Rosio Pavoris

So my dad had dinner with his cousin on Tuesday, and they talked about computers at one point. It turns out said cousin’s father (my great-uncle Joseph, the brother of my late grandmother) had similar issues, and so they brought over their machine, with the message that if I could just retrieve (some of) their data, I could have it.
Who says having to play tech support to your entire family is necessarily a bad thing?

Turns out the HD was fine, but the motherboard is fried, and as it turns out, the motherboard is the only remaining usable part left in my dad’s computer after I scavenged it for parts.
The machine’s exactly ten years old (333 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, 56 kbps modem, &c.) and running Windows 95, but with some extra RAM (and maybe an ethernet card) it should be a neat toy. And unlike my grandfather’s iMac, it’s an x86 processor, so I should be able to install Plan 9, which I’ve been meaning to play around with forever (I know there’s a PowerPC port, but it has some issues).
Now I just need to find a blank CD-ROM, because obviously it doesn’t have a DVD drive.

Not bad for half an hour of work, at least (fully twenty-five minutes of which were spent just trying to get the case open; Packard Bell is twattery).