What do you do when you see a pile of old computers on their way to the dumpster? Obsolete ( 3 to 5 years old ) pieces of junk that have been replaced by the latest and greatest multimedia, whiz-bang monsters fresh out of those so familiar black and white boxes.
Wellllll, if you're a computer junkie of sorts, like playing around with new operating systems and want to be the first on your block with a full-fledged UNIX box in your basement then I may have just the solution for you!
You need some time, a lot of patience, a couple of tools and access to the Internet. ( I guess if you're reading this then the last requirement has been met.)
The HARDWARE
After pawing through a pile of hulks in a storage room I was able to put together the following configuration:
A desktop case with a motherboard and a 200 watt power supply
Intel 486DX cpu running at 33 Mhz (with turbo)
16 Meg of memory made up of 16 1 meg simms
An I/O board with two serial ports on it
Two hard drives - 400 meg and 124 meg
A video board for VGA
Two floppy drives - a 3½" as drive A: and a 5¼" as drive B: (for warming up those late night snacks)
A 13" color monitor
A 101 key keyboard
A two-button Microsoft Serial mouse
It doesn't look like much, especially sitting next to it's replacement, but for the price?
If you don't have access to a computer graveyard then the next best thing is to look up a computer discounter in the phone book. These stores specialize in selling used computer parts. You can scour around and find some pretty decent equipment for a lot less than you'd pay for something new.
The SOFTWARE
Now this is the really fantastic part! There is a cult of true-blue UNIX programmers who beleive in freedom of intellect. They have devoted their whole lives to the proposition that the raw material of computing power ought to be FREE! And they've done a heck of a job in doing just that!