Unboxing a new old Windows 98 PC

almoststew1990 · 1 Dec 2018 at 10:45

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:

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:

You might remember Tiny PC - they were very basic and cheap, as we can see with what was packed!

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

Duke · 1 Dec 2018 at 10:52

An interesting find

I like how they copied the Windows logo for the side panel vent haha.

Completely forgot about Amtrak.

Ryan-3 · 1 Dec 2018 at 10:55

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

gavindo · 1 Dec 2018 at 10:57

very nice, id be digging out all my old big box games

Total Annihilation used to get played loads on my old p2

Zefan · 1 Dec 2018 at 11:01

This is awesome.

Love it

almoststew1990 · 1 Dec 2018 at 11:20

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.

sja360 · 1 Dec 2018 at 21:04

gavindo said:
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.

Skorpion · 2 Dec 2018 at 10:57

What an absolutely awesome find, well done.

Ninco! · 2 Dec 2018 at 16:05

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!

Deleted member 77746 · 2 Dec 2018 at 19:16

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!

Firestar_3x · 3 Dec 2018 at 08:57

Mate had that exact unit back in the day, great find.

SupraWez · 3 Dec 2018 at 09:02

Nice find

LewisRaz · 3 Dec 2018 at 11:21

Very Jealous thats a great find!

panthro · 4 Dec 2018 at 09:52

Great find and a blast from the past

almoststew1990 · 4 Dec 2018 at 14:17

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!

jsmoke · 4 Dec 2018 at 14:20

Exact what we had in 1998 from Tiny, mother ordered a 500mhz by the time we picked it up it was 550mhz.

almoststew1990 · 4 Dec 2018 at 14:23

Firestar_3x said:
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

MookJong · 6 Dec 2018 at 16:23

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.

Doug2507 · 6 Dec 2018 at 16:35

Very cool, nice find! :cool:

Ninco! · 8 Dec 2018 at 17:03

almoststew1990 said:
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?