what to do with a bunch of computers?

I would tell you to give one to me, but I'm not keen on giving out my address ;).
Anyway:

• Help calculate pi
• Make a kiosk for quick lookup (you won't believe how useful it would be)
• Get a child and rock them to sleep
• Make a print server
• Donate them to a good cause
• Use it as a prize of some sorts
• Make a Rube Goldberg type of machine

Although I am expecting a son next month (my wife keeps telling me it's a boy anyway!) and might make the rocker, schools would love to have more computers. The only problem with that I have found is that the schools near us want software too, and they won't let you put open-source on it. :evil:

What I have suggested to others in the past is day-care and after-school programs. They don't have the same requirements (regulations!) as the public schools, and can always seem to find uses for them. They also don't mind using open-source so an older computer can still be useful.

Myself, I have done the recycling thing in my house. The pecking order goes myself->my wife->oldest daughter->youngest daughter->web server->file server. By the time it cycles through this it is most likely broken or too old. The advantage is that my 10 year old daughter has a 15" P4 laptop which is great for doing her homework. You might know a family in your area that could use a computer for their kids and might not be able to afford one.

try out FreeNAS

Beawolf them and then donate processing time to a good cause

My other half has a small studio in which she works, but likes to watch movies or listen to music as she does so. I've got an old IBM sitting around doing nothing so I'm gonna through a DVD drive in it, install Puppy Linux and then she'll have an instant mini media-center for her entertainment needs.

I think small Linux distros like Puppy and TinyCore can really help breathe life into old computers. If all you want to do is surf the web and use Email, then they are great.

I like the idea of donating to schools or children in need, although there does seem to be restrictions or resistance to what they might use. It's a shame really, so many perfectly usable computers are thrown away every single day simply because they aren't capable of playing the latest games or don't have enough power to rule the world (stamped: SkyNet Rejected).

I'm sure there are kids all over the world that could make use of just about any computer!

I have a PC from 1999 with 516 MB of ram and 40GB HD.

You cant play TF2 on that!

You mom gave you 4 computers!? Your mom rocks! Best mom ever!

old topic i know, but make a web server and use the other as supporting file servers (freenas works nice for that)
and maybe you could host some beta portableapps.

My setup is 3 fold:
Webserver with FTP and stuff.
Freenas for my personal data/music/school work (on port 8080 or something, but password protected.
A desktop i use to test out pages before putting them online. Its runs apache an all, and has A few simple pages saying my site is down for maintainence of whatever. If my server is down for more than a few minutes, I move the port to the testing server, where users get something other than the standard no reply errors.

I've been considering hosting the mysql on that 2nd machine, just so its not on the box thats public.

Not sure if this is to your taste, but you could use one as a malware-analysis box. My Dad's getting ready to get rid of a couple of old PC's, and I'll be turning one into a malware-analysis box. No more testing on my laptop... (wouldn't it be something if a virus broke out of the sandbox; you guys wouldn't hear from me for 3 months or more)
Anyway, you can install Ubuntu on one of them, install VirtualBox into Ubuntu, and create a Windows guest to run malware on. Just make sure you don't have the malware box connected to the Internet!