Retro computing isn't just about hardware, it is also about software. Some well known people in IT are still interested in older software. Here is one very nice article by FreeDos Founder:
https://opensource.com/article/17/5/...m-hall-freedos

Hair Dryers are very valuable, I didn't realize this until 2 days ago when I came
across an abandoned pile of stuff in a box along with cutlery etc., for anyone to take
from someone who had moved it appears. There was a big red hair dryer in this pile and I
took this home to test it and to give it to someone else if it worked. It works very well upon trying at home.

Then out of curiosity I felt like checking the net for all uses for hairy dryer and came across this interesting link:
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/...-you-away.html

Used in the cool mode, a hair dryer can be used to clean the insides of an old computer !! This is an amazing use for this hair dryer and eliminates the need to buy compressed air cans. Moreover, the hair dryer can be used for several other things and best of all I got mine for free.

The home page of the site above also has several other good suggestions in general:
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/

If you see a hair dryer grab it and keep, it is very useful for cleaning the dust and debris on old electronics including old computers.

If the heating element is still good, it can also be useful as a low-intensity heat gun. You may need a hotter source to melt type 5 plastic, but a dryer can then be used to keep plastic pliable and warm for slower and more accurate forming in a mold: to create replacement plastic parts and art projects. (This was maker high-tech before 3-d printing.)

Yes, the heating element is still good. Thanks for the above tip.

I just cleaned the insides of my old P4 server and my KB with this hair dryer, it did an awesome job and cleaned very well indeed. Cleaned some surface dust that is stuck hard with simple wipe using a kimwipe. I am quite impressed with the outcome, wish I had looked into hair dryers and their uses earlier. Now, will keep an eye out and grab one more extra. Will clean the insides of my older PC more often.

Only thing is if I get a fresh old PC from outdoors have to be careful when cleaning it
as there will be much dust that will swirl during the cleaning.

If I need to use compressed air after all this, I can still use it minimally when its
need is very vital. However, so far I don't see the need for this.

Edited to add:
I gently used a toothpick in few hard to reach places. Someone else shared that they use a paint brush and vacuum cleaner. I don't have the later. Paint brush is a good suggestion. Used toothbrush is also good to clean larger surfaces like KB etc.,

I need to clean the vents behind my monitor next with hair dryer.

Recently I got PC audio cable and tried connecting PC directly to Sharp Monitor Speaker. The sound was awful, feels like having watery toothpaste for dessert after a meal. So will not use this again. To explain a bit about my sound needs, I mostly listen only to spoken word like
podcasts, audiobooks etc., very rarely listen to music and even this is brief. Hence, I am ok with even extremely poor quality speakers. The monitor speakers are quite low in volume even when fully turned on both at PC controls as well as on the monitor buttons. Glad I tried this and good to see the outcome.

I find an old slightly used paint brush to work good for getting dust off things. Loosen it up and smack it around a bit before using it to dust.

You might look at a headphone preamp, modern audio outs are wimpy compared to the old ones. And modern headphones / speakers have higher Ohm ratings. A presonus hp4 is what I use atm, but I had a samson one that I gave away which was a lot more powerful. That samson preamp could drive old polkaudio speakers almost as loud as my 6' magnepans. Where the HP4 would have trouble competing with your cellphone volume on the same speakers. But having a physical mute button has it's perks.

You might also look at some EQ to compensate for old speakers. Like microphones, speakers loose their high end with age. Or maybe I'm adjusting to compensate for my age. But I do a slight slope from low to high with subtractive eq to bring out the high end. Although the 30 band calf eq plugin makes my hp stream 11 a bit limited for anything more than 360p youtube videos when using pulseaudio over jack with that calf plugin. Although having that as the audio driver for pulse over the network frees up a lot of resources on the main machine.

Thanks for this post. Wow all this is rather complex for me, also I don't have preamp, EQ etc., So will use my external PC speakers for now. If this fails, I will just buy external cheap PC speakers for around 20 bucks or so. The only issue with my present ext. PC speakers
is there is a loose contact so it doesn't stay turned on all the time and goes off
on its own randomly sometimes, so far I have been able to live with this.

The DVR that I got worked with the 16V IBM power adapter I got from outside few weeks ago, it needs 12V power adapter but glad I tried with the 16V. This is excellent, next time I can open and clean a DVR but must try to use it first with adapter and USB cable connected to PC before removing the HD in haste and throwing away some parts inside. Nice learning experience for me.

On a different note, it has rained a lot here, there is severe flooding and even the troops have been called out to assist. However, most of my close area is ok, I must try to go out
with umbrella and look in a limited manner for small items that are good like cables etc., and also any bigger items that are worth saving. Will reflect on this.

A loose contact is likely, headphone jacks tend to get damaged if you travel with things plugged in. Or kids and pets and such that like to tug on cords. A different set of headphones or re-soldering the jack can work with that. Or pull the cord a certain angle to force contact, then clamp it down to be cheap. It could also be a power thing relative to the aforementioned preamps and it only works when the audio out is > 80% of max volume? Less likely, but possible.

Someone just told me that printers that serve several people have hard drives and if I see a big printer abandoned, to look for its model # and learn a bit about it online. If it has a HD then bring it home and see, if I can remove it if it is still inside there:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/what-ab...-your-printer/

Glad to learn this today, there is always something new to learn, never ending and it is amazing.

Physical loose contact for sure, happens even at low volume. Yes, pets can easily cause this, you are correct. Good to know the reason.

I would NOT advise using a hair dryer to blow out the contents of a computer/mobo. If you DO, you should leave the computer coupled to the mains, but not powered on for several HOURS before you power it up. This is because, even without the heating element turned on, the hair dryer acts as an electron gun firing charged particles at the target. This can create a huge static charge on any insulating surface such as between the tracks of the motherboard and most plastic bits. Discharging those other than very slowly can cause localised heating AKA LIGHTNING and large if brief currents.

This is a good point -- hair-dryers do seem to cause static build-up.

Thanks for this info. However a bit late, I already used my hair dryer to clean the desktop yesterday and then turned it on immediately. There is an ionic and ceramic setting. I used the ceramic setting, so guess it worked out fine.