Anyone ever combine parts of computers, pdas, mp3s, or other stuff to make something working and useful?

No.

i do that on a regular basis, if i was to upgrade entire systems when parts got out of date i would be in at least $5000 debt by now

Well, upgrading goes without saying. I thought he was going on about some other junk. I may be biased against him for the selling items thread though.

I can't because the old stuff wouldn't work well or wouldn't work at all in my new PC. Take for example my new ASUS A8V mother board. It holds 5 GIG's of SDRAM, I only have 3GIG's so far, but my old OS Win 98 2nd ED won't operate with that much SDRAM. I had to upgrade to Win XP Pro to get the OS to operate.


The video card I had, a 64 Meg, wasn't really powerful enough for some of the new games I have so that had to go also. I could have used it but know its time was limited for newer stuff requires better video cards to play them. The new video card requires more power to operate it so I had to dispose of my old power supply and upgrade it to a 500 watt.


The hard drive I had, a 60 GIG, had to be changed to a SATA hard drive in order to keep up with the speed of the new processor I bought. The new processor is a AMD 64 FX to keep up with anything that will be coming out in the future using the 64 bit applications or software.

I have a whole room full of computer stuff that I constantly fiddle around with. I also work as a computer tach, so I bring old computer parts home to play with. I've been making gadgets and electronic stuff since I was young. Now, I have a bunch of frankencomputer stuff all over th place that works. It all started with Lego blocks, then I used to take apart old answering machines and blenders to get the motors out and make things out of those. Them my parents were the first people in our town to get the internet and we got a 286 computer (which was top of the line at the time). I started learning everything at that point until today. I recently threw out my first computer whih was an "XT" with the old floppy disks and the baest game in the world: digdug (commonly known as "digger", an old arcade-like game).

vslayer, you're right. It's so expensive to upgrade with the latest technology. I've been tempted to build myself a brand new desktop but I keep thinking "I have to pay my tuition, I have to pay mu tuition". I could build it and go into debt, but I want to graduate with the least amount of debt as possible which means salvaging old stuff from work and school and buying a mid-range laptop every two years ("six more months, six more months").

thecollage, it's difficult to combine PDA, MP3 player and computer parts because they are generally not compatible. The information type, power connectors and data connectors are often different. I did take an MP3 player once and made it display my CPU temp on the LCD. It took too long to make it worth it though. I just wanted to see if it was possible.

Communist Hamster
I was just messing around with the stuff for sale thread. Wanted to see if anyone was gullible enough and since I was new wanted to fire some people up and have a laugh.

Closet Philosopher
As for the reference to "frankencomputer" that is exactly what I am talking about. Taking all the old crap and making it into something pretty cool and possibly useful. Do you have to program or code anything in order to make things compatible? If so, how do you go about that. Example; what if i want my pda to control my television via bluetooth.

I agree with the upgrades and feel that is the best route as well.

Thanks.

You usually don't have to code anything. Even if you did want to code, coding firmware is a big job. The best way to control your TV with a PDA would be to get a bluetooth PDA and a bluetooth adapter for your TV (both exist, you may have to use adapters). I have a frind who can control everything in his whole house with his PDA (lights, electronics, etc) but you have to buy the hardware for it which is expensive.