Picked up a Retro Gateway - Pretty Chuffed

linktoinsanity

linktoinsanity

linktoinsanity

Don
Joined
5 Oct 2008
Posts
8,989
Location
Kent
Just got back from meeting family in Oxford and my Aunt and Uncle gave me my Grandad's old PC. I was planning on upgrading it (and I still might) with a better graphics card, bigger hard drive/Flash Card etc. However the specs are as follows:

Intel Pentium 3 - 550Mhz
384 MB SDRAM (PC100 I think)
10GB Quantum Fireball Hard Drive
16MB Voodoo3 3000 AGP Graphics Card
Soundblaster PCI 128D
10/100 LAN Card
Windows 98SE
and it's a Gateway...

Currently planning on removing the 56K Modem it has and popping in a flash card at the back as a second hard drive for easy transfer. Any suggestions on other things I should do with this awesome old computer?

I remembered upgrading the RAM and sticking the LAN card in a few years ago with old parts from our family computer which had been upgraded, however the Voodoo3 was a big surprise, having said that though we used to have a Voodoo3 in our Celeron 400 so it probably originally came from there and I just forgot I put that in with the RAM and LAN card. It is a speedy old bugger though, Grandad only used it for his accounts and emails back in the day and was using it up until he died as a standalone accounts machine (no internet).
 
'upgrade' the GPU? :eek: no no no :p 3dfx for ever!

I remember my friends Gateway PC, arrived in moo-cow box. I think it was a P2 333. I remember we once tried to take some parts out of mine to fit into it (as my parents said I couldn't take the computer to a sleepover), but we couldn't fit the RAM as it was EDO and the P2 was SD. We commented on how it was full of this 'non standard Gateway crap'. Basically just AT vs ATX, PCI vs AGP and EDO vs SD :D
 
I still have my first Gateway PC doing service as a bedside table :s it just exactly fills the gap and at the right height.

Started life as a P3-500 and ended at 1GHz - still everything but a GPU in there but the years haven't been kind to it - pretty sure it is non-functional these days.
 
GeX said:
'upgrade' the GPU? :eek: no no no :p 3dfx for ever!
Click to expand...

Oh don't worry, my plan to upgrade the GPU disappeared as soon as I realised it had a Voodoo3. I have a couple of other retro PCs lying around, a Celeron 433 from NEC, which only has a PCI video card (got a good one off someone here recently) and a Pentium 233MMX laptop.... Also still have a Pentium 200MMX at home at my parents.
 
Dead jealous. Gateway and Dan were two manufacturers I always envied, just looked like quality items.

Voodoo cards are expensive nowadays and glad you are keeping. This thread needs pic's! :D
 
Awesome and yes please do take some pictures :)

Those specs remind me of our old PC, but that was a Tiny and was actually really well made inside a good solid feeling case. Very impressive for the time. Only gripe though was a lot of the supposedly swappable components were glued in place so it was a pain (but not impossible) when I upgraded the ram and replaced the modem with a pci ethernet card when broadband first hit the scene.

You have a whole world of classic pc and dos games to get stuck into now :)
 
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