What retro things have you done today?

Thats great! Are they many sites you can get working on it?

I installed windows 98 on my new P2-AT machine (my name for it, even tho its a celeron) and tested it out a bit. Seems the soundcard has some issues. Midi volumes are all over the place and sometimes it just stops playing sound entirely (digital and midi).
 
@LewisRaz Ermm no. :)

The site has to be basic with no HTTPS.

I think there's a version of Firefox you can install on Win95 to browse a modern web.

I really like this PC. It's solid. A memory of just before 3D acceleration. I've played DOS games, windows games and installed some productivity software.

It's AT, so you get the 'safe to turn off your computer' message on shutdown.

I love my P90, but this unit has more ooomph for the era.

I remember thinking, why would you need Win95 when it first came out and now appreciate the forward thinking of the time.
 
Ah I remember trying a few years back with firefox and kernelEx to post a facebook status from windows 98. Was not successful although was on a 200mhz cpu with 32mb of ram so the load times were dreadful.
 
Recently picked up this Sony Vaio PCG-F801 Laptop. Its in decent condition, 12.1 SVGA display, Trident Cyberblade VGA Chip and a AMD K6-2+ 533 CPU. CPU is probably worth more than the laptop now! Its weakest Feature is its sound Chip which is an ESS Maestro 3i which doesn't have amazing DOS compatibility but with some of the PCMCIA cards being designed might not be so much of a problem. There is OPL3LPT which is an option to consider also.

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Just picked up this Vintage beaut from a friend at work:

Specs:

Dual Pentium III 1.0Ghz CPU's
768Mb PC 133 SD RAM
Matrox Millenium G450 GPU
40Mb IDE HDD
LG 52x DVD
Plexwriter CDRW
TV Tuner
Sound Blaster Audio Card

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I have both CPU's and a blanking plate when I just use one. (Windows 98 Configuration) Also have period correct CRT and suitably beige Keyboard and mouse.

Only mod I'm planning is the swap out the Matrox card with a 3DfX Voodoo 3 3000 or similar.

:)
 
Nice machine, but there’s zero point in removing a CPU when you boot 9x. 9x will just ignore CPU1 and use CPU0 exclusively.

Neither of my dual 370 machines have a CPU removed when I want to boot 98/ME.
 
paradigm said:
Nice machine, but there’s zero point in removing a CPU when you boot 9x. 9x will just ignore CPU1 and use CPU0 exclusively.

Neither of my dual 370 machines have a CPU removed when I want to boot 98/ME.
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Thanks! To be honest, it just came that way. Not sure why its got the blank then, I havnt even tried it in Dual CPU configuration yet lol.

I'm thinking of buying some Tualatin socket adapters and getting some Tualatin CPUs in there.

Also I really want a Voodoo card in there, which would be the most suitable one to be period correct ? Im thinkng Voodoo 3 3000.

:)
 
Sipha said:
Thanks! To be honest, it just came that way. Not sure why its got the blank then, I havnt even tried it in Dual CPU configuration yet lol.

I'm thinking of buying some Tualatin socket adapters and getting some Tualatin CPUs in there.

Also I really want a Voodoo card in there, which would be the most suitable one to be period correct ? Im thinkng Voodoo 3 3000.

:)
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Personally I’d not bother with Tualatin adapters, either pin mod the CPUs or the sockets themselves. The adapters just put extra pressure on the CPU and motherboard when installing a cooler.

As for the best 3DFx card for the build, that depends on what you want out of 3DFx really. If it’s Glide compatibility for older titles then pairing SLI Voodoo IIs with a decent NVidia card (for D3D/OGL) will probably be the best for compatibility reasons. Voodoo 3s were great for their day, but even a GeForce 2MX will wipe the floor with one. A Voodoo 5 5500 would be pretty decent with dual 1GHz (or dual 1.4GHz Tualatins) but they really are not worth the price premium over a GeForce 2 GTS. Anything up to the FX5900XT will get you table fog emulation required for pre DX6 titles.

For what it’s worth, my Voodoo II SLI pair scales well up to the 1.4GHz of my Tualatin machine. The Voodoo 3 scales similarly, and the Voodoo 5 was still seeing gains up to 2.8GHz P4 levels from my testing.
 
paradigm said:
Personally I’d not bother with Tualatin adapters, either pin mod the CPUs or the sockets themselves. The adapters just put extra pressure on the CPU and motherboard when installing a cooler.

As for the best 3DFx card for the build, that depends on what you want out of 3DFx really. If it’s Glide compatibility for older titles then pairing SLI Voodoo IIs with a decent NVidia card (for D3D/OGL) will probably be the best for compatibility reasons. Voodoo 3s were great for their day, but even a GeForce 2MX will wipe the floor with one. A Voodoo 5 5500 would be pretty decent with dual 1GHz (or dual 1.4GHz Tualatins) but they really are not worth the price premium over a GeForce 2 GTS. Anything up to the FX5900XT will get you table fog emulation required for pre DX6 titles.

For what it’s worth, my Voodoo II SLI pair scales well up to the 1.4GHz of my Tualatin machine. The Voodoo 3 scales similarly, and the Voodoo 5 was still seeing gains up to 2.8GHz P4 levels from my testing.
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Thanks for the info Paradigm, my reason for the Vodooo card is purely a nostalgic one, I always wanted a 3DFX card when I got as a kid and inevitably could never afford such a thing so I guess it’s a bit of that. Those 5500 are way more than I’d want to spend though. So I’m hoping the 3 3000 would pair well. Plus the Glide compatibility well be nice.

or would I be better keeping the g450 and dropping in a PCI Voodoo II as well as for glide support ?

I’ll look into socket/cpu mods but I’m apprehensive to make any permanent changes, I may just stick with the Coopermine CPUs as they should be plenty.

Im only really going to be playing stuff like Q1/2 and Diablo2 etc.

I’ll whack that 2nd CPU permanently too once I get hold of a second cooler.

cheers.

cee-S-dee said:
That's a real nice machine @Sipha
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Thank you :)
 
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@Sipha I couldn't agree more. That's a lovely unit.

If it were mine, I'd keep it as is and find an OS to make use of the Dual CPU.. Windows 2000 Professional perhaps?


My question for you all:

Having been subscribed to LGR on YouTube for many years, what does he do with all this kit he has?
There's all the stuff from the Thrifting episodes, all the stuff he gets sent as donations and I remember the video on the IBM hall which was an absolute ton of equipment.

I stuggle with maintaining my modest collection.
 
I updated one of my old retro PCs I posted on OCUK a few years back, unfortunately the pictures have long gone from the thread but I made a few updates, let me know what you think.
Whenever I put together a retro PC there is always that temptation to put in the fastest graphics card, the fastest CPU for the socket but barely any of us had that back in the day so I put together something similar to a system I had at the time.

 
!bluetonic! said:
@Sipha I couldn't agree more. That's a lovely unit.

If it were mine, I'd keep it as is and find an OS to make use of the Dual CPU.. Windows 2000 Professional perhaps?


My question for you all:

Having been subscribed to LGR on YouTube for many years, what does he do with all this kit he has?
There's all the stuff from the Thrifting episodes, all the stuff he gets sent as donations and I remember the video on the IBM hall which was an absolute ton of equipment.

I stuggle with maintaining my modest collection.
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He has a storage unit, thats where most of his videos are filmed. He did do a video about it before I think.
 
Picked up this unit for 5£ without knowing what's inside. To my surprise it came with an Athlon at 800 Mhz, Geforce 2 GTS and Sound Blaster Live, but no RAM. Added some RAM and it booted just fine :D
To my stupidity, I tried to put new thermal paste on the CPU, I reached the die with the heatsink, but while trying to remove the 2 clamps, the screwdriver (Yes, I know..) bounced and I managed to damage two tiny capacitors :( :(. I've attached a picture as an example of the capacitors. The system works, I even installed Win 98, but with a Vibra 128, when the CPU is heavy utilized, the sound breaks and it's laggy and crackling. Is it because of the damaged capacitors, as the CPU is not working properly? I never used a Vibra 128, so maybe it's the sound card? I've used the driver from Creative.
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