$500 of Dell OptiPlexes become a diskless netboot lab where AI agents can't brick the hardware
colinmcnamara · x · 2026-09-23
The author bought 7 Dell OptiPlex 7050 SFF machines for $500 (4 matched i5-6500 as the fleet, 3 spares) to build a physical playground for AI agents. Key choices: these boxes still have a real 16550 UART at 0x3F8 for null modem cable control; all are diskless and netboot-only so agents can't brick them; power cycling runs through Home Assistant; QEMU handles the inner loop with bare metal as the gate.
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