My PowerBook G3 Wallstreet is fally-aparty (battery charge card is dead, onboard ethernet is shot), but I just keep it plugged in and I have a PC Card Ethernet thing for it. Anyways, it's just sitting here hooked up to a 16" screen, doing naught but running SETI. It has a DVD drive, but no decoder card, so the idea of it becoming a home entertainment thing isn't really much of an option. It was my Mp3 machine until I got my iPod. I'm running out of ideas!
Doc.
a laptop makes a great server, its fast enough and can hold enough ram, and it also has a built in ups, the battery, in case the power goes out!
What about home autimation? You can but a cheap x10 adaptor. This runs home autimation signals threw your powerlines to lights or whatever else is on the system.
Get an Auto adpater (or a cheap inverter), build a custom input device and install the thing in a car. If you'll willing to spent a bit more get a $60 NTSC LCD and use the S-Video for a cleaner look (if it isn't installed enabling it may be something you can do if you've got good soldering skills)
I got a PowerBook G3 266 for FREE yesterday. It was bought and installed in 2000 and has never run since. As a result, the battery is brand new; the hard drive is rattling somewhat though.
It will become my main mac, already I beefed up ram to 192mb. I'll install a new harddrive, maybe 20-40GB, definitely a faster one than the 4GB IBM that's in it now. It's running OS 9.2, maybe I'll try to install OS X, though I hear not all experiences with OS X on Wallstreets are good.
My idea is to use it as a harddiskrecording workstation, bringing it with me to the rehearsal room and record using a mixing desk. I'm thinking about doing a paintjob, though I haven't got any experience with spraypainting or painting plastic cases. I'm considering a bright orange with a red center color scheme. The case is somewhat dented here and there.
Oh, and when I got it it ran Mac OS 8.5, on which I tried to run Netscape 6.2.3, and then this alert came up:
:?
You could have a devolopers/preproduction version of the OS.
if you do... :o
... because then the about-box version number would look like this:
And there would be some weird name for the "Special" menu:
The goofy name for the Special menu is how they kept track of seeded versions. I would update to 8.5.1 at least, unless you have some sentimental attachment to the A8 version.
:^)
I upgraded to OS 9.2.2, and got OS 8.7 for fun on a second partition. But I'll swap it for a 333mhz bronze PowerBook running Panther before too soon.