup / mp3 jukebox storage.
Or if it has PCMCIA (two nic cards), make it a linux firewall / router.
I also used an old thinkpad as a Wardriving rig. Installed the Auditor Collection http://new.remote-exploit.org/index.php/Auditor_main with an Orinoco gold card.
Any of the Live Linux bootable CD distros is fun to play with on old hardware. Knoppix, KnoppixMAME, Helix, etc)
If you can stick a wireless nic in it, maybe configure it as a wireless access point?
Or as mentioned earlier - stress testing it with firecrackers, ability to leap tall buildings, stop a locomotive?
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Hrm... don't need NAS, if I wanted more space I'd just grab another HD and stick it on the network. I keep most things I want around on permanent media anyway.
I have a dedicated firewall/router already.
I figure, I'll stick something basic on it, we will use it for a week, then it will go on a shelf in the basement until I dump it someplace.
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You must save it for your antique computer/console museum
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use it for a prop in pro wrestling, you could mangle someone with it
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Eh, only big things with a loud sound make a good prop.
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kinda like your mom from behind, big and loud
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you're on fire today.
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Damn, that makes my mom almost as big as yours. Gotta talk to her about that.
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we should have them wrestle, we'll call it clash of the TITans
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My mom is like 115lb but she can whup some ass.
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got any pics? ;D
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Oh that's gonna happen.
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hey did you ever post that pic of yourself you were debating whether or not to post on aim the other day? i wanna see =p
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Oh, yeah, I didn't. It's on the PC at home. I'll have to get to it later.
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do it up!
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got any pics? ;D
M'kay, now that's just disturbing. ;)
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Bah, no projects for this. The woman giving it to me stood me up after I drove a half hour to her house.
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Freecycle?
I just signed up for a couple of local lists after reading your thread. Nothing I've been interested in has come up yet though.
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Yep... drove three towns over, she was to have put it on her porch. I get there no one is home and nothing on the porch.
Sadly, no shows and not putting stuff out are far too common on Freecycle.
If you want something specific, put out a request for it. I've gotten some really kickass stuff off of Freecycle.
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At this point, I'm not really looking for anything, just fishing to see what comes up.
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Other than IRC chat on #byoac, not much :) That's all mine does. Can't even bring up web pages because
1) win98 won't install, stuck with 95 and IE 3
2) while opera does install it is insanely slow