i am a lucky owner of a.....

[DJ-CHRIS1]

Actually, it's not useless. Maybe not a whole bunch you can do with it, but you can do word processing with an older version office suite like office 97. Just because you can't run the latest software on it doesn't make it worthless. Maybe you can give it to someone who don't have any money, but does a lot of typing, or is tolerant enough of the slowness for other things. Or a system for someone to learn the basics on before getting them an upgraded one. They screw up the P1, no loss, screw up the dual core system, you just lost $1000 or so (yes, new PC users do manage to easily screw up stuff for no obvious reason at all, so don't put it past them). I can put a old P1 on craisglist for free and all kinds of people will come out of nowhere with in the first 30 minutes asking for it for their kids first system, for a school, because they need a system, but can't afford anything, the list goes on.

But it may be no more than a brick to you...

Except that if you look, you can pickup p3 systems for free, even some low end p4's now.

 

[setishock]

You could run a tiny incarnation of Linux. Would be a great way to learn how Linux works.
My first lappy is a P1. Still runs great. I did bump it up to 128 megs though. Running win98.

 

[4fingerninja]

im going to add 128 mbs of ram, adding a 60gig 40gig and 50gig hdd, gonna run either 98 or 2k on it
its so old the power supply has its own power button to turn it on
it also has a turbo button for high speed
i got it from a friend

 

[Szat]

Windows ME was the most crash prone imo.

 

[CompMan]

set that biotch on turbo and rip it in some CRYSis!

 

[lhuser]

Turbo that's like an instant OC, but in fact, it's not working on newer PCs...and that's AT style computers...which is crap.

 

[4fingerninja]

the intensity level is to the max

EDIThttp://www.computerhope.com/jargon/t/turbo.htm

 

[iamchickenlover]

If nobody will take it you should shoot it or blow it up .

 

[MikeReiner]

The oldest machine I have is a P3 866mhz. I recently threw out all the older stuff. I keep it for older games mostly.
Thief, Thief2, System Shock2, Final Fantasy 7 and 8, etc..
It's got 512 mb of ram, so for browsing the web, doing homework, etc, it's perfectly useful.
It's dual boot with XP and 98se (for those picky programs that hate XP)

It still gets used often for playing multiplayer games of quake 2, quake 3, starcraft, Doom, CS 1.6...

But anything older than that, and I would just toss it.

 

[Jesusfrk611]

Except that if you look, you can pickup p3 systems for free, even some low end p4's now.

Most people don't know how to find those type of deals though... And most of those need some kind of fix to get up and running. The basic user doesn't know how to fix...they just need a PC for some reason or another. Yeah, it's slow, but those kind of people are just thankful to have a working PC, they don't care too much of it's slow. Even just for a starter PC for an older person, to be upgraded later. I got an older guy into computers starting with an old P1. And he did mess it up to an extent, but he learned how to do the basics. Believe it or not, he thought the P1 233MHz system was fast... Then I upgraded him to a P3 700MHz system, where he is right now, and he hasn't complained of anything going wrong recently.