Making my old desktop functional

I've been without a desktop computer for just longer than a year now.

My laptop has kept me well enough; but there's just something about sitting down in a roller chair and sliding up to a keyboard and mouse in a space of my own that makes me feel like I'm actually getting something accomplished, even when I'm just watching random YouTube videos or browsing TVTropes.

I haven't had a real desk here at the house for about 6 years. My wife had a desk, but it comes back to that space of my own. I had a WalMart special computer stand,  a overstuffed chair, and a tray that I used for a mouse stand/drink holder. While the overstuffed chair was comfortable as all get out, it was not particularly conducive to anything I wanted to do beyond watching videos -- too laid back for gaming, too comfortable for coding, too fuzzy for hardware changes.

Last year, however, my office/spare bedroom was taken over by my mother-in-law, niece and nephew. The story of why is too long to go into here (and the details of it are frankly none of your business, faithful reader); but the gist was if MIL didn't have a place to live, the two kids were more than likely going to end up wards of the state. My wife and I were not willing to let that happen while we had a say in the matter, so instead, we let them use the office.

Over time, things have changed. I got rid of my desktop; selling it cheap to an uncle who needed a working box ASAP. The chair is still here, a little worse for wear; and the stand will be heading for the rubbish bin the next time furniture pickup comes around. And, at the beginning of the month, MIL found the means to move out. After cleaning the office (three people in a single room accumulates clutter, despite the best of intentions), I realized that my wife's old desktop... our old desktop actually.. was sitting here unused.

This old Gateway computer (back when you bought from them and they shipped in Holstein boxes) has been around the block a few times, and I've made some effort to keep it running over the last decade. Yes, I said decade. This was a middle of the road PC when we bought it back in the fall of 2002, shortly after my then-fiance moved in with me. After all my upgrades over the years; it's a Pentium 4 @ 1.8GHz; 2GB of RAM; CD RW drive, and an Radeon 9250 (PCI). It's not much, but it's enough for a web browsing machine, or just to keep the radar up during storms. The problem was it had 10 years worth of crap on there; XP updates, programs that never got fully uninstalled, that sort of thing. But the last thing I want to do is spend more money on this beast -- I'd rather save it for a brand new box. So I plugged in an old IDE hard drive (no SATA for you, it didn't come out until the year after I bought this) and made a fresh install of XP (quickly updating it).

It works, and runs pretty well (especially compared to how it did the last time I used it) considering the age. Hopefully, I'll get my new computer bought and built soon, so I can retire this one to file server status.