Basically I got an old imagePress Q1 which is aparently a server computer thing used for printing high quality pics. basically I wanted to turn it into a minecraft server but don't know the first thing about it like I'm not sure what operating system it has (I think under windows 7 vista) or if it has wifi connecting capabilities or the hardware to run a minecraft server. I am using this because I want to portforward my server (is that how you say it?) and it doesn't let you play on server from the computer that's running the server if you do that so basically if someone could help me or at least point me to somewhere which could then that would be great. According to here it's an old Pentium 4 based machine with 1gb RAM running XP embedded - https://www.developersupport.canon.com/content/imagepress-server-q1.  You may be able to use it if you install a new OS on it but it's really not that powerful (equivalent of a basic desktop PC from 2003).  That spec of machine can probably run a Minecraft server for a few users but it will struggle if you have any real number of users.  Also bear in mind that a Pentium 4 is extremely power hungry so the cost of electricity to run that thing if you plan on leaving it on 24/7 will be PRETTY high.

I can't see why you can't play the game on the same machine that is running the server, you may just need to use "localhost" as the IP ADDRESS on that one machine rather than your external IP address that everyone else is connecting to.Sorry I've taken so long to reply.... Thanks I just noticed it had 4.3 or something ghz processing speed so I thought it might be good for something like a server (also says server in it's name...) Would you reckon that you could use it for something else like a pc or basically anything not printing related?

Also you were right about using local host to connect to my server, It just wasn't working when I tried to connect using my external ip and when I asked about it on the minecraft forum I was told that you cant connect to your server if you're portforwading from that same computer.
Thanks for the help Also you were right about using local host to connect to my server, It just wasn't working when I tried to connect using my external ip and when I asked about it on the minecraft forum I was told that you cant connect to your server if you're portforwading from that same computer.

Port forwarding should be happening at your router if your hosting this for others to connect to.  Then if its being served on the same machine that also you will be gaming with, it would be a call to ExternalIPAddress:portnumber such as
67.108.96.122:8077
where port 8077 is the port open and forwarded in your router for the traffic to channel through. On your system that your hosting it on you then would need a firewall exception that allows traffic on port 8077 to GET through.

However if your playing it on the same system that is hosting it you can also get to it by 127.0.0.1 which is the home IP address for that system. Or 127.0.0.1:8077 or whatever port number your using. I put 8077 just as an example, not specific to minecraft server serving.

So others would connect through your external IP address and they might need to specify port number if using a port number that is not the default that minecraft operates on. Whereas you could simply get there at 127.0.0.1 from the system that is both serving it up as well as running the game.

I agree with cameron that the P4 system is kind of not worth using as a server unless you absolutely had to. An example is that I have a 7 year old netbook that runs on 13 watts of power and its running an Intel Atom 1.66Ghz 1 core with HT so it looks like 2 cores. This system benchmarks the same as a Pentium 4 2.53Ghz and the Pentium 4 consumes 126 watts of power to achieve the same goal if run as a server. So there is 113 watts wasted with it operating per hour. So a day its wasting 2712 Watts if its used as a 24/7 server. So take 2.7 kW and multiply that by how many days it will be running and price per kWh and you will see how it will all add up FAST and add to electric bill.

Also if your hosting for more than just a couple of people the P4 or even Intel Atom in my case would struggle to deal with all the handles maintaining multitasking juggle.

I havent served up Minecraft, but I have other games like UT99 etc and the more people connected and more advanced the virtual world to serve up, the more processing power & network bandwidth you will need to keep people from lagging out.

You might want to look at your internet speed if your planning on hosting with more than3 people joined with you as for your UPLOAD speed is critical! Additionally if anyone else is using the internet in the home for streaming etc, it will directly impact the users connected to your server.

Years ago I thought I'd save myself money by hosting my own Ventrillo Voice Communication Service for friends. I was able to get 5 people connected to my Ventrillo for free for gaming. It worked perfectly fine and I was so excited I didnt have to pay any money for the service, BUT when other people in my home were using the Vonage VoIP phone and streaming watching Netflix at the same time, it caused my Ventrillo quality to dive. Peoples voices would cut out or it would lag. I finally just paid a monthly fee for a Ventrillo service provider and then had the ability to have 10 people connected under the cheapest plan available. I was running a Ventrillo Voice Server on an old HP computer with a Celeron 500Mhz and 384MB RAM. The system in this case was actually fine for all it did when running, in which i would shut it off after we games since no sense hosting it when not needed, but my bandwidth was the issue.Yeah in that case I'd probably only get 2 or 3 people on my server with no lag due to my internet which is not the best... I mainly just wanted something I could just boot up every now and again to do stuff with 3-5 friends or something like that, luckily the other people using the internet dont't use much and barely ever upload lots of data so I might get 4 people on running smoothly.. possibly. guess I'll just leave the Q1 thing in the garage