THEBINARYMAN
Group: Members
Posts: 21
Joined: May 2004 |
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Posted: July 19 2004,14:56 |
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You know, the one problem with old laptops is that once the hardrive is dead, it can be a pain in the ASCII to replace, not to mention a bit too costly for what it's worth.
But I figured out a neat way to give them a second life. And yes, DSL is part of the solution.
Consider the following...
Now that it's common knowledge that DSL can be slapped on a flash card, we can easily slap it in an IDE slot via an adapter.
But did you know that they made 44-pin adapters for laptops as well? So the potential is indeed there.
As an example, I submit this URL.
http://adis.ca/store/products/cfdisk.2d-b-500x375.jpg
And doing it this way has ALOT of advantages. For one, your battery will last slightly longer, due to reduced power consumption. Especially on boot-up.
Anybody who owns a laptop knows what I am talking about. On boot-up there is a huge power-drain to get the HDD going. And don't get me started on the CD-ROM...
But with a flash-card, lol that is unecessary. And the price is relatively cheap compared to getting a HDD.
The adapter itself is 20$ US. Add 50-70$ on the flashcard you want to use (I'd go with a 256mb for all intents and purposes) and you can probably get a 166 mhz laptop for 50$. End result? You'd get a poor man's embedded thin client for a guestimate of 150$-200$.
Now if you compare to all the fuss of getting a HDD that's compatible with said laptop (Compaq can be notoriously proprietary). You can be coughing up more money and get nine times out of ten USED hardware, which will ultimately fail on you.
Load DSL and you even got a thin client that gives you more than what you ever needed. Perfect for those who want a no no-sense portable unit.
So far, I had a hard time recycling Laptops because of HDD failures and expensive replacements. Now, we got something that can do it.
And the best part? Some of the older laptops had much sturdier casings...
TBM
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