I booted Bart today...

Quick specs:
850 MHz Celeron Coppermine
Intel motherboard w/100MHz FSB
BIOS circa 2001
Purchase price: $1 in 2005

Booted him up, and LILO booted "Linux-Homer...."
It came up. Checked the version of ESP (Evolution software platform). Last modification date: December 13, 2001

Wow.

I looked a little bit at some of the code that I wrote over seven years ago.

/// from ir_laser.cpp

ISwitchDevice *frickin_laser_beam;  // ...frickin' laser beams? Is that too much to ask?
unsigned count;
test.check(ir_laser.obtain_interface (0,
  "Evolution.ISwitchDevice",
  (IResource**)&frickin_laser_beam, count) == RESULT_SUCCESS);

...

This robot STILL has a frickin' laser beam, after all of these years. I really need to connect it up.

For a quick speed comparison, Tom's Hardware shows the following "render times in seconds" for a Dragon_Character_rig (Rendering 1024x768 Single).

Intel Pentium 4 570 Prescott,3800/200,925X,DDR2-533

85

AMD Athlon B 1000 Thunderbird,1000/100,KT133A,SDR133

279

Intel Pentium III 800 EB Coppermine,800/133,815EP,SDR100

434

I think I'm going to hard wire the laser beam so that it turns on when the computer's powered up.