It seems like what you want is a cast-off PC.  I saw a bunch of
nondescript ones at a local MicroCenter (think geekier version of CompUSA,
with a great technical book section and much more stock, if you've no
local MicroCenter).  About $100 each; I don't know what they included, but
was tempted to pick one up and add it to my home "pack".  (^&  (I'd
probably have needed to add a $10 or $20 ethernet card; I think that the
price included an old monitor which I wouldn't have needed.  I'd have run
it headless and either used it as a new router, as a file-server, and/or
turned it over to finally giving me a dedicated machine for tracking
-current.)


  ``I probably don't know what I'm talking about.'' --rauch@math.rice.edu