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Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#61

Post by stmL »

z3t4 wrote: post #57
stmL wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any specific thing you did apart from having a fiber and being close ? I tried to set up my home PC as a server with tincVPN and X2go, i couldn't get a usable performance. Well, to be fair i tried using KiCAD remotely but even the XFCE desktop interface felt sluggish. I also had fiber on the three nodes (Vultr server, home server and my local machine).

Did you use WiFi? An old Wifi router can easily add half a second of latency. Even high end Wifi endpoint still adds a few ms of latency which can be significant considering that short distances (20 miles) of fiber has sub ms latency. A software router or switch can also add up to a ms of latency. Could also try SSH (tunnel) instead of VPN as SSH encryption might be faster.

I don't know what the Vultr instance uses but i had cable connection on both of my devices (home server and local machine).

I suspected ssh over tinc might bring latency since there is an extra layer of encryption, i will try ssh tunneling. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#62

Post by forgotmypw15 »

I'm working on web forum/community software which should be compatible with just about any Web-capable device, regardless of browser.

I've dedicated a lot of time to compatibility, and now it is usable and fully feature-accessible in IE4, IE5.5, IE8, Netscape 3, 4, Opera 3-12, Lynx, w3m, Chrome 1.0, old Safari versions, etc.

I'm still working on a few IE3 issues, will be fixed soon.

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#63

Post by severine »

opless wrote: post #56
rezgi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enterprise ThinkPads are amazing machines. They're very sturdy (although the X230 notoriously has a weak screw holder in the top left (or is it right?) corner that will almost always break and make that corner of the case a bit wobbly. Annoying but not critical. And the i7 top of the range version that comes with the 180GB Intel SSD... Well, the SSD is bad and can be thrown out. It has a bug in its firmware that was…

IPS upgrade? Tell me more!

https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=126294

https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2019/02/thinkpad-t430s-ips-scree...

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#64

Post by legooolas »

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #52
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you any info about how you regenerated the battery?

I sent it to guys that regenerate laptop batteries, but next time I will do it on my own because you basically replace the cells, weld them together and its done - here [1] you can find detailed guide for Libretto. [1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:frP4SG... (from cache as it doesn't seem to work right now)

Be extremely careful if soldering Lithium-Ion batteries together, as getting them too hot (which isn't very hot compared to soldering!) can easily cause them to burst into flames or explode...

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#65

Post by Insanity »

MrGilbert wrote: post #4

I used an old Kindle as an Information display in my home server (no typo) for my home server. I provided a write-up over at the Unraid forum [1]. tl;dr: It got rooted, and was reprogrammed to fetch an image from a local server running on Unraid. As I didn't know how to elegantly create an image from live data, I opted for a svg template. I placed placeholder texts in this svg, and then did a simple search & replace.…

That's really cool, might be an idea for my kindle in the future :D

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#66

Post by mjstone »

sleighboy wrote: post #50
mjstone wrote: post #35

I have my old Galaxy S1 sitting in my cellar listening to the beeps from my washing machine. It sends me an email when the wash finishes. (I can't hear the beeps from upstairs.)

What software do you use?

I hacked together an Android app specifically for the purpose, so it doesn't really answer the original question about generally available projects. (I haven't got round to releasing the code as it's rather bespoke, but could do if you're interested.)

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#67

Post by benboughton1 »

forgotmypw15 wrote: post #62

I'm working on web forum/community software which should be compatible with just about any Web-capable device, regardless of browser. I've dedicated a lot of time to compatibility, and now it is usable and fully feature-accessible in IE4, IE5.5, IE8, Netscape 3, 4, Opera 3-12, Lynx, w3m, Chrome 1.0, old Safari versions, etc. I'm still working on a few IE3 issues, will be fixed soon.

Who is this intended for? IE3, who would still be using this?

Don't get me wrong. Great achievement, just curious.

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#69

Post by rohan1024 »

shtack wrote: post #68

I have an old iPhone SE plugged in and running a simple web server via (disclosure: my app) http://pocketweb.io The two sample pages seen there are hosted from this phone. Edit: There's an Android version available as well.

Any alternative for Android?

Edit: How is this working? I'm behind double NAT and other http servers do not work.

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#70

Post by theodric »

MrGilbert wrote: post #11
pkorzeniewski wrote: post #10

I'm in the process of turning my Toshiba Libretto 110CT (a subnotebook from 1998) into a simple remote terminal (over ssh) with custom server software to handle emails, rss feeds, chats and so on. It runs under FreeDOS and connects to WiFi by a combination of PCMCIA ethernet adapter + mobile router with built-in battery. I love the form factor and the "oldschool" keyboard, I have regenerated the battery and it's quit…

That looks sweet - I did a small search on EBay, and - dang - they are expensive. The only two I could find where around 150€ each.

€150 is expensive? From what I remember of that thread a few weeks back, everybody on HN is pulling down $400k + 250k options.
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