Unboxing a new old Windows 98 PC

Soldato
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Yesterday I picked up this PC on eBay for £25. I've been keeping an eye on eBay for several weeks for people selling "junk" old PCs for 99p or so, within a 50 mile radius for cash on collection. Then this shows up:
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The spec isn't that interesting but it's new in box which is very interesting to me! Also, my second PC (but the first I actually remember a bit about, as I was 4 when we got our first one and 8 when we got our second) was a Tiny. I put a small bid in. No one else bid but the reserve wasn't met. The new eBayer set a reserve at £50, the lowest it could go. I messaged the seller and agreed on £25.

After searching with a <50 mile radius, this PC was only 500m from my house too!

Here are some unboxing photos:
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You might remember Tiny PC - they were very basic and cheap, as we can see with what was packed!

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It's spec is:

MS6156 - AGP, PCI and ISA. It might well support some P3s too.
VIA VT82C693/VT82C693A Chipset
P2 350MHz Deschutes
64 Mb RAM
ATI Xpert 98 8mb which is apparently based on Rage Turbo.
"leading edge" Creative® ES1373 sound

I'll be firing it up this morning :D
 
Man of Honour
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An interesting find :p I like how they copied the Windows logo for the side panel vent haha.

Completely forgot about Amtrak.
 
Soldato
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I remember finding a stack of old Tiny machines at school. So cool to find a brand new one. :)

edit: Spotted that also Duke, just wasn't sure if it was a direct copy or just happened to be similar :p
 
Soldato
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It's got a lot of pre-installed software on it:

Carling Ultimate Football Quiz
Carling Ultimate Pub Quiz
Collins Quotations
Crossword Addict
GSP Family Tree
GSP Ultimate Sport Quiz

Return of The Arcade:
Dig Dug
Galaxian
Pac-Man
Pole Position

ATI DVD Player
Cheyenne Bitware (seems to be faxing software)
Europress 3D Interior Designer
MS Works
MS Money
IBM ViaVoice
Quicksoddingtime
Trend PC-cillin 98 (backup restore)

I'm tempted to leave this OEM install of Windows as it is, put in another HDD and put a clean version of Windows on that.
 
Soldato
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very nice, id be digging out all my old big box games :) Total Annihilation used to get played loads on my old p2
Holy smokes! That's what we used to play at a Lan at my house. Great game and many hours of fun.

Mate had a tiny pc, I built one instead and tbh tiny pc's were decent but just not very upgradable due to the pc case and PSU sizes.
 
Associate
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Echo the comments, what a fantastic find - it looks great. A brand new retro PC; what are the chances! I would have wrapped it up and left it under the tree!
Hell, if I received a NIB retro PC for Xmas... epic! :D
 
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No way! Nice find! You should have shot a video of it's boot up. Stick a SSD in there! I think you can get adaptors for drives and install windows 98 on it. Faster startup than todays machines.

8.4GB drive! wow!
 
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Soldato
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Sadly this is back in its box whilst I think what to do with it! It is too loud and slow (graphics in particular) for general retro use.

I could upgrade it to make it better for retro gaming. So I could put in a 650MHz and a TnT2 from my current W98/DOS PC but then... Well, it would just be the same as my current w98 / DOS PC! I have a few other CPUS and GPUs lying around that I could use but they'd all be worse than my quiet and "quick enough" W98 PC.

The case is cool and small so I could reuse it for another modern or retro PC. but takes a small PSU. I'll have to measure it to see if it is SFX or some unusual form factor, so I might not be able to upgrade it to a modern PSU which is really essential for using the case at all (noise).

So yeah I'm not really sure what to do with it. As a stand alone barebones bundle it is quite good. It has AGP, PCI and ISA slots; can take coppermine CPUS and the capacitors are new. So I think so it's makes a good base to sell for someone else to make a PC out of. After all there was no interest in it being a new in box PC when I bought it!
 
Soldato
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Mate had that exact unit back in the day, great find.

As did I! It was a bit faster and with slightly better graphics but the case and noise it made was the same. I heard it so many times 20 years ago that it's ingrained into my memory and it sounded identical! The feel and sound of the power button too. Not something that I had thought about for 20 years but as soon as I pressed the button it it all came back lol
 
Soldato
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That brings back so many memories. Thanks for sharing.

I had a Tiny Pentium II with a dedicated ATI graphics card which I think had 4MB RAM on it.
 
Associate
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Sadly this is back in its box whilst I think what to do with it! It is too loud and slow (graphics in particular) for general retro use.

I could upgrade it to make it better for retro gaming. So I could put in a 650MHz and a TnT2 from my current W98/DOS PC but then... Well, it would just be the same as my current w98 / DOS PC! I have a few other CPUS and GPUs lying around that I could use but they'd all be worse than my quiet and "quick enough" W98 PC.

The case is cool and small so I could reuse it for another modern or retro PC. but takes a small PSU. I'll have to measure it to see if it is SFX or some unusual form factor, so I might not be able to upgrade it to a modern PSU which is really essential for using the case at all (noise).

So yeah I'm not really sure what to do with it. As a stand alone barebones bundle it is quite good. It has AGP, PCI and ISA slots; can take coppermine CPUS and the capacitors are new. So I think so it's makes a good base to sell for someone else to make a PC out of. After all there was no interest in it being a new in box PC when I bought it!

Disappointing to hear, a similar situation to myself. In the summer I picked up a couple of Dell's, one packed up (PSU) and the other is just too slow for the types of games I want to play. Both placed in the attic until I decide what to do with them.

A small project lined up for Christmas holidays, an IBM Thinkcentre M81 for Windows XP gaming. Old Dos games are covered off by Dosbox and can play on a Windows 10 system. There are some games I cannot get to work in Windows 10, that I really want to play (Geoff Crammonds GP3, Colin McRae Rally, Sierra Nascar, Mig Alley etc).

I picked up a HP Think Client a couple of months back and its been great, only I wanted something a bit more powerful so opted for a M81. Dedicated cards for graphics and sound - Hoping the IBM will scratch the retro gaming itch.

Almoststew1990, I love your setup! I have been meaning to ask; what are the white open cabinets you use for your PC desk - the units which you have your PC cases setup in?
 
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