Send that same laptop into space and watch it attack humanity when it comes back in 200+ years. o.0

Ahhh yea, only 20 years ago!

I started on Amiga computers and then switched to windows 95.... of course all the games on windows 95 ran perfectly on windows 98,,, Microsoft had not really started using compatibility as a market manipulation tool until after windows 98.

This migth require some investment but you coud use your old laptop to control other electric devices in your house to save energy to make one example.Turn off ligth when the room is not in use, turn off heat in unused rooms etc. Im not sure how much that woud cost though.

Where is Ben Heck when you need him...

Install Linux (Mint?) on it. Use it to experience other Apps that aren't available on your current OS.

Like what i'm doing now, i also installed Xming & Putty, then i log into the laptop and can run X11 programs on my windows machine!

What fun!

What's the operating system?

I currently have Windows 98SE installed on two retro-gaming PCs, one old desktop and the IBM Thinkpad T41 I mentioned earlier. (I also have Windows XP installed on them, and on the desktop, 32bit Linux Mint XFCE).

At its time, Windows 9x really was the best of both worlds, both letting you still play your older MS-DOS games perfectly (sometimes even better than on a pure MS-DOS 6.0 PC because you'd easily have more conventional memory free on a MS-DOS window within Windows 9x; and for 100% compatibility you could even exit from Windows to complete MS-DOS mode, and you could easily define different config,sys/autoexec.bat variants even for single games)...

... and at the same time also bringing much needed new PC gaming standards to the table, like DirectDraw, Direct3D (= bye bye 3Dfx Voodoo market dominance, welcome ATI and NVidia graphics cards!), DirectSound (= bye bye Soundblaster market dominance and having to configure sound options in each and every game), DirectInput (much better, more precise and universal joystick and gamepad support; bye bye having to calibrate your joysticks within each game) etc.

I think Windows 98SE was the most definite Windows 9x variant. It was the pinnacle of MS-DOS compatible Windows versions, in a similar way I feel PS2 was the most perfect gaming console ever (full Playstation backwards compatibility, would work also as a DVD player, simple to use etc.).

Having said that, I rarely really need Windows98SE for old Windows games; they usually work fine also on Windows XP; and MS-DOS games... those I run on DOSBox instead anyway, I don't need a retro-PC for MS-DOS games anymore.

There were mountains of DOS games in the 1980's. With some tinkering, Windows 98 should be able to play most of them, assuming you can slow them down enough to be playable. You should be aware though that PC's didn't have gaming oriented hardware until the '90s and the games that were made back then suffered for it. Look to the Amiga or exotic Japanese computers like the Sharp x68k for the best of that era.

Hey how about this?

https://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Depends on how big the house is and how many people living in it.
If youre alone and not living in huge house there woud be no benefits as you say.
Woud probably not have any benifit even with two people.

And i was thinking in case you didnt have a rasbi or woudnt want to buy one.
People used to use old computers for stuff like this before the advent of more effective energy saving devices.

This is a great idea and the other things one can run from BOINC(the client that does the computing) are also good to various degrees if one has spare computing cycles.

You could turn it into a server of some kind. Download server, mail server... Do you need more suggestions?

Keep it safe.

Because I bet in 100 years time it'll be worth something and you'll be glad you kept it. Throw it away now and risk loosing that future money. This is sound financial advice. I am certain. Just be sure to stay alive long enough then you'll be onto a winner.

Some original IBm's etc will always be worth allot but i dont think the market will expand too much beyond that?

I watch 'antiques roadshow' and what that show has taught me is that antiques are for the most part worth SH-T....

Most of them dont even post a value equal to the equivalent manufacturing cost today! Any day of the week i can walk into a used car yard and be surrounded by items worth more than 95% of the crap you see on that show....
And the people on the show are like "oh wow, i had no idea it was worth so much, im rich, im rich.... now i can go and buy,,,, now i can go and buy,,,, um,,,, a set of new tyres for my car, Yay!"