An old PC


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I have an old computer sitting in the closet ... I threw it away when I first moved into the house, it was a fully furnished apartment so the PC came with it and when I Moved my PC in I threw it away in the closet

Its been three years now, the computer in the closet is really old, don't know the specifications but I remember it was running windows 95 :D , that's how old it was and now I'm planning on bringing it back to life .. Making a small network or something between my PC and the old one and use that old one as a backup for my files and even throw in some of my less importnat stuff like Movies and music there but the problem is I don't have a mouse for that computer, and as I told you its a very very old computer, and the mouse cable isn't the same as those green ones now, I can't find a mouse anywhere for that computer but I was wondering if there is a way to control the old computer from my PC if I installed somehing or if I made a network between the two

I'm a noob at this so hope I made everything as clear as possible ... Can anyone help me ??

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If it's just a matter of using it as an alternative storage device, you'd probably be better off just removing the hdd from the old pc and installing it in your new one. If it has a keyboard, you can do everything you need without a mouse, it just takes a whole lot longer. Otherwise it might just not be worth it. Plus, if it had Windows 95 on it, how big is the hard drive on it likely?

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If it's just a matter of using it as an alternative storage device, you'd probably be better off just removing the hdd from the old pc and installing it in your new one. If it has a keyboard, you can do everything you need without a mouse, it just takes a whole lot longer. Otherwise it might just not be worth it. Plus, if it had Windows 95 on it, how big is the hard drive on it likely?

Yeah ... I guess you are right ... there are plenty of easier solutions

I am getting a 1 T external hard disk by the end of the month and that is all the back up I need but it was just a matter of experimenting

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I was given an old P1 166mhz computer a few months ago. It had a 2 gig hard drive with W95 installed and it ran really good without any modifications, the lady that gave it to me took really good care of it. The 2 gig hard drive sounded as good as a new one.

Needless to say I couldn't resist making it "better" for use in my shop. I added several sticks of EDO RAM I had saved from a previous computer, and now it has 80mb total ram. I added a card that had two ps2 connectors and a usb connection that cost me about $15usd. I had on-hand a video card and sound card from a p2 or p3(I'm not sure), so they were installed. I even scrounged around and found a spare Ethernet card for connecting to a cable router. I installed Windows 2000 on the "old beast" and use the light weight "Off By One Browser" to access the net.

While this old computer will not be practical to play DVD's on, it will handle browsing, and music really well. BTW - a pair of speakers and a really good CRT monitor came with it too.

Edited by AKladis
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I was given an old P1 166mhz computer a few months ago. It had a 2 gig hard drive with W95 installed and it ran really good without any modifications, the lady that gave it to me took really good care of it. The 2 gig hard drive sounded as good as a new one.

Needless to say I couldn't resist making it "better" for use in my shop. I added several sticks of EDO RAM I had saved from a previous computer, and now it has 80mb total ram. I added a card that had two ps2 connectors and a usb connection that cost me about $15usd. I had on-hand a video card and sound card from a p2 or p3(I'm not sure), so they were installed. I even scrounged around and found a spare Ethernet card for connecting to a cable router. I installed Windows 2000 on the "old beast" and use the light weight "Off By One Browser" to access the net.

While this old computer will not be practical to play DVD's on, it will handle browsing, and music really well. BTW - a pair of speakers and a really good CRT monitor came with it too.

I feel really stupid throwing away my old VGA card now ...

Anyway I will start working on it tommorow ... I will start by clearing out some space for it in my room , I will probably stack it in the corner perpendicular to my new one ...

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I feel really stupid throwing away my old VGA card now ...

Anyway I will start working on it tommorow ... I will start by clearing out some space for it in my room , I will probably stack it in the corner perpendicular to my new one ...

find a PC recycling place you can get some really great deals (Like a pair of Voodoo Cards for $1)

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That computer can be used as a very good router or network hub. You can install some operative system (linux distro) that is specialized for that, and get an expensive router for free :p. With a looot of options. If you don't need it, find someone who does :) . Just fill it up with LAN cards :)

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Network hub, small localhost, small internet server ? install some sort of Linux on it and have fun :p

That's exactly what I'm planning on doing ... I;m downloading the latest Ubuntu .. right now , I'll then see if I can get it running on the old PC ... Basically I want to try out the switch to a Linux OS but still can't get the nerve to di ... Maybe thsi will help me

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That's exactly what I'm planning on doing ... I;m downloading the latest Ubuntu .. right now , I'll then see if I can get it running on the old PC ... Basically I want to try out the switch to a Linux OS but still can't get the nerve to di ... Maybe thsi will help me

Just a quick bit of advice. Think of Ubuntu as the "Vista" of the Linux world, meaning the higher CPU and RAM requirements. If you want something more XP-ish in weight, but still have the latest modern kernel and such, I would recommend Xubuntu over Ubuntu, as it uses a lighter-weight desktop environment.

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Just a quick bit of advice. Think of Ubuntu as the "Vista" of the Linux world, meaning the higher CPU and RAM requirements. If you want something more XP-ish in weight, but still have the latest modern kernel and such, I would recommend Xubuntu over Ubuntu, as it uses a lighter-weight desktop environment.

Thanks for the advice, cause I'm downloading Ubuntu and its taking forever to download, its over 700 MB and I still haven't gotten half way through the download yet ... I'll check Xubuntu

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