Adventures in the Gadget Cave

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Inspector-Gadget

New member
RE: Broken rear axle

I have lately been rummaging around in the dark corners of my cellar (AKA: the Gadget Cave) and there unearthed a "Hewlett Packard" PC; circa mid-1990s, 233 MHz. processor, 128 Meg of RAM.

Cleared totally disorganized workbench for the PC, connected said PC to an equally ancient "Gateway" monitor and fired-up that bad-boy combo. The PC hard-disk was empty, but I also found the original HP "Rescue" CD-ROM.

So...installed the original Win-95-HP operating system. Slapped in a NIC and plugged into my home network. A few Windows control panel adjustments, some carefully selected swear words and incantations later...

Gadget cave lights flicker
BuuuuzzzzZZZZZZ
Smoke
Electrical arcs leap between cast-iron globes
Lightening
Thunder

It's alive! IT'S A-L-I-V-E! Franken-Puter Lives! :shock:

Updated the browser from Version 3.x to 5.x, installed an early version of Zone-Alarm, and here I am folks - much to my dismay and your chagrin.

Amazing! Franken-Puter has been gathering cellar dust, rust and sawdust for years, yet he lives and breathes.

But, now that I have created a monster, I don't want to live with him.

What to do with this monster? Any ideas for old PCs?

(Next week: smoke signals and Morse code.)

Regards,

image-missing.png
 

I swear Gadget, you have some of the most entertaining posts! If ever there was market for online stand-up comedy, you'd be a hit.

What to do with the 'Puter? That's a toughy. It doesn't have any monetary value. Donate it to Goodwill, and if your lucky, they may "embellish" its value on your donation receipt. Then use that towards your taxes.

If it were me, I'd video tape myself running it over with my Jeep.
 
I plan to give this one to the kids to use for searching info on the web (with a boatload of family filter type software).

Got any kids that could use it to do homework, nieghbor?

I hear they make good wheel chocks too!
 

Re: RE: New Member At Jeepz :)

You could do experiments on it. :twisted: Muwaaaaa Haaaaaaaa Haaaaaaaaaa.

Such as loading Linux or even better, take off Zone Alarm and try to see how much spyware you can get on it in an hour of unprotected browsing or opening all the attachments in the emails from unknown people. Sounds like fun.
 
RE: Broken rear axle

Sometimes I wish I could go back to Win95 and my old 233 processor. Seems like I rarely had troubles with that set up.....until I married and had two evil step-demons fill it with viri and crash it every other day.

In fact, I've got two older puters in the attic. My first one with the 233 and Win95 that I installed the Win98 upgrade software, and one my wife brought home from work that has Win2000 (?) and a 133 processor! We kept it set up for a while just to play solitaire and a couple other games on, but ran out of room for it. Now the mice in the attic have probably used it to build a server and are sending spam across the world from my darkened attic. Or perhaps they're plotting an overthrow of the government, and I'll be implicated, jailed, and die a martyr for a cause I don't even know about!
 
RE: atf in transfer case?

If you end up donating it, they might not take the moniter. The Goodwills around here only take monitors that are like 1998 or newer (or something like that).
 

Donate it to a local tech school. There are a few in this area that like to have old computers, TV's, satellite receivers, etc., to use for training. Even if they don't work and aren't new, they can do a lot of training on them, and that greatly helps their budget for other necessary items and texts.
 
Don't know your setup or anything, but if you have no computer down there in the gadget-cave, might be equitable to have it down there, should you be working on a project or something, and suddenly feel the need to get the word of a hardware conspiracy or something of that nature out so we can all sleep safer. :lol:

Computers are like Jeeps, more are better than less.
 
TOP DOWN!!!

Thanks to all for the responses and suggestions.

I guess that I will try to find someone around here that wants the PC and monitor, and give it all to them.

The PC is, of course, worthless as regards selling it. There is no tax advantage available to me by donating the PC to a charitable organization.

Heck, if I lived closer to Twisted and family, I would deliver it free.

Just one of those things too good to throw out, yet monetarily worthless, but I need to reduce the techno-clutter around here.

Perhaps, I will set it up in the garage near the Bubbacon. Then I could sit in the driver’s seat of the Jeep and post Gadget-Grams live from the Jeep. How’s that for being Jeep-Obsessed?

{{Chuckle}} :)

We will see.

Again, thanks for your time and thoughts.

Regards,

Gadget
 

Perhaps, I will set it up in the garage near the Bubbacon. Then I could sit in the driver’s seat of the Jeep and post Gadget-Grams live from the Jeep. How’s that for being Jeep-Obsessed?
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When I read this to the Mrs......she said I had "that" look in my eyes and was reaching for the PC....after a stearn 'NO', I came back to reality that I will have to be content here at the desk reading the GADGET-GRAMS..... :cry:
 
RE: Re: Sure do miss you all!

until last year.. at my parents' house.. they still had my first packard bell 133 mhz... 2gig hard drive... 8x cd rom... 64 (upgraded from 32megs) ram... Win 95, not enough resources to upgrade to 98

just last year i have it to my little cousins because their parents would not buy them one. for some reason.. that thing was quite reliable for being gas powered, with a hand crank secondary

EDIT: when i bought it... it WAS the top of the line machine
 
RE: synthetic oil

Inspector-Gadget said:
Thanks to all for the responses and suggestions.

I guess that I will try to find someone around here that wants the PC and monitor, and give it all to them.

The PC is, of course, worthless as regards selling it. There is no tax advantage available to me by donating the PC to a charitable organization.

Heck, if I lived closer to Twisted and family, I would deliver it free.

Just one of those things too good to throw out, yet monetarily worthless, but I need to reduce the techno-clutter around here.

Perhaps, I will set it up in the garage near the Bubbacon. Then I could sit in the driver’s seat of the Jeep and post Gadget-Grams live from the Jeep. How’s that for being Jeep-Obsessed?

{{Chuckle}} :)

We will see.

Again, thanks for your time and thoughts.

Regards,

Gadget
Click to expand...

I have wireless internet set up at my house. There is no place my laptop and I will not roam. I havent tried from the Jeep though. As you know its freaking cold out here in CNY
 

Popular Science magazine has a department call How 2.0 in which they have a lot of cool do-it-your-selfers for geeks. A lot of these articles include uses for old computers. They had one where one could turn an a old computer and a set of LCD screens into a window which can show any beautiful scene you wish. This is done by mounting the screens into a window frame then onto the wall. They also had instructions on how to turn it into an old school arcade machine by mounting the keyboard underneath the controls on an old arcade machine then just getting the software from the internet. They recently ran an article on how to make an old computer control your home theatre system. Some pretty cool stuff, check the website or look around your friends' houses for some old issues of the magazine.
 
Judge09 wrote:

…haven't tried from the Jeep though. As you know its freaking cold out here in CNY.
Click to expand...

That it is, Judge!

And, it isn't going to get any better for a while.

image-missing.png


BBBBbbrrrrrrrrrr!

Regards,

Deep-Freeze, Gadget

PS: I found a use for Franken-Puter. While pawing through one of my many junkboxes (human males cannot live without junkboxes -- they are jewelry boxes for men.), I found a PC webcam. The webcam and Franken-Puter together form a video surveillance security system: the webcam sensing any movement within the surveilled area and capturing the cam images to the PC hard-disk.

Those that remember the "Gadget's Rattling Furnace and Migrating Wood-Screw" caper will understand that I am suspicious of what goes on in the Gadget Cave in the wee hours of the morning. So, I set-up the Franken-Puter webcam to monitor my furnace.

Sure enough, folks! I got him! Here he is: the surreptitious saboteur of furnace, the wily wood-screw bandit, the furtive fan-rattle raconteur, the demented devious arch-demon of ductwork.

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:mrgreen:
 
RE: cheap jeep

:lol: It only confirmed what we knew, Gadget.

Are you going to set a trap to catch that wascally mingez? Then maybe just release him into the wild. I hear that those mingez creatures are used to warm weather. I don't think it'll last long in that chilly weather.
 

RE: Ever see these pictures

Yes, but why did he bring along the front end of his small TJ? He seems to be using it almost as if to blend in, yet there are no other Jeep in the gadget-cave area...
 
RE: center caps

Before i gave away the 95 machine... I thought about customizing a new case for it. I saw an old "retro" nintendo computer one time. I liked the idea. I am thinking i'd eventually like to build a computer into a car at some point
 
:lol: ...and all along I thought it was fair weathered Sully...........my apoligies dear Sully...unless Sully is the MASTERMIND and Mingus is the accompless.........(thoughts to ponder) :?
 

I got all yall beat... Last year (my first year of college) I was using a 100mhz processor, 1 gig hard drive, 64 meg of ram (upgraded from the original 8 or so) 6x cd rom machine... what a beast.. :D

Nathan
 
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