It feels like only yesterday when no one had a computer. Yep I sound old but I am still in my 30’s and it really wasn’t that long ago there was no internet, people didn’t have mobile phones which surfed the web and have internet and people only had one computer in their house.

As the technology has developed and prices have come down over the years people buy new computers every few years even though sometimes their old computers are still working, but are just showing signs of problems or not running as fast.

But just because they are old, doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for them in your home, work, or on your network. There are many things you can do with an old computer and below I will list some fun things or useful ways to get some more use out of your old machines.

Create a Multimedia Machine

A multimedia machine is a computer you can have which standalone or connects to your network to host all your multimedia files such as movies, music, photos, and television series.

These types of machines use software like Plex which turns your computer into a central location where you can watch your watch and listen to your media files and if the computer is connected to your network distribute these files to other computers on the LAN or WAN.

You can also plug these machines directly into your television to watch movies on, or if you have a streaming device like a Roku, stream files to over the network and watch them where ever you have a connection.

Learn about Computers

Having an old computer which doesn’t matter what really happens to is the perfect opportunity to learn about some tech.

The way I first got into computers was in the 90’s when my parents left the house and I did something to the computer to stop it working. In my panic I had to quickly take it apart and put it back together to make it work and I was successful.

I immediately caught the bug and have been doing it every since. Sometimes having an old computer to experiment on presents the perfect opportunity to learn about both the physical and software components in computers.

The physical parts of the computer are called the hardware, and they include the motherboard, computer case, hard drive and power supply unit. The software components are the operating system and programs on your computer when you are using it.