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PUBLISHER'S LETTER Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD Production Manager Greg Swain, B.Sc.(Hons.) Technical Staff John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.) Robert Flynn Rick Walters Reader Services Ann Jenkinson Advertising Manager Brendon Sheridan Phone (03) 9720 9198 Mobile 0416 009 217 Regular Contributors Brendan Akhurst Rodney Champness Garry Cratt, VK2YBX Julian Edgar, Dip.T.(Sec.), B.Ed Mike Sheriff, B.Sc, VK2YFK Ross Tester Philip Watson, MIREE, VK2ZPW Bob Young SILICON CHIP is published 12 times a year by Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd. A.C.N. 003 205 490. All material copyright ©. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Printing: Macquarie Print, Dubbo, NSW. Distribution: Network Distribution Company. Subscription rates: $59 per year in Australia. For overseas rates, see the subscription page in this issue. Editorial & advertising offices: Unit 8, 101 Darley St, Mona Vale, NSW 2103. Postal address: PO Box 139, Collaroy Beach, NSW 2097. Phone (02) 9979 5644. Fax (02) 9979 6503. ISSN 1030-2662 * Recommended and maximum price only. 2  Silicon Chip What to do with all those old computers Just recently, a colleague of ours was faced with an ulti­matum from his wife. The whole lower storey of his house was chock full of olden-day electronics and he was faced with having to get rid of most of it. Sadly, most of it went to the tip because there was no-one or no organisation that we knew of who had a use for it. Simply, it was worthless; ie, having zero worth. Of course, this cleanout was partly prompted by the edito­rial featured in the December 1996 issue, entitled “Going for the big clean-out”. This colleague had so much “good stuff” lying about that he did not know where to start. And even though a lot of stuff has gone to the tip, he is still sorting it out, trying to decide what to keep and what to toss. Even more sadly, a good deal of the stuff that went to the tip was old computers and some weren’t really all that old. Apart from old IBM PCs and clones, there were quite a few 386 and 286 machines as well. Most of these had no monitors but they all had keyboards, hard and floppy disc drives and so on. And a good few of them would have been working or it was possible to make them work with say, a repair to the switchmode power supply. Clearly, it was just not economic to fix and put them in working order, especially as there was no immediate use for them. Actually, I do have a confession to make. The sight of all these computers going to the tip was too much to bear and I gave in to the temptation. I grabbed a couple of 386 machines with the intention of using them for word-processing at home. My rationale (which my wife will probably see right through) is that many times I can’t use the “good” Pentium machines at home because they are being monopolised by my daughters. With a little work, I’ll be able to set these additional machines up so that, while we won’t have one machine per person, there will almost always be a machine available for word-processing, editing and similar lowly tasks. Apart from my valiant efforts to rescue some unloved ma­chines, this situation must be repeated many times throughout Aus­tralia. How many of us have an old 286, 386 or 486 machine that is still quite usable but we have no use for it as a computer? Clearly, there must be some use for these old machines or parts of these old machines. Perhaps the power supplies can be put to other uses or the cases can be used for other electronic equip­ ment, for example. Do any of our readers have any ideas on this topic? Perhaps you’ve come up with a new and unusual way of using a computer that was otherwise useless. If so, we would like to know about it. Why not send those ideas in and if there are any really worthwhile ones we might publish them in an article. In fact, let’s make it interesting: for the best idea for using an old computer, we will give a prize of $400. So send those ideas in and we’ll announce the winner (hopefully there will be a winner) in the coming December issue. Leo Simpson