dmorin's Journal: New life for old geek toys

Like all good geeks I'm something of a packrat when it comes to my "obsolete" stuff. But I'm not as hardcore as some, I rarely find the time to hack the things in new and interesting ways (though I always seem to find the time to read the articles about other people that do). Recently I've found a new use for my old toys. I let my 2.5yr old daughter play with them.

• Our old Thinkpad 600 whose battery died now sits in the family room (plugged into the wall forever onward) with the almost sole purpose of playing flash-based games on sesameworkshop.com. I also stuck an email reader on there so my wife can check her mail if she wants, but we hardly ever use that.
• Bought one of those "key chain" cameras that are about 2inches square but never used it because the picture quality was so poor. So now my daughter carries it around and takes pictures of people. She never asks to see them developed, she just likes pushing the button and hearing it beep.
• Most recently I let her use my old MP3 player. Since I got a 20gig iPod this 128Meg one has just been sitting around. So I ripped a bunch of her Sesame Street CDs and stuck them all on there. Since it has its own speaker she doesnt need headphones. She now has her own personal jukebox.

Next I want to setup the old scanner that's sitting in the closet so she can send her drawings to her grandparents.