Whats the best way to use an obsolete laptop? Use it as a computer to run your bbs on?
Give it to a charity or a friend/co-worker who needs a pc? The battery is wearing off and
the replacement batteries are from dodgy vendors.

I am just thinking of getting one of those dell ones advertised where i can do some basic
gaming for ff 14 and at least consume some multimedia if im on a daytrip or something
like that.

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■ wcQWK 7.0

Re: Old laptops
By: MATTHEW MUNSON to All on Sun May 26 2019 09:12 am

Whats the best way to use an obsolete laptop? Use it as a computer to run your bbs on?
Give it to a charity or a friend/co-worker who needs a pc? The battery is wearing off and
the replacement batteries are from dodgy vendors.

I am just thinking of getting one of those dell ones advertised where i can

put linux on it and give it to a needy person.
you can get decent replacement batteries from amazon.
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Old laptops
By: MATTHEW MUNSON to All on Sun May 26 2019 09:12 am

Whats the best way to use an obsolete laptop? Use it as a computer to run your bbs on?

I thought about doing that: run a BBS off of it, but never really went with that option.

Give it to a charity or a friend/co-worker who needs a pc? The battery is wearing off and the replacement batteries are from dodgy vendors.

Me personally, I don't have that option. All of the unused laptops are either dead or missing monitors, no thanks to my wife not taking care of her laptops and letting the kids tear it up.

I am just thinking of getting one of those dell ones advertised where i can do some basic gaming for ff 14 and at least consume some multimedia if im on a daytrip or something like that.

I did something similar. One of the laptops with a missing monitor is a Lenovo with an ATi video card: turned it into a gaming console. It has an HDMI output which works great for hooking it into a TV (both video and sound come out of the TV, thankfully, not the network). Got a wireless keyboard and mouse, a wired XBox One controller, and got myself a PC gaming console.

Now I'm thinking about doing two things: work on a 3D-printed case to house the laptop components in and look like a PC gaming console, and get a regular (not a smart) TV, and have the laptop connected to it in my bedroom.

The 3D printed console casing will be a challenge because the keyboard casing isn't a separate piece, it's all part of the upper casing. What I could do is see if I can just get a new case and plug up the holes where the hinges are
and just move on.

-jag
Code it, Script it, Automate it!

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■ Synchronet ■ You've arrived! Disconnected Reality: discreal.synchronetbbs.org

Jagossel wrote to MATTHEW MUNSON <=-

I thought about doing that: run a BBS off of it, but never really went with that option.

My BBS is running on a laptop - built-in battery backup, decent power
management, and it fits in a corner nicely. I had to replace the CPU
fan because is started squeaking (8 bucks on eBay and about 15 minutes to replace the fan and
re-grease the CPU) but besides that I've had no problems running it
24/7 for the past 2 years.



... Where is the edge?
--- MultiMail/XT v0.52
■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Re: Old laptops
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Jagossel on Mon May 27 2019 11:00 am

Jagossel wrote to MATTHEW MUNSON <=-

I thought about doing that: run a BBS off of it, but never really went with that option.

My BBS is running on a laptop - built-in battery backup, decent power
management, and it fits in a corner nicely. I had to replace the CPU
fan because is started squeaking (8 bucks on eBay and about 15 minutes to replace the fan and
re-grease the CPU) but besides that I've had no problems running it
24/7 for the past 2 years.

Ditto. My MajorBBS system is running on a 2007 Black Macbook. At first, I didn't know what to do with the laptop. I was about to give it away, then decided to install MBBS on it. It went surprisingly smooth and now runs 24/7 with several users on it pretty consistently. Frequent backups of the BBS happen via Time Machine.

The Dawn of Demise BBS (tdod.org)

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■ Synchronet ■ The Dawn of Demise (tdod.org:5000)

Re: Re: Old laptops
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Jagossel on Mon May 27 2019 11:00 am

My BBS is running on a laptop - built-in battery backup, decent power
management, and it fits in a corner nicely. I had to replace the CPU
fan because is started squeaking (8 bucks on eBay and about 15 minutes to replace the fan and
re-grease the CPU) but besides that I've had no problems running it
24/7 for the past 2 years.

Hmmm... That would be nice to have a built-in battery back up. I didn't have that option in my case (no pun intended). In addition to them missing monitors, they didn't have batteries either.

Oh well, I went with a cloud/SaaS solution instead.

... Where is the edge?

Start menu... Look under "M" for Microsoft Edge. It's built-in with Windows 10 (sadly).

-jag
Code it, Script it, Automate it!

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■ Synchronet ■ You've arrived! Disconnected Reality: discreal.synchronetbbs.org

Re: Old laptops
By: MATTHEW MUNSON to All on Sun May 26 2019 09:12 am

Whats the best way to use an obsolete laptop? Use it as a computer to run your bbs on?

Just how obsolete are we talking about?

Most of the laptops that i have that are no longer under warranty, i simply purge it from windows and load linux on them and they are good for years from then..

I have laptops that are roughly 10 years old where the batteries just suck, and i just keep them plugged in like a desktop with linux loaded on it.. No gui and use it to code on it and ssh into other systems to check on them and stuff..

Jason

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■ Synchronet ■ Hard Drive Cafe - hdcbbs.com

On 5/30/2019 12:08 AM, JASON wrote to MATTHEW MUNSON:

Re: Old laptops
By: MATTHEW MUNSON to All on Sun May 26 2019 09:12 am

Whats the best way to use an obsolete laptop? Use it as a computer to run your bbs on?

Just how obsolete are we talking about?

i5-2430 from 2011

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■ wcQWK 7.0

Re: RE: Old laptops
By: MATTHEW MUNSON to JASON on Fri May 31 2019 12:07 pm

Whats the best way to use an obsolete laptop? Use it as a computer to

You could donate to me. ;-)


HusTler
*Havens BBS havens.synchro.net:23 (1:267/160)*

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■ Synchronet ■ Sent from Havens BBS havens.synchro.net:23 (1:267/160)

Re: RE: Old laptops
By: MATTHEW MUNSON to JASON on Fri May 31 2019 12:07 pm

Just how obsolete are we talking about?

i5-2430 from 2011

oh come on
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

oh come on

So just put a ssd in it and find a battery and just give it another 5
years of life?

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■ wcQWK 7.0

Re: RE: Old laptops
By: MATTHEW MUNSON to MRO on Sat Jun 01 2019 03:24 am

oh come on

So just put a ssd in it and find a battery and just give it another 5
years of life?

it's not obsolete. if you can replace a battery, go ahead and get one.
give it to someone that could use it in a good manner
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

On 01 Jun 2019, MATTHEW MUNSON said the following...

oh come on

So just put a ssd in it and find a battery and just give it another 5 years of life?

i5 from 2011? That's much better then the hacked up Celeron Toshiba Chromebook on Linux I'm running as my old laptop -- you can send that thing over here, it'll go from "Obsolete" to "Top-of-the-line" just like that! ;)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Bottomless Abyss BBS * bbs.bottomlessabyss.net (0:0/0)

i5 from 2011? That's much better then the hacked up Celeron Toshiba Chromebook
on Linux I'm running as my old laptop -- you can send that thing over here, it'll go from "Obsolete" to "Top-of-the-line" just like that! ;)

Right now its taking almost 3-4 hours to upgrade windows 10 builds on
it. I think its thirsty for a SSD.

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■ wcQWK 7.0

Re: Old laptops
By: MATTHEW MUNSON to HALCY0N on Sun Jun 02 2019 07:43 am

i5 from 2011? That's much better then the hacked up Celeron Toshiba Chromebook
on Linux I'm running as my old laptop -- you can send that thing over here, it'll go from "Obsolete" to "Top-of-the-line" just like that! ;)

Right now its taking almost 3-4 hours to upgrade windows 10 builds on
it. I think its thirsty for a SSD.

you have some hardware issue. that's not normal.
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Old laptops
By: MATTHEW MUNSON to All on Sun May 26 2019 09:12 am

Whats the best way to use an obsolete laptop? Use it as a computer to run your bbs on?
Give it to a charity or a friend/co-worker who needs a pc? The battery is wearing off and
the replacement batteries are from dodgy vendors.

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■ Synchronet ■ Eye of the Storm BBS - eotsbbs.net