What actually happens after the schools get them? A lot of computers are never put to good use in schools because teachers and staff don't know what to do with them, or because dysfunctional administrations can't set up or even keep track of anything. But I see no reason why old computers couldn't be used in schools for teaching the basics of actual programming (rather than for running lame multimedia educational CD-ROMs or whatever they do nowadays). It would work better in poorer schools that weren't full of jaded rich kids who had P900s at home.

The real problem would be the odds and ends of software that such schools would end up using. It would be hard to develop a lesson plan that way. It would also be a healthy challenge for teachers, who would have to stop teaching on auto-pilot, and maybe for their students, who might actually be the ones learning to set them up. Maybe some of the new charter schools would be up to the challenge.

I agree that it would be pointless to expend professional resources to set them up, as if it were a business. I am suggesting that they could be learned and used by students who would otherwise do nothing and have nothing (like now).

I plan to leave an old 386 with VGA to Goodwill. I will sneak up to the trailer, dump it, and run.

>When I hear that our Agency sometimes donates our old computers to schools, I cringe. This is about as useful as when someone asked me if I thought they could still use the old DOS CompuServe software [CIS] could be used for internet access so their stores would not have to buy at least 1 new computer wint Win9x on it.
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>>In the office where my wife works, a question arose about how to dispose of old computer monitors. They e-mailed a couple of people asking for opinions and received the following reply, which she shared with me:
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>>...There's just no good solution right now.
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