I too was de-junking a couple of months ago and found an old Toshiba laptop just like in the picture. Apparently it still worked.
I remember I got it from an old boss ages ago. At one very short stage I had it as a car mp3 player and even had wired an external 2Gb IDE hard drive to it. The loom I made for the controls used a keyboard circuit board fitted inside a basic calculator case with some of the buttons relabeled. Unfortunately it would auto shutdown when the engine was turned off which was a hassle so I removed it. Then portable mp3 players hit the market so just as well.
I pulled it to bits and discovered an aluminum box inside that was just the right dimensions to house a guitar pickup coil for one of my acoustic instruments.
Glad I finally found a new use for the thing.
Last edited by cattletruck; 5th January 2015 at 09:18.