Technology is evolving at a rapid pace. With new products, or better versions of older products being released every year, older products are rendered useless. Every household has an assortment of ‘outdated’ technology. Technology left unused for years, covered with layers of dust.
But often the usefulness of these ‘outdated’ products is only limited by our creativity and willingness to experiment.
I recently noticed an old Sony stereo system, and an old Dell Pentium III desktop lying around the house. At first I though about disposing of these, but then I thought better. I ended up with a setup that allows me to remotely play music on the stereo system using any device with wi-fi and a browser, whether it be a desktop, laptop, Palm Pilot, HP iPAQ, or a cell phone.
How it basically works:
The Dell computer, which is connected to the stereo system, acts as a server on the LAN. Other devices on the LAN can either stream songs to the server, or remotely access the server and launch locally stored songs on it.
The following explains how I accomplished this setup. It assumes that you already know how to setup a wireless router.
The following hardware was used:
- Sony Stereo System
- Old Dell CPU (500 MHZ Pentium III, 128 MB Ram, 6 GB Hard Drive)
- A Y cable (male stereo 1/8-inch plug to two male RCA plugs)
- An Ethernet cable
- Speedtouch wireless router
- Monitor
- Keyboard
- Mouse
Note: The monitor and mouse is only required when the computer is being set up. Once the software has been installed and correctly configured, the computer only needs a keyboard attached to it to boot up. If a laptop is being used as the server instead, the extra hardware is not needed.
The following software was used:
-Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition
-VLC Media Player
-TightVNC server and viewer
Note: The same setup could be obtained using a different operating system, such as Linux or Mac OS, since the software required is available for these operating systems as well.
What I did, step by step
1) I hooked up the monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the Dell CPU
2) I powered it on, inserted the Windows XP CD, and booted off the CD
3) Following the onscreen steps, I formatted my 6 GB hard drive, and installed Windows XP on it
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