This post caught my attention because I am doing something very similar, trying to make old computers useful again. I received 3 older computers. (2004) Dell Dimension 4700, dual core, 1GB ram. (2002) Dell Dimension 4550, single core, 2GB ram. (2002) Gateway eSeries, single core, 512MB ram. Parts and prices I have been playing with: $99 Windows 10 OEM version (can't move it between computers once activated) $35 SSD 60GB $16 SATA 3 PCI card $15 1GB 6400 RAM Monitor / keyboard / Mouse donated I started with the newest computer. It already had a SATA 1 port built in. I picked up a SSD for $60 and have since found them for $35 (60GB). Installed Windows 10 OEM on the SSD. Performance was good enough to run a youtube video without jitter if you are not trying to do anything else in the background. Next I tried Linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on the SSD. Performance was nearly the same, perhaps slightly better. Next I got curious about the RAM speed. It had 1GB of PC2 3200. Kingston has memory that is twice as fast and compatible with this Dell for $15 each GB of ram, so I picked up 2 GB. Unfortunately trying out the faster ram also means putting the ram in 2 slots to make up a single bank, so it is not possible to know if the speed is making an improvement or having more ram (less swapping to disk). The ram made absolutely no difference in speed that I could see in my linux tests. I reinstalled Windows 10, this time on the old PATA drive that came with the system, and Windows ran pretty well. I think I'll stick with the SSD so the 10 year old drive doesn't die soon on who every I give this system to. The Dimension 4550 and eSeries I tried Ubuntu 14 on the SSD, with a SATA 3 card in these older systems, since they only had PATA built in to the mother board. Their CPUs were maxed out just looking at the performance monitor's graphic view of CPU utilization :/ I have not gotten any further with these yet, but plan to try earlier distros of ubuntu and others to see how linux was actually usable on computers 13 years ago. What are the basics needed? An office suite able to open MS Office docs (Office Libre can do that, perhaps not always perfectly, but it works in most cases) Can view youtube videos without stuttering Regular security patching Security patching. I simply refuse to hand someone a computer with Windows XP, or a Linux distro that is not committed to long term patching. My friend informs me that Windows 10 is 5 to 10% faster than Windows 7, so I am inclined to only consider Windows 10 and the more demanding Linux distros like Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04 LTS. Internet. Yeah, that is pretty important, and I don't have a solution to that yet. Tether to your phone for temporary internet access? Although I agree that even $10 can be too much to spend each month for some of our community's families, I already have 2 families lined up for these computers who do have it in their home. Conclusions A computer from 2004 can work well for an 8th grader needing to look up information on wikipedia, watch youtube videos on Khan Academy, write documents in Office Libre, and email or print to PDF. Price to refurbish with windows is $165 to $180. Perhaps there are educational licenses that can be used instead to bring that cost down, and SSDs are getting cheaper very quickly. Price to refurbish with Linux is about $65 to $80. Stay away from single core old computers. Final comments There may be animations that can be disabled and unnecessary services to stop, to squeeze the memory requirements down to not needing to purchase faster or new ram. To help avoid malware from infecting a computer, consider Linux or making the windows user account not be an administrator privileges account.

Having our kids hand write homework is asinine, unless that is the only way possible such as showing your work in math. Why should be be selling our kids short just to teach to the lowest common demoninator. Come on now, don't you want the best for your kids? Let teachers give our kids the best education, and we all need to fill the gap for the kids that don't have the minimum equipment and services.