I like computers… but I like them even more when they’re free! At MIT, there’s a pretty cool email list called Reuse that anyone can subscribe to. The idea is as follows: People, professors, labs, etc. who have stuff that they want to give away for free email this list, specifying a place to pick up the items. Then, people who want the items go to that place, take what they want, and send an email to the rest of the list saying what they’ve taken. It’s a pretty cool setup – you can get a lot of neat stuff for free. Luckily for me and some of my other friends (**cough Wei ** ), computer hardware tends to be a popular category of items given away via Reuse! However, a lot of people other than me also like free computers, so it’s imperative to go claim the items ASAP – otherwise somebody else will!

Today, I happened to be checking my email in the Stata center when, low and behold, a very recent email came in detailing a jackpot of computers and CRT monitors! I immediately bursted with speed over to the lab that was giving away the hardware, and I managed to claim a Pentium 4! Here’s a picture of the untamed beast sitting in my dorm room:

However, there is one downside to Reuse: there’s usually a reason why people are giving stuff away! The Dell computer I got was missing a power supply. Okay, I thought, that’s not too bad… I have spares, and so do some of my other friends back in my dorm. So, that evening, me and Wei popped in a new power supply that was, luckily enough, completely compatible (both were made by Dell). Sweeeet! So we tried booting up the monster…

… and it didn’t work. Nothing. Well, I shouldn’t say nothing – it did make some noises and go through a few motions, but my monitor was showing zilch. Bummer. According to the diagnostic lights on the back of the computer, there’s a memory issue. Hmm… maybe if I find some new memory sometime and pop that in? That could work… I’ll just have to wait around for more Reuse computers that have compatible memory!