Well, I did go to Yale over the summer, and it was necessary to bring a phone, as they don't provide one. Or air conditioning. In any case, I was unique for bringing a 1960s rewired Redline rotary, and I can tell you making long distance calls was hell.
Of course, I also learned to juggle at Yale, which is something I can be proud of until my dying day...
Anyway, while my current computer is nice-ish (roughly 1.5GHz Sempron, 1GB RAM, 2GB swap partition), I've got some crappy ones around.
Good laptop: Er, maybe 533MHz CPU? 192MBRAM (max), 6GB HD. Compaq 1687 I got off a friend for $50, used for Movix2.
i386: Paid $10, missing one side panel, 8MB RAM, Win95, weird CDROM drive (possibly cartridge), supposedly boots though I have yet to see it.
Bad Laptop: Father's old Toshiba, 128kBRAM, Don't know CPU, Runs Win98 (I believe - perhaps 95), and - most famously - display at 640x480 or 800x600, with the caveat that at the higher resolution you can't see the whole damn screen at once - you have to move your mouse to the edge and wait for it to move to see it all. Also, low color resolution - Wetrix looks like crap on the thing. Don't like to use it anymore.
Under normal circumstances, those are bad enough, but you fellows do have me beat.