Here's a thought.
If you've got classic computers you'd love to run but can't think of
anything
to DO with them, (and they speak unix) go to
http://setiathome.ssi.berkeley.edu
and make your computer's idle cycles part of the SETI search for
extraterrestrial life. They download you a chunk of data from the Arecebo
radio telescope and your computer spends its idle time running analysis on
that chunk, then sends the results back.
They keep track of what platforms people are using too. Wouldn't it be
cool if the machine that finally found a real ET signal turned out to be
a Vax 11/780 sitting in some collector's garage? They also have it as a
screensaver for mac and windows, too. For reference, a "work unit" - about
300k of data all told - will take about 20 hours to process on my PII/300
machine assuming I let it run continuously.
The down side is that the Seti@Home clients seem to have some pretty
stiff computer requirements. The Windows version (presumably Win32) requires
32mb memory and an 800x600 display, the Mac version requires a PowerPC, and
the Unix version only seems to be ported to Alpha, x86 and Sparc. In
comparison, the
Distributed.Net clients have been ported to more "vintage"
hardware/OS combos.
Pity... I philosophically would rather find ETs than enccryption keys.
<<<John>>>