A PC is just a collection of funny parts without the right software installed. Sure, you could use the hard drive as a gyro and the power supply puts out some decently regulated DC at 3.3V, 5V and 12V (as long as you have a load). I don't know anybody who owns a PC for those reasons, so the real question is, what do you need it for? The baseline application for most people these days is a combination typewriter and Internet access device. To use a PC as a typewriter requires a printer, even the free WordPad or NotePad programs that come with the Windows operating system are good enough to type a letter or two. However, if you want to produce documents, as opposed to sheets of paper with words on them, you'll need a word processor. The standard word processor used throughout the business world, even on Macs, is Microsoft Word. Sometime Word is purchased and installed as a standalone, more often it's sold as part of the Office productivity suite, which also includes Excel and PowerPoint. If your hand-me-down PC doesn't have Microsoft Office installed when you get it, I wouldn't run out and buy it unless you're using the PC in a business/ There are cheaper alternatives available, and there's even a free alternative, Open Office, though they haven't updated it in quite a while.

The number two use for PC's (I'm making this up as I go along:-) is probably financial software. Many homeowners use Quicken or Microsoft Money to track their household expenses, savings and checkbook, but even more compelling are the tax preparation programs that include the ability to e-file. Some states and the Fed actually have free versions of software you can download, but most people go with TaxCut or TurboTax. It's a great business for them to be in because you have to buy a new version every year! However, it's a lot cheaper than paid tax preparation and you don't have to share all your personal information with strangers. All of the major banks in the country now support online banking, usually free, which allows you to log into the bank's website, transfer funds, make payments and check balances - ideally before you make those payments. If you like trading stocks, I recommend BrownCo.com, owned by J.P. Morgan, which features $5 trades.

Even the oldest PC will allow you to do all of the above, as long as it has a functioning modem and you have a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) number that supports the modem speed. The standard modem speed for the last 7 years has been 56K, so you should encounter too many used PC's that don't have one. E-mail has long been called the "killer app" of the Internet, though that reputation has become tarnished with spam. You can always find an old version of Trumpet Winsock that will get you online with Windows versions older than Windows 98, the first to integrate dial-up networking. E-mail clients are a little trickier, since some ISP's now have usernames that aren't fully supported by the oldest versions of the free Eudora, but you can get a later version that works. Overall, if your hand-me-down PC has Windows 98 or later, you'll be able to run most common software applications and connect most peripherals for which the PC has the proper port. If it's Windows 95 or earlier, see the original Hand-Me-Down PC.

So, we've established that an old PC makes a great typewriter, is fine for Internet access (great, if you have a cable or DSL modem and the software installs:-), but what else can you do with it? You can play games on an old PC, but it doesn't make any sense to try to upgrade an old PC to be a real gaming box. By the time you're done, the only thing that will be left is the case and power supply, and you should probably replace the power supply with a bigger one before it fails. Old PCs are also fine for downloading and playing music from the Internet, as long as you have a fast connection, though you'll fill up the hard drive in a hurry.

The main issues you'll run into when installing new software on older PCs are capacity and speed. Most PCs that are still being used today can run the latest software is enough memory is installed, and memory is cheap, but the hard drive will probably be pretty near full, so you'll need to do a thorough cleaning or add a new drive. We'll talk more about practical upgrades in the upgrading section, The issue that's harder to deal with is speed. While some families of CPU's can be easily upgraded to much faster units, the socket technology usually changes about as often as speed doubles, so it really only makes sense if you have one of the slowest CPU's in the particular family. Motherboards only support on family of CPU's and one generation of memory technology, so while you can easily add memory capacity, you can do anything about the memory speed. Likewise, the hard drive speed is limited by the motherboard controller even if you replace it with the latest technology that's plug compatible.

In the final analysis, cases haven't change their basic form in seven or eight years and, unlike laptops, all the internal components are standard, inexpensive, and relatively easy to replace. That said, brand new PCs are so cheap that it will rarely be cost effective to upgrade more than one or two components unless you have a real specific goal in mind that you know you can achieve, and even then, you should consider building a whole new PC and handing your current PC down to somebody who can use it as-is.