I'm saving money for a laptop. A shitty laptop that's mega-old. Basically, I want to run MS Visual Studio 2005 Express (namely VC#, but probably VB too) and an occasional game of WarCraft II (read: 2, not 3) or 0verkill. I don't even plan to (directly) access the internet using it (except perhaps to run the MSVS installer) so spyware and viruses don't need to be taken into consideration.
The hardware I'm currently looking at ranges $100-200 and is on average 266MHz-ish with a 4-5GB hd (I'll obviously sink some money in to upgrading that) as well as USB and ethernet ports. Would that do alright with Win2k or XP? I'd probably run Win2k unless MSVS doesn't run on it in which case I'd bear with XP.
I don't plan on doing ANY intensive gaming (if any gaming at all) or watching DVDs etc on it. This would be for word processing and light programming, and the occasional game of solitare in the car.
So, what do you guys call for specs on this stuff?