Is this possible?

I was given an old computer by my neighbors a few years ago, and just recently found it in my closet. It is very old, a Compaq deskpro XL5133. The interesting thing is that it has an ethernet port for high speed connection and it also has Microsoft Office 2000, with Word. It has no memory to speak of and I think the hard drive is 2 gigs. I'm sure I can upgrade some of the memory, but I wouldn't use it for any intensive programs, mainly surfing. It has a Pentium I processor. I already have a Sony VAIO, but I would eventually, like to build/ customize a new computer in a year or 2 and figured this would be a good place to practice. Is it possible to save the current programs, like office 2000 and then upgrade the 2 gig hard drive for expanded storage, possibly a 40 gig hard drive. It doesn't have a cd rom, but I'm attempting to see if I can install a cd-rom I have for installing programs. I would like to make use of this thing since it was given to me, but is it worth it to try or just scrap it?

 

Personally i wouldnt bother tring to update it, the programs on it are easy to come by so wouldnt worry about losing them ethier.I dont even know if something that old could handle 40G drive - that would have been a massive hard drive back in early pentium days! : )
I'd scrap it mate

 

You surely do have a relic... I have you beat tho... I actually was given a 286 PC from a custodian of a grammar school who was going to throw out 10 of these, and they were brand new, never even removed from the boxes. hehe. On the serious note, it will prolly cost you more trouble than money to try and upgrade that box. I suggest you will have much more fun if you try and think of a new creative way to utilize obsolete technology. When you do, send a picture to this webpage... I just love the "Helmet"!

http://www.mousetrak.com/obsolete.htm

 

Thanks for the input. I guess this will be scrapped. I would've liked to recover the word program. I have word perfect which came with my VAIO, but I still need word for when I'm writing documents from work. Paying ofr word is just too expensive though, and then there the whloe conversion to different formats.

 

to darkmanX-find someone who has word and have them burn you a copy.

 

I wouldn't toss it, there are several uses for a pc like that.

Smoothwall - create your own firewall, only requires a 386 or greater and 2 network cards http://www.smoothwall.org/
Smoothwall is a very good firewall for home use if you just have an old pc sitting around not doing anything, much better than software firewalls such as ZoneAlarm or the Windows one.

Classic DOS game machine - I still have a Pentium 1 and a 486 with DOS installed that I use for old DOS games that just don't work right on XP. Many classics such as System Shock 1, Magic Carpet, Crusader No Remorse/No Regret, and Duke Nukem work best on a real DOS machine instead of an emulator like DosBox http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/ though it gets better with every release.

 

I don't have any space on the hard drive to store prograsm. That's why I wanted to install a larger hard drive. It was suggested to use ghost, which I have on my Sony, but The old compaq doesn't have a cd-rom, so I can't install ghost. How would you suggest I install another hard drive or increase storage for games?