old computer

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Is there anywhere that I can buy a cheap old computer....

I want it to have atleast 512 MB of RAM

Either Windows 95 or 98.. but I'd rather have 95..

3 1/4" Floppy Drive

5 1/2" Floppy Drive

Atleast 15 GB of hard drive space.

Doesn't have to come with a moniter as my parents have old ones in the basements.
If it did have a monitor I would like it to be a CRT moniter. :]

NOT A GATEWAY!!

I want a computer I can upgrade and work on and Gateways are really difficult to do that too. No Gateway computers...

heck, you can pick up something like that at Goodwill, or any charitable institution...

That will be a tough combination to find. 512MB of RAM wasn't standard and sometimes not possible on most machines until after Windows XP came out. 5 1/4" floppy drives were fading away when Windows 95 came out - with the exception of custom machines they weren't sold with retail bought computers anymore. A 15GB hard drive wouldn't be generally available until Windows ME was out.

What you'll have to find is a machine that came with Windows ME, 2000, or XP and the hard drive size you want, and add/upgrade/replace the other things you want like the RAM, floppy disk, and OS. Something of that vintage would be easy to get Windows 98 drivers for, and shouldn't be too difficult tracking down drivers for Windows 95. One place to look is craigslist - you might even be able to get one for free. The hold-up could be the cost of upgrading the RAM, unless it comes with that much.

The Gateway machines of that era aren't bad to work with, but definitely stay away from eMachines from then (they are much better now though). The ATX standard made a lot of the proprietary, difficult to work with and get parts for machines go away, and they have be common since about 1996.

I would post in the wanted section of your local freecycle because someone probably has one sitting around they would give you for free just to get rid of it.

You have to usually buy it used. Most legacy computers have been put into the recycling plant. What purpose for do you want it anyways? If you want a cheap computer I would suggest just getting a pentium 4 running linux.

Windows 95 comes in 4 versions and has one service pack
95
95A
95B
95C

B & C came with FAT32 support whereas the previous were only capable of FAT16 - which means a hard drive no larger than 2GB or 4GB with clusters expanded to 64K. This operating system has a partition limit of 32GB and this only applies to B & C.
There is also the processor frequency limit of Windows 95 which is around 333MHz-350MHz as standard. You'd need a patch to fix this so the upper limit is raised to around ~700MHz
128MB RAM is enough for anything

Windows 98 comes in 2 versions and has a service pack for both.
98 and Second Edition. Some places call it "Standard" edition
This operating system comes with a limit of 64GB partitions. The later edition (SE) fixed many issues that the original had. I ran this version with around 320MB RAM and would suggest that 128MB-192MB to be enough. I am not sure on the processor limits, but it will not have support for multiple cores.

It is worth noting that Windows based on MS-DOS (Windows up to ME) do not support S-ATA hard drives as there are no drivers for them.

I bet you regret starting this thread dont you? hahahahha

I had a laptop with some of the specs- hard drive and Win 98 (I had upgraded from 95 on it) but it didnt have near that much memory. You are looking for a desktop though, arent you? I would put a thread in some computer forums where members have "vintage" machines. Also, try searching the Goodwill or Salvation army stores as someone suggested. Yard sales are good for that too, I know it is tough to go through some of that if you are an Aspie but it may pay off for you. Ebay could be a good place too. I bought a 2002 Mac ffom ebay for $100 a few years ago and it is one hot machine- I use it still!

This reminded me, some of the versions of Windows 95 don't support USB, and those that do won't necessarily work correctly or have the correct drivers available. Version B (typical known as OSR2) had a variation available that included USB support, and the versions after that (OSR 2.1 and 2.5) included it as well. The CDs for these versions are easy to identify as USB support is printed on the label. See here for an example.

SATA drives shouldn't be a problem if you use them, as long as the BIOS has the option to emulate them as IDE drives, which most do. However it's safer and easier to stick will IDE/ATA/PATA drives since they're still available new.