When you say busted do mean cracked?

if not and it boots but just no video to the LCD, it's likely an easy repair of either the LCD backlight (not hard to replace at all) or the inverter died. It would not cost much to buy both parts. I would hook it up to an external monitor if you have one. If you get video you know the video card is good. I would then hunt up a supplier for your systems backlight (CCFL) and order TWO (in case you break one installing it...) they should be pretty inexpensive. And also find a new inverter board for that LCD on that laptop.

And heck make it a media server or something. I use an old PIII Dell Inspiron 5000 as a media server on my home network. It chokes on a some video's now and then but still works for the most part. I gave up cable/satellite about 5 years ago now and just watch everything online. I just send the video to the TV. It's not HD or anything of course but it works for me.

And I stream audio to my stereo too...works well.