Computer for surfing and E-mail

I'd like to buy a used PC for dial-up web surfing, e-mail and some light word processing. What are the minimum requirements, and where's a good place to get a used PC?
Thanks

 

toon,

Welcome to TSG

Hey you just on the other side of town from me.
I am really in Rio Linda, Ca.

What amont of money do you want to spend? There are so many place to get a PC here in town and there are a ton of small mom and pop shops that have PC's and will make one for you. They are so cheap now so why not get a new one.

Next time you go to the store for food look at the free news racks for "California Computer News".

 

Howdy neighbors - I'm just down the road a piece from you both

 

I have been using a PC since last 3 years for normal use of mailing, surfing, word-processing, etc. without any problem.

The configuration is as follows.
Pentium P III 550 with 128 MB RAM in Win98SE machine with a 20GB HD. On board sound, DLink External Modem (even Internal will do), on board display.

NAV runs in the background and it hasn't slowed down my machine to any apparent effects.

Recently (6 months back) I took a Plextor CD-RW drive and even that is working fine with this. But I have to close all applications while burning a CD.

So I guess anything above this will do just fine for your needs.

You will have to check out your local market for buying such a machine. But I strongly recommend that you don't go for a 2nd hand one, unless of course your budget has some constraints.