Ocuk Retro gamers

[Ninco!]

I am slowly acquiring parts to build a 2000 era Windows XP machine, beige box. I have picked up 19" CRT monitor, Creative Soundworks speakers, IBM keyboard and mouse. Held off purchasing the parts until now as I was undecided what PC era to go for! The trouble is I am too keen and keep blowing my 'hobby' budget on big box games!

I am swaying towards an early 2000 PC as many of the games I loved back in the day and unlikely to be seen on say, GOG or Steam (Sierra Papyrus racing sims, Colin McRae Rally, Rowans flight simulators) anytime soon. Whereas earlier retro games are covered via Dosbox etc. Just trying to get these games to play on a Win10 system are nearly impossible or a right pain!

Whilst GPL has received an overhaul and can run on modern systems; only I might be in the minority and want to play GPL vanilla.

 

[Firestar_3x]

Got loads of retro consoles and handhelds but one of my PC's is a Shuttle SN41 (ebay boxed) with lots of my saved period hardware in, 2gb Crucial XMS memory, Athlon XP, ATI X800XT, Audigy 2 ZS, WD 120gb IDE, NEC DVD/RW.

Great gaming box which plays all my old LAN days games perfectly.

The Ebay boxed SN41 also had a bar-code on it, which turned out to be an OCUK product code, it was probably in the OCUK warehouse on my almost weekly OC visits back then, fate!

My second machine a Dell laptop rocking 98SE with an ATI 7500 in, plays stuff like NFS and NFSIISE perfectly.

 

[linktoinsanity]

I have a Celeron 433Mhz, 192MB RAM, 10GB HDD. Just need a decent PCI graphics card and they seem pretty hard to find.

 

[LewisRaz]

I have a Celeron 433Mhz, 192MB RAM, 10GB HDD. Just need a decent PCI graphics card and they seem pretty hard to find.

Wouldnt it be ore beneficial to get a board that can take an AGP card?

I managed to bag myself a nice retro bundle. an athlon 1ghz. 1.5gb of ram (i took 1gb out for win98) geforce2.. sound blaster 5.1 card.. 60gb hdd... correct year microsoft keyboard and mouse .. 5.1 cambridge soundworks surround system..

And an old dell 4:3 tft too

All for £10! (it was part of a bundle of old tech and after selling the other stuff the pc only set my back £10)

 

[phatboy]

have a Shuttle SV25 with Pentium 3 933Mhz, 512MB RAM, FX5200 128MB PCI and 160GB drive. Runs Windows 98SE

Linktoinsanity - might have a spare half height FX5200 kicking about it thats any good?

 

[LewisRaz]

I picked up a "steal" at a bootsale the other week. A "TIME" pc with matching k/b mouse and a CRT. - All for £5
It has a 2700XP 40gb HDD and dvd. It did have 256mb ram but i picked up 1gb from ebay for £2.95.
Chucked a ati 9600XT I had spare in it and now its a nice XP machine!
need to get a KVM switch so I can set both towers up to the same peripherals

 

[Ninco!]

I should ban myself from browsing eBay. I am now the proud owner of a Dell Dimension XPS D266 Pentium II 266MHz! (alright an impetuous 'buy it now' purchase).

My first ever PC I scrimped and saved was a Dell Dimension Pentium 200MX back in 1997 which has the same case. A 17" monitor and Altec Lansing 2.1 speakers with a large sub sealed the deal!

I admit that the next morning, I did awake with buyer remorse. I looked at the pictures again and in the cold light of day; without the retro rose tinted glasses - it does look a bit rough even if only £70.





It reminded me of my PC I used to lug about at Uni; prematurely yellowed from the inevitable smoking & fag ash etc.

After a good clean, it transpires that a lot of the dirt is superfluous. The yellowing looks bad, but after a scrub it has cleaned up fantastic! Yes, there is a patina of age (its 20 years old) but no where near as grubby or yellow as it looks. Plus it all works!

I am in the process of hunting down 3DFX, Soundblaster cards (and a new HD). I would post some after pictures, only I loaned out my camera and my phone wont do it justice...

 

[Duke]

Pics of it cleaned up please Nice BNC connector too.

 

[Ninco!]

It's alive! Okay not the Dell D266 but a D4100! Sorry for the rubbish phone photo.

I spotted the D4100 at a good price! The urge for extra power (Pentium 3 1Ghz, 512MB) won me over. I had planned to build an early 2000 system from scratch using new parts - However the cost for building a NIB verses a period system which remain readily available for cheap; made no sense.

Like the D266, this D4100 arrived very grubby! A good clean and now looks as new! The only let down is the Creative DVD drive which, whilst fully working, has yellowed. I'm a bit sad as the Creative drive with all it logo's does scream "retro" but its going to be swapped out for a Sony drive as it letting the side down. I also picked up a Soundblaster Live with the LiveDrive! but like the Creative DVD its yellowed which is a shame. I'm going to use the Soundcard which is (apparently) a good one for Win98/Dos and shelve the drive interface for now.

The picture above is cheating, the monitor is hooked up to a retro Thinkpad with the obligatory Doom playing! At this point the Dell has a working clean install of Windows 98SE and now I'm just started the task of hunting down drivers...

I was testing the CRT and I got to say... Whilst CRT's are a ball ache from a weight/space perspective. Witnessing Doom for the first time just makes all the effort worth it. Hard to describe, whether the nostalgia is kicking in (the days of walking into gaming stores with the Doom demo on loop) but it looks awesome and makes the cost/hassle worth it!

Finally, the IBM keyboard is a later model circa 2004. Whilst brand new, the beige when compared to the white/grey monitor is annoying me (also the lack of 98 drivers). The hunt for a Microsoft Intellitype begins.

 

[Duke]

Send me the front plastics of the CD drive and I'll retro bright it for you

 

[Ninco!]

A better photo of the D4100:

Today I removed the yellow Creative Drive and swapped for a Sony DVD equivalent and improves the look tenfold. Also removed the default sound card and replaced with a Sound Blaster Live!

When you expect the Zip and Floppy Drive to fail, both work perfectly; only the replacement Sony DVD which I just installed does not work! Not one disk was recognised.

Just ordered a cleaning kit, otherwise I'll snaffle the drive from my D266 which looks mint (and works) and keeps the clean look. I am not bothered about a DVD as many of the games for the period (2000) were still CD's.

The great thing with these Dell's, just very easy to work with, the front panel can be completely removed from the cage - so much easier when cleaning!

P.S. Update on the D266 - Not finished but coming on well

 

[LewisRaz]

I love this thread

Wish I had room for my 2 retro machines...

Can only store them for now while my daughter now resides in my man cave....

 

[Ninco!]

Apologies, for hijacking this thread. Another Dell update.

The Sony DVD is knackered. The cleaning CD turned up and whilst the DVD sparked into life momentarily - it then bombed. Numerous reboots and attempts later, I lost patience and gave up (an £8 eBay gamble purchase). A replacement is now on order.

In the mean time I managed to pick up a brand new Microsoft Keyboard and Mouse and it does look better (less beige than the IBM)

I have got to say; going back to a ball mouse in Windows. It's not what I expected, its pretty good.

 

[Ninco!]

Much faffing with drivers, completely forgot the quirks of Win 98; it's slowly coming back (its been near 20 years!) After much head scratching, managed to get the graphics drivers to install and Rage Pro card to work. Tip: search Vogon (Dosbox) forum.

Chose two random games to test for 2D/3D as well as sound card. Doom and Urban Chaos, both installed from original CD's. Crikey, the limited mouse controls are another level! Mouse control for both is sooo slow. Might be me, but keyboard is proving the best way! I am probably missing something but by gum, it is a blast from the past.

 

[silvagti]

I have a collection of games consoles and own most of them realised since the late 90s. I've never really seen the appeal of retro computing hardware though?

 

[Ninco!]

I have a collection of games consoles and own most of them realised since the late 90s. I've never really seen the appeal of retro computing hardware though?

Fair point. I never owned a console so I am biased. All my mates were console owners and I was very jealous. The trouble is, my slice of nostalgia now comes in the form of a big beige box.

Nostalgia is a big drawer for me. Owning a retro PC brings back memories of when my parents randomly purchased a PC and we were all clueless. My old man wanted me to learn computers (as my previous exposure consisted of watching a friends Spectrum load and crash). I spent time learning and tooling about in DOS/Windows 3.1 trying not to brick a £1000 PC.

Then PC Zone magazine was released. The laddish editorial made PC's rather elite, as well promote games PC's were capable of playing.

Decent working CRT monitors are becoming fewer as so many were scrapped - for me, it was a choice of not leaving it too late, before the prices get silly. With classic PC's, they take up a lot of space and unless you are a fan, still look like an eye sore when compared to a retro console. The latter you could if so well inclined, get away with leaving on a bookshelf for retro chic. With a beige PC - your options are a bit limited.

 

[silvagti]

Fair point. I never owned a console so I am biased. All my mates were console owners and I was very jealous. The trouble is, my slice of nostalgia now comes in the form of a big beige box.

Nostalgia is a big drawer for me. Owning a retro PC brings back memories of when my parents randomly purchased a PC and we were all clueless. My old man wanted me to learn computers (as my previous exposure consisted of watching a friends Spectrum load and crash). I spent time learning and tooling about in DOS/Windows 3.1 trying not to brick a £1000 PC.

I'm kind of the same as my first PC was a 486 back in the mid 90s. I think the whole big beige 90's box PC could make a comeback though. It would be pretty cool to take an old 90's PC case, beige peripherals, beige IBM keyboard,etc and load it up with modern kit. That way you could have the retro look but still have a usable computer (or is that cheating and defeating the point!).

I might have to draw the line at a CRT though as they take up too much room and even a large 19" CRT wouldn't really be big or high-resolution enough for my work these days. Plus those CRT monitors tended to give me headaches so I'm glad to see the back of the things in all honesty. I'd have to pair my old beige PC box with a beige LCD monitor instead as sacrilegious as that seems

 

[Ninco!]

My Dell 4100 is suffering from power on issues, sometimes it would power on and other times just refuse. Costs starting to increase so for now, decided to park the retro build.

Instead I decided to resurrect my backup PC (2014) and use solely for retro gaming as I have not really bothered before. Now paired with my CRT, its running great! Yes, it is cheating, but from a gaming perspective and being able to play 90's games at maximum quality has its nostalgia benefits! Having fathomed out Munt (sound emulator) and paired with an amp - I am a kid in a toy shop! Having the opportunity to revisit old games I always dreamed of playing as a kid but maxed out is priceless.

Yup, Windows 10 is a bit restrictive for retro gaming there are some games which refuse to work, however many GOG/DosBox games (after a bit of tweaking) work really well.

 

[Iron-man]

I have to say this thread is brilliant, brings back some memory's although not sure I would have space for stuff if I kept buying it. I have a lot of old stuff but it is stored away

 

[Ninco!]

I have to say this thread is brilliant, brings back some memory's although not sure I would have space for stuff if I kept buying it. I have a lot of old stuff but it is stored away

There are pros and cons for a full on retro system versus emulation - space is an issue. There is an unbeatable buzz when it works - chuck a game CD/Disk in the drive and install the way it was done before Steam is a blast from the past!

Then you realise you have to trawl for patches!

Performance limitations can quickly become apparent. Play Operation Flashpoint or GTA3 on a 2000 system - these games were monsters back in the day, whilst they will work, the temptation to ramp up the options kick in (slideshow).

I am torn, emulation and modern systems are better but for a full on experience - original kit remains best. Nostalgia is addictive.