[Coco] Retro computing and what's worth it...

[Tim Fadden]

Michael Robinson wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-12-17 at 14:35 -0600, Frank Pittel wrote:
>   
>> On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 08:30:25AM -0500, John W. Linville wrote:
>>     
>>> On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 10:44:48PM -0600, Sean wrote:
>>>       
>>>> There was an official Sony release that allowed a PS2 to run Linux.
>>>> However, according to this Wikipedia entry it might be hard to find.
>>>> Personally I never pursued it.  My PS2 was for games, and I had plenty
>>>> of PCs to run Linux on.  And since I liked the games, I didn't want to
>>>> risk breaking it!
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2
>>>>
>>>> Modding a PS2 to accept other OSs is a totally different animal.  I'd
>>>> just get the boy an old DOS box if you want him to learn how to use
>>>> command prompts.  Too much modding is required to get a game system to
>>>> do the same stuff as an old PC.
>>>>         
>>> A PS3 is a much easier option for running Linux.  You can install
>>> several different distributions from the standard install media,
>>> including Fedora, YellowDog and doubtless others.  I find it to be
>>> a little slow, but it is usable.
>>>       
>> Wouldn't it be easier and possibly cheaper in the long run to go out and
>> buy a sub five hundred dollar computer and put linux on it?
>>
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>>     
>
> This has been a frustrating journey that has gone from buy him a 
> COCO 3 to a Playstation II to...  the problem being that I don't
> want to spend much beyond $50 for a Christmas present.  I find 
> laptops on ebay that should be in range price wise, but people 
> bid them up.  If a Playstation III wasn't so expensive, I'd go 
> that route.  It's not the extra power of the PS3 that I'm 
> interested in, it is being able to install Linux and specifically 
> gcc.
>
>
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>
>
>   
Unfortunately $50 doesn't get to far now days!  A good up-to-date 
computer programing book will cost $50 or more. Let alone the hardware 
to use it on.  Back when I bought my first coco3 for around $200. I 
thought about it for several weeks and saved up longer to buy it!  That  
was a lot of money to me; compared to what I was making.  Now I drop 
$200 like it was nothing!

Oh well so much for the old days! 

Tim fadden