I don't know about power vs cost of the pc, its that the Pi uses 5W and and old PC quite a bit more.
I can't have my media/bittorrent/backup server up just a couple hours a day.

Security is vital these days, older PCs are less secure online. Have to admit this, considering the link below:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa...ment-1.3823986

Thats not quite true. Older Windows OS's are less secure but just because the hardware (pc) is older doesn't mean it has to be less secure. You can still run a modern linux distro on an older pc and be just as secure as a modern pc.

I walked from 7:30 am to 11 am almost. Found:
1. lots of clothes, pans and other kitchen items
2. Other Misc. Items found: few office supplies, poor abstract art and a mop
all the above were donated.
3. A heavy cardboard pizza box, checked it and there were 5 slices of pepperoni pizza
threw them in a lawn in a park. Usually a lot of birds here are begging for food, mostly
pigeons and sea gulls. Also some squirrels. The sea gulls came, take a look and left.
Hope the squirrels eat them later. I did my small bit.
4. The first find of the day almost was a Paper Shredder, was not sure what it is, the top
part was heavy, took a few minutes to figure it out, got home and tried it, will not work
first as I had the top part in hand. I placed the top part on the plastic base as it is supposed
to be kept and it worked flawlessly. Good find, glad I picked it up.
This is the Paper Shredder:
http://www.royalsovereign.com/royal-...-shredder.html
It runs but doesn't shred. Tried the below and it didn't help:
https://www.documentdynamix.com.au/h...oting-guide/#9
Good experience with a paper shredder, no wonder it was tossed in garbage, perhaps will keep
the bin and throw the top part for recycling. Also reflecting if it is worth opening the shredder to take a look inside before throwing, this is not a bad idea either.
Checked carefully, it appears that the motor is ok but something is wrong with the belt system as the rollers with the teeth on are not moving, no wonder it is not shredding. This was a start to figure out. There are no replacement belts for this paper shredder. Saw a review online, after a year that user faced the same issue. So best to trash this but use the plastic bin for light garbage.
5. Towards the end of my walk I saw a Sharp LCD monitor placed outside, it seems 17" or so, bit small so guess they discarded it. I decided to bring it home and give it a try, if not was going to open it for parts. It is working amazingly well, glad I picked it up. Been a nice day so far. :)) The LCD monitor seems to be touch sensitive, if I touch it, it is creating a finger print and also circles around it, will try to learn about this monitor later.

Edited to add Afternoon Finds:
6. Corsair TX750 PSU - tried to connect it to power directly and turn it on, doesn't work. Have to explore this. Seems almost new, wonder if it was a new purchase that turned out to be a lemon.
Need to try it more and see.
The PSU powers on a mobo fan and it runs, however the PSU fan itself doesn't spin, this seems to be the issue. Was told to try and see if the PSU can get a video output of the BIOS with the monitor connected, if this works then worth it to just replace the CPU fan and use this PSU.
Will reflect on this some before trying.
I tried connecting monitor to that PC and PSU, no video output, glad I tried this first before full install of the PSU. There is some dust webs inside this PSU now I see, also powerful capacitors inside it. Wonder if it is worth opening and taking some parts out of this PSU or best to just dump it in recycler, will reflect on this a bit again.
Not sure if the Mobo I tried this PSU on is working as it is a street find and original PSU on this doesn't even power on. So will keep this PSU for a bit more testing and see.
7. Wifi Modem/Router - Adapter was close by, so grabbed it, seems to power on ok.
8. Some small exercise equipment and a damaged bicycle pump found - these were donated.

The Corsair PSU has a slightly bigger fan than a normal PSU.
It also has a special screw head that goes inside and seems to need
something like an Allen Wrench, so kept this aside for now to
reflect on it.

The street abandoned Core2Duo PC was completely stripped. It has:
1. 120 Gb IDE HD that works
2. Floppy Drive
3. DVD writer
4. Number of screws
5. The case is very flimsy one of the panels is loose and it can't seem
to stay together. Need to get rid of this case ASAP. Glad I stripped
this PC.
6. The Motherboard - one of the wire pins on the 8 pin tiny socket broke and is
stuck in the plug. Hope this will not affect the Mobo Performance. I can try this
Mobo on the home built C2D as this has an inbuilt videocard.
Before full install, can try to just power on the mobo directly and see if the video
video output works, if it does then it is all good to setup.
then, I will have one working PC out of this process.
Will reserve this for the future.
7. Fans - Got a PSU fan and a case fan from this PC.
The PSU fan can be tried on the PSU of the P4 that needs
a good fan, if it works, then this gives me another working PC.
Can try to just twist the PSU fan wires first to see if it works.
If it does, then can just put duct tape on top of the wires.
I don't have soldering iron yet, if I get one then I can solder it well.

All these things are good more as a hobby. Can fix 10 PCs max. this way, so it is 7
more. After that, it looses purpose. Collecting monitors also looses purpose as they are
big, can't keep any more of them safely in my tiny apt. If others don't want them and
those who already have these continue to throw them, then I can't save every piece
of hardware. So have to know where to draw the line.

First thing in the morning I threw the loose and the Paper shredder top part. Perhaps the case was loose as the sides were not screwed in. However still I was glad to get rid of it. Even on trip to recycling bin, the sides kept coming off. I got all the wires off the case, including those for the USB socket on the MB, was able to remove the board the USB socket was on also. So did my best, to get as much out of the case also as possible.

Now I wish my Midas touch goes away, I rather get cookies or cakes outside, atleast I can eat these. Ha ha.
If I can find good use for these older PCs then they can keep on coming, hope I am lead to assist others with them, otherwise I will just have to accept that they are not needed and move on. Now there are talks of war:
http://englishrussia.com/2016/10/27/...ssia-9-photos/
War means economic strains and folks will cut back on spending, this means a chance to return to older PCs. Also, this may seem strange but several defense related stuff still use older PC stuff.

I also feel that I might have to get rid of my P2 PC or upgrade it atleast at this rate. It is the IBM Aptiva that lead me to start this thread. It served me very well for 7 years or so and still works well. I learned a lot about simple living, linux etc., when I had it. I might have to recycle the case and a few parts but I feel emotional attachment to this PC and breaks my heart to have to do this. I have to reflect on the fact that this PC is not my past, it is just metal case and the parts inside, so better to put them all to good use when possible and then recycle the rest. If needed, I can recycle the top of the case also for an extended feeling, will reflect more and see in this regard. Recycling it is in effect using it effectively.

Here is a very nice article about moving your computer off grid and the use for older hardware:
http://www.survivopedia.com/moving-y...uter-off-grid/

I just removed the mobo of my PCU early morning today by removing the screws and cutting away all the wires attached to it with a pair of scissors, took a while but am glad to have this Mobo as it has some nice capacitors. Must be more careful in future considering how the above site warns about high voltage capacitors in the PSU, I read the voltage on the big ones, it says 200V, certainly not something to be playing around with.

I finally got an afternoon free today (last week was hectic) so I decided to start a project I've had on my mind for some time. I have a very old PC upstairs that I use as a print server; my printer is an antique with a parallel connector so it won't connect to Bigboy, which doesn't have any legacy ports. There's neither ethernet nor telephone wiring upstairs so files for printing currently have to be transferred on a memory stick. Of course, without Internet access, the software running on it is equally archaic. But recently a wifi dongle came into my possession and I have confirmed that it works on that machine. So I decided to install an up-to-date AntiX where the old AntiX is (sda4), get rid of the other partitions and put a big "dump" partition in their place, and then set it up as an nfs server.

That way I could still use it for printing, but I could also dump compressed filesystems from Bigboy directly onto the remotely mounted dump partition. That would encourage me to do regular backups, which is something I've been rather careless about. And of course any files for printing could go temporarily onto the same partition.

So I put the current AntiX installation image onto a stick and I finally tried it out today. And guess what? That computer can't be made to boot from USB. It's not on the boot menu; network and PXE (and even diskette!) are there, but not USB. I went into the bios to see if I could fix the menu, but you can only change the device order. You can't add anything. So I am going to have to burn a CD to do my installation, and then wait for the next free afternoon.

It's fun improvising with old hardware but sometimes it's a pain!

@rvijay: I used to have an Aptiva. Does yours have a separate media box like mine did?

Nope, no media box on this one. HD was real small like 3Gigs or so.

You can use a bootable floppy to boot from USB if I recall, look on net for this.

Yes, you can use a GRUB floppy, if you have one. But I don't have GRUB on that machine; it boots with LILO. And, as I don't have a diskette drive on my main box, I can't create any floppies there. I feel that if I have to burn a GRUB CD, I might as well burn an AntiX one and be done with it. Or maybe I could do something with my SystemRescue CD. I'm just looking that up now.

I would recommend you try out PXE boot. I have a simplified How-To, for a normal diskless bootup system, but it's even easier if you just want to PXE boot a canned installer image.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-jessie-37169/

Once you have set up PXE, life becomes a lot easier with supporting older computers. USB boot is, as you have already discovered, hit and miss. It's even a non-starter with USB1.1 speeds. CD-ROM is flakey...I have tons and tons of bad CD-ROM drives which no longer mechanically work reliably enough to boot an install disc, and maybe 1 or 2 that do work (maybe? hard to say without trying). Swapping the hard drive works if you've got a working computer with a PATA interface...do you? And then there's older laptops with their 2.5" PATA drives, or even 1.8" PATA drives (good luck having the right connector for them!).

But PXE? Most motherboards with built in ethernet can boot PXE, and my experience is that it tends to still work even if the USB and/or PATA interface hardware is flaking out. PXE boot isn't a cure-all, but it sure is a nice convenient tool to have once you've got it set up.

If you don't want to mess around with your LAN's DHCP service etc, you can set up a laptop for it. The laptop connects to your main LAN via wifi, and you set up a different subnet for the ethernet connection. You simply connect an ethernet line between the laptop and the other computer you're working on. The laptop only acts as DHCP/tftp/nfs server on the ethernet line, leaving the rest of the LAN unaffected.

Wow, this stuff is heavy for me. Thanks for sharing this, never heard of PXE boot.

General Note:
I have shared a lot here, but it is scattered and I don't recall all of it. Compared to other folks into older PCs such as winworldpc.com and linux bbq etc., I am like a baby barely learning to suck my thumb. There is so much pouring in inregards to older PCs that it is almost becoming like work. It is more fun if I can keep it as a puzzle and hobby. However, with discovering so much older hardware on the street, it is hard not to. I wish to take a few days off from this thread and will be really glad when I can do that.

Few interesting older PC related ISOs. Just heard about these today:

Heard of this term today, Docker Container:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docker_(software)
An OS that helps run Docker Containers:
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=09620

New OS from abandoned Unix Project, OpenIndiana:
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=09621

A Nice Limited OS for older PCs 4MLinux:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=4mlinux

Antix
http://distrowatch.com/index.php?dis...h=all&year=all

Edited to add:
I decided to get all the above. First DL failed, will try again later. 4MLinux DL is very slow and said will take like 2 hours almost, perhaps many are getting it.
Tried again, the RancherOS site needed a security cert. for my browser to be accepted before the DL started.

It is better to try in advance and keep a few OS/software options for use with Older PC. Same with hardware also, be prepared with extra parts in advance for emergencies. It appears that the Blank CD media will be short in supply and hard to find in the future due to decreased demand. Stocking up on at least some of these is a good idea.

Being unprepared with an older PC, having a vital task to do with a deadline, having things go wrong, specially hardware failure etc., is like going alone into an abandoned mine and falling down a dark, damp, rocky mine shaft with no cell phone coverage. There is no need to corner oneself like this.

I might even try just pencil and paper writing to avoid older PCs if it gets very demanding. Have done this before and found it peaceful.

Today is local recycling day. Finding so many IT related items is getting to be demanding a bit, hate to throw them but they are also causing clutter. Have to manage this well. One thing about this is, if one gets enough stuff, blocks exits etc., and then a City Official notes it, then they can be fined for hoarding as this is also a fire hazard, if the issue is not rectified in a reasonable amount of time and/or repeated then the person can be sued, fined and even evicted. Not worth facing that due to old metal boxes that are not worth much. If it is getting close to it, then better to get rid of excess stuff in advance ASAP. Must not forget this as at this rate, every two months or so I am coming across an old PC on the street.