Legacy Gaming Console

Last couple of weeks, I obtained several legacy notebooks from grey market. This time I purchased one dock for one of them (ThinkPad X40). The PS/2 keyboard/mouse socket on the dock is invaluable for gamers. The optical drive bay on the dock is also helpful when I want to test GNU/Hurd on this system.

I have refurbished the X40 notebook and upgraded or repaired some parts, such as RAM, WLAN or bluetooth. The disk may fail at any time, because I usually hear the sharp whine when the disk heads scratch the disk platters. Yet since this system is used for non-critical task, I decide not to replace the disk until it becomes totally unusable. I also have one CF card to 1.8 inch IDE converter that can be used to replace the disk.

The system is more than enough for legacy arcade or family console emulators. Install a free/libre distribution such as Trisquel (now light weight thanks to the MATE desktop environment), get some free/libre emulators and enjoy.