Using anything other than the most very basic console will be painful on a machine that old. Someone suggested using older software, but that won't be very fun, since the web will be practically useless on an old browser.

i have a Toshiba from that era that I have used as a dumb terminal on and off over the years. At one point I had gui-less version of linux, with a frame buffer version of vnc and used it to connect to my main machine. It was fast and served well as a bed side web browser for years. At another pointI had a LTSP server set up, and used an LTSP network boot floppy to use it as a dumb terminal. That was pretty cool too. Probably the most useful was using XDCMP and just having it login in to the remote X session on another linux box. A basic X setup with XDM and connection to a remote server. XDMCP worked quite nicely.

Any of those well proven technologies will make that little old machine useful again, provided you have working network and video drivers.

I've always suspected that the military has an active and advanced manned space program. I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I do have a soft spot for dreaming about all the cool stuff the military could create in 40 years with trillions of dollars and little oversight.

Why would we spend so much money in the 50's, 60's and 70's then essentially abandon space for short trips orbiting the planet, and relatively cheap robotic missions elsewhere. At the same time having military spend 100 times as much as NASA on totally secret "black" projects for national security. I personally think the shuttle has always been a distraction, something to keep the people pre-occupied while working on establishing a preemptive advantage in space.

Considering Hollywood has been predicting a Chinese dominance in space for decades, it seems reasonable that the Military foresaw that possibility much earlier and took steps to prevent it from happening.

Anyway, the bottom line though is that cooperation between the two, can only lead to the tax payers actually getting some value out of that tremendous investment we paid for but know nothing about.

Open Source is not about giving things away for free, its about giving people the opporuntity to see the code, and use the code how you want. Free "as in beer" is simply an by-product of the core freedom.

This guy clearly does not understand that concept. Developers are often paid for OS projects, while many many others are compensated in other ways.

Money certainly motivates a lot of people, but so does other things like boredom, fame, compassion, jeolousy, generosity, whatever... Different strokes for differnet folks. My point is that money is rarely a motivator even in the worse of times.

My gut tells me that OS development will thrive in this time as out-of-work developers have free time to work on pet projects or work on improvements that can be added to a resume. Struggling small business (and some large ones) will be more open to trying OS software. And through companies like ASUS even consumers are going to be motivated to try low cost OS based alternatives to "main stream" computers.