Hardware Components
- Biostar M7VIG Motherboard: Built around the
Via KM266 chipset, this board has slots for both PC133 (cheap) and PC2100 DDR (expensive) memory,
allowing an upgrade path. And the price is right: $54.
- AMD Athlon XP 1700+ CPU: at $59,
a good tradeoff for value and speed.
- Memory: 512 MB PC133 Kingston Value RAM.
This was cheap ($56). The board has slots for both 168 pin PC133 memory and 184 pin DDR,
allowing a later upgrade path to faster memory (when it becomes cheaper!). We opted for plenty (512 MB) of memory
because the onboard video processor will grab 32 MB. Ordered as a single stick, so if one person upgrades to DDR, other
can opt buy them out of their PC133 and have room for it.
- Power Supply: Allied ATX 300 watt,
rated and approved for Athlon. Scrounged power supplies are, alas, not up to the job
(AMD and Intel upped the power amperage required on +5 v. output). $27
- Hard Disk: Maxtor 40GB 7200 RPM ATA 133.
This will fly, and 40GB is about the minimum I could recommend for the anticipated software mix. $79.
- Case: various, scrounged, ATX form factor.
- CD-ROM: various, scrounged.
- 3.5 inch floppy: various, scrounged.
- Monitor: various, scrounged (17" monitors are two for $50 at state surplus)
- Keyboard, Mouse: $2 each at State surplus.
Application Software
- "Office" applications (word processor, spreadsheet etc.)
Open Office Suite (Open Source version of StarOffice - no charge)
- Word-compatible Word Processor
- Excel-compatible Spreadsheet
- Powerpoint compatible multimedia
- Web Browser (Opera) (We now strongly recommend FireFox)
- Email Client (Eudora) (We now strongly recommend Thunderbird)
- Games (various)
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