Using Black Macbook as External Drive

My Black Macbook's display died on me in April. After repeated attempts to fix it myself, I gave in and bought a new unibody Macbook two weeks later. School doesn't stop because my laptop's broken!
I don't want to get rid of my first Mac - call me sentimental - especially since everything else works and all I have to do is hook up an external display to use it.
What I want to do is hook them both up and use my black one as an external hard drive via Time Machine on my new one. Is this possible or am I better off just buying an external hard drive?
My old black MacBook runs on Tiger 10.4.11, and my current MacBook is running Snow Leopard 10.6.4.

I hate to think of it as a demotion, but the BlackBook is the slower and older of the two, and I need a backup solution. Not having my BlackBook threw me into all sorts of school-related problems for a week until I could get a mini DVI to HDMI converter; it would have been nice had I stored my files in another accessible location.
I plan on getting an external display (I'm using my large TV for now) so I can use it as a desktop of sorts, but its most useful function right now would be as a backup hard drive. Plus, using Time Machine vs. doing it manually has advantages, so the caddy is my best option.
Also, my husband suggested selling my BlackBook so I have to have SOME good reason to keep it around.
Message was edited by: MangoFruit

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