What retro things have you done today?

Associate
Joined
5 Dec 2002
Posts
1,764
Location
The 80's
Would make a good base for a nice build.

I recently picked up a Asus P2B V1.12 for £15 with CPU and Ram. Its running my P3 850 100FSB at 1.13Ghz without any problem. Asus boards of this period do seem to be of really high quality.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 May 2011
Posts
6,143
Location
Southampton
I went into CEX unsupervised and came home with some random games :(

S4j2I25h.jpg
I also picked up Sim City 2000 for Windows but they had lost the disk.

The 9800 should give a performance boost over my 7950 GT whilst also being one "green" models without external power. £12 so... eehhhh. It's also a 1GB model so might be a bit happier for the occasional 1080p
 
Soldato
Joined
23 May 2016
Posts
3,719
Location
North Essex
I went into CEX unsupervised and came home with some random games :(

S4j2I25h.jpg
I also picked up Sim City 2000 for Windows but they had lost the disk.

The 9800 should give a performance boost over my 7950 GT whilst also being one "green" models without external power. £12 so... eehhhh. It's also a 1GB model so might be a bit happier for the occasional 1080p

Nice little haul there mate, shame about SC2000. I am after a disk copy of it too but think I will hold out for big box version.
 
Soldato
Joined
23 May 2016
Posts
3,719
Location
North Essex
Ive manged to get an AT-ATX adapter so I can try my pentium 100 out. After a few hours of playing with all the switches and jumpers and ram and cache and everything else I had to give up. The CPU is getting warm but I cant get a display. I have read somewhere that older boards do not always play nicely with modern VGA bios tho so I am hoping that it is the Nvidia 6200 that is the problem and not the board (I found some rust some pins near the cache chips but have cleaned it up pretty well and cant see any broken traces). Got an S3 Virge/GX on the way so once that arrives I can give it a final check before assuming the board is broken.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Dec 2004
Posts
8,204
Location
Oxfordshire
Biggie for me, right place / right time on facebook marketplace.

guy in village I work in put up a post giving away his old computer if you collected it. got in first and went and nabbed it. full Beige base unit with matching CRT monitor. branded up as "simply Computers uk"

It had be sat buried in the corner of his work office for the past 15/20 years and had barely ever been used as he forgot about it and he bought his "new" (core2 Acer) PC years ago. still had the tamper tags on the case. didn't boot first of all which was gutting but turned out was just the PSU. now up and running 100%, the inside is dust free mint condition. Is a Winbond mainboard with SD and DDR RAM slots. Pentium1 133MHz CPU, 32MB SDRAM and a Hercules Terminator 3D GPU. Also has ESS 3D soundcard and a massive Modem board running Windows 95.

So chuffed right now :D

update - just been doing some online digging, apparently Simply was a local company in Walthamstow who were eventually bought out by Misco
 
Associate
Joined
9 May 2009
Posts
1,178
Biggie for me, right place / right time on facebook marketplace.

guy in village I work in put up a post giving away his old computer if you collected it. got in first and went and nabbed it. full Beige base unit with matching CRT monitor. branded up as "simply Computers uk"

It had be sat buried in the corner of his work office for the past 15/20 years and had barely ever been used as he forgot about it and he bought his "new" (core2 Acer) PC years ago. still had the tamper tags on the case. didn't boot first of all which was gutting but turned out was just the PSU. now up and running 100%, the inside is dust free mint condition. Is a Winbond mainboard with SD and DDR RAM slots. Pentium1 133MHz CPU, 32MB SDRAM and a Hercules Terminator 3D GPU. Also has ESS 3D soundcard and a massive Modem board running Windows 95.

So chuffed right now :D

update - just been doing some online digging, apparently Simply was a local company in Walthamstow who were eventually bought out by Misco

Simply was down the road from me! Mate I am so jealous! Nice find my friend, well done!
 
Soldato
Joined
23 May 2016
Posts
3,719
Location
North Essex
Do you know if the Dallas is good? Is it socketed? Try removing it if so and powering it on.
Not sure its my first time dealing with one. Its soldered to the board but doesnt look like it would be the worst job ever to remove.


pics work fine and dont help with the jealousy :p
 
Associate
Joined
9 May 2009
Posts
1,178
Oh cool, wasn't expecting to find anyone who knew of them.

Thank you, been wanting a proper retro rig for a long time so I am very chuffed :) will get some pics up when I get a chance


Funnily enough I am visiting my parents tonight and I still have a mint mouse mat from simply computers there.
 
Associate
Joined
9 May 2009
Posts
1,178
They even had their own mouse mats! that is proper old skool builder awesome!

Should most likely try and track one of those down myself then to complete the look lol

Haha if I get a chance I’ll post a picture up of it tomorrow, I was young but I remember it being quite popular back then. I miss those places, even pc world, going to the massive pc game section was always something to pick up.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Dec 2004
Posts
8,204
Location
Oxfordshire
Haha if I get a chance I’ll post a picture up of it tomorrow, I was young but I remember it being quite popular back then. I miss those places, even pc world, going to the massive pc game section was always something to pick up.

Yeah absolutely the same here, used to spend hours in pc world looking at big box games. Opposite college in Swindon was a little privately owned pc store, that's where my first REAL purchased machine came from for design work, duron 700 power lol. I spent so many lunch breaks in there just shooting breeze about pc games with the owner and playing quake, interstate 76 and rally trophy

He had loads of own branded stuff that I got with my build :)
 
Back
Top Bottom