First post, by r00tb33r
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I take old crap and bring it home. Sometimes I don't know what to do with it.
At work we throw away a lot of obsolete machines, but once in a while I'll grab something that I find remotely interesting. This time I grabbed a Latitude C640, just 'cause it reminded me of the models that came before it (I had a Pentium II CPi back when I was in high school, and my dad had a CPiA). This thing is made from the same plastic, just slightly updated styling, and has the same keyboard feel.
The specs for this C640 are as follows:
Mobile P4 2.0GHz
512MB DDR (1 slot populated, 1 free)
Mobility Radeon 7500 32MB (not shared, I believe)
1024x768 TFT LCD panel (typical of the time, some ghosting compared to modern LCD but not too bad)
Cirrus Logic Crystal 4205 sound
Fujitsu 30GB 2.5" IDE HDD
100-BaseTX Ethernet (I think?)
Wi-Fi (either 802.11b or g, haven't checked yet)
DVD-ROM drive in the bay, I have compatible combo burners in a box somewhere
1 Li-Ion battery in the left bay (seems to charge but I didn't test capacity)
Serial port, parallel port, USB port, VGA port, VIVO port (I have breakout adapters laying around)
There is only one minor defect with it, the hinges don't hold the lid upright. I suspect weak hinges are a common problem on these.
So my problem is... I like the machine but don't know what to do with it. I have piles upon piles of other computers. This thing is great at running XP, can run 32-bit Windows 7. In other words it does what my new machines do, except my new machines do it better. Which is the problem, because the newer machines I have already run all the software I need, one way or another, either natively supported, or patched, or emulated, or in a virtual machine, etc. Basically it's from that era where it's too modern to be different, but also not powerful enough to compel me to use it over something else.
What can I do with it?
1. I am well aware of the arguments against native DOS gaming on old laptops since hardware is rarely fully compatible (such as sound), and I completely agree. I own a DOS gaming rig with period sound and a CRT for that purpose.
2. Linux is kind of problematic, kind of a long shot to get it fully working in fact. Video acceleration can be made to work (I had it working on my N610c back in the day, like 11-ish years ago), though sound is quite problematic, supposedly might work with Intel 810 sound kernel module, but Google only returns threads with problems that were ultimately unresolved, not sure it's worth the time.
3. I can't really think of any Win9x games I don't have working through other means. It's been months since last time I touched any game actually...
4. My other machines emulate C64 and Amiga just the same, so what's the point... (plus I own the real ones too) Same story for classic Macintosh, etc.
5. Programming would feel limiting on it. I'm spoiled by modern IDEs, where I make good use of larger screen real estate, code completion which requires CPU, disk, and RAM...
I want to use it but I don't know what to do! 😢 Ideas?