What retro things have you done today?

I've started compiling a spreadsheet of all my components, would anyone like to have a look and perhaps suggest some year/era specific builds?

I struggle to keep them sane, and end up putting in maxxed out RAM, large HDDs, Fast CD/DVD and worst of all newer GPU's in to the builds!
 
I have three Windows 98 SE builds that are different from each other. I don't always keep them period correct in terms of software.

My Dell Pentium II machine has Windows 98 SE on it that one is used for programming old PMR stuff and eeproms etc.

My other Windows 98 build has a Pentium 4 and it works pretty well with no issues which is built into an old IBM case

My other one is a PIII but it has problems with video playback and audio files. If you put in a CD it sounds like its skipping but isn't and the same thing happens with other audio files and videos files. I've not properly looked in to what the issue is. I thought it was something to do with hardware acceleration but I tried different settings with the same issue. Perhaps there is an issue with the video card or video card driver. It otherwise works for other things and I can play most games on it.

I'm going to try a Windows 2000 Professional build on a dual core machine at some point. I've not ever tried Windows 2000 on a dual core.

I got a 486 arriving in the mail for a Windows 3.11 machine I'm keeping that period correct.

I'm looking for a couple PII boards for a Windows 95 build or two which will be kept period correct.
 
Retro6 said:
I'm making a software pack for Windows 98 Second Edition.

This is what my software pack contains so far...
Windows Media Player 9
Windows Media Player 9 codecs
VCL Player "old version"
7 Zip
PeaZip
Clamshell Anti-Virus
Some free games
Driver Patches - for onboard video and audio fixes
USB Universal Flash Drive Driver
Image Viewer

That is it so far. If anybody has some recommendations of other things I can add to it that would be great.
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A notepad file with the freely available registration codes for 3DMark 1999 to 2001
Chipset drivers! Grab the intel "last chipset drivers for W9X" from vogons which covers early 478 to Slot 1 I think (probably earlier), Via Hyperion 4 in 1 5.24 (I think is the latest version); maybe even an Irongate in case you come across an AMD chipset (Slot A) board?
I'd dump Phil's Soundblaster Live W98 and dos drivers on there too. The actual drivers are only a couple of mb each and I've gone back to the live surprisingly often.
Rivatuner I think is good for sorting vsync issues.
CPU-Z for Windows 98
Phil's Dosbench benchmark pack
Nvidia 45 or 50-something if you're planning on using FX cards; voodoo drivers of some kind (not really my area)
Phil's MS-DOS starter pack which is very useful (menu for memory setup and drivers in DOS)

Why would you put antivirus on a Windows 98 PC?

Also I've been watching this all week but I had a client call me just as the auction was wrapping up so I missed it :(

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shuttle-...2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0
 
almoststew1990 said:
A notepad file with the freely available registration codes for 3DMark 1999 to 2001
Chipset drivers! Grab the intel "last chipset drivers for W9X" from vogons which covers early 478 to Slot 1 I think (probably earlier), Via Hyperion 4 in 1 5.24 (I think is the latest version); maybe even an Irongate in case you come across an AMD chipset (Slot A) board?
I'd dump Phil's Soundblaster Live W98 and dos drivers on there too. The actual drivers are only a couple of mb each and I've gone back to the live surprisingly often.
Rivatuner I think is good for sorting vsync issues.
CPU-Z for Windows 98
Phil's Dosbench benchmark pack
Nvidia 45 or 50-something if you're planning on using FX cards; voodoo drivers of some kind (not really my area)
Phil's MS-DOS starter pack which is very useful (menu for memory setup and drivers in DOS)

Why would you put antivirus on a Windows 98 PC?

Also I've been watching this all week but I had a client call me just as the auction was wrapping up so I missed it :(

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shuttle-...2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0
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Excellent I've made a note of all that, some good stuff there. I put anti virus in the list because its a good one and its better to have it just encase you get a virus when transferring files just as an extra measure. I always scan my USB flash drives in another computer before they go into my retro machines anyway but its still good to have an anti virus on the retro machines.

Thats a nice PC I would have put a bid on that myself if only I was near to South Hampton.
 
I have followed eta primes guide on YouTube to install retro pie on a laptop. This was just a test until I can get a caddy for an unused 64gb ssd. I had a 32gb SanDisk memory stick to run lubuntu live and test install retro pie on. It all worked well other than a glitch with controller support where I had to go into the retro pie configuration and add an additional driver for 360 controller support. I tested Sensible soccer, sonic 1 and 2 on mega drive which all worked. I'm happy I now know it is worth me investing in a caddy.
 
I pulled out one of my Dual core machines "sleeper build" in an old case. I had done a few sleeper builds over the years but of course now they are not so current so I thought I could make some Windows 2000 machines with them and see what they can do retro wise. Windows 2000 is taking a very long time to format the hard drive, its been on since 2:14 and its now 5:21 its at 48% now so some more hours and it will be done..... hopefully I can then get on with installing Windows 2000 SP4

I also found another huge box of my old PC games, some could be worth an absolute bomb... Also lots of original PC games on 3.5 floppy. Plus a few boxes of unopened sealed Pentium Overdrive blank floppy disks from 1998.
 
I've been looking at themes/skins for Windows. There doesn't appear to be any for Windows 2000 and there were probably none around during the time of Windows 2000 anyway. There are still some for Windows XP tho. I'm not to crazy about Windows XP its to late for my retro liking. Windows 2000 marks the end of the retro line for me. Maybe in about 10 or so years time I might get into XP but for now its Windows 2000 and its the only retro Windows OS that works on a dual core system. I wanted to see if there was a full Windows 95 theme for Windows 2000. That would be so cool if there was. Anyway Windows 2000 is good enough for a dual core sleeper build machine it still holds some nostalgia for me and looks good with the build.
 
paradigm said:
NT4 supports multiple CPUs. I don’t think it’s SMP though.
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I did read up about NT4 but it said it didn't run well or at all on a modern dual core system. I don't know much about NT4 so I went with Windows 2000 which is better supported and is still retro.

I've decided that I'm going to change out the motherboard on this machine for a older Pentium 4 motherboard then I can run Windows 98SE NT4 or 2000. The dual core motherboard that I'm taking out I'll put on ebay.

I need to get out some of my other sleeper builds to make into full retro machines. I did around 6 sleeper builds some time ago in retro cases with floppies drives and white DVD drives to match the white cases. They all have dual core boards in them but I'm only going to change 3 and the others I will leave as they are.

Sleeper build one is the one mentioned above.
Sleeper build two has a faulty dual core motherboard although it works it will do funky things and applications don't run correctly. That will get an older P4 board with Windows 98.
Sleeper build three has a missing board and that one requires a mini ITX board. P4

I'll then have 3 more Windows 98 builds one might be a Windows 2000 build or maybe I could dual boot one for both Windows 98/2000.

I know somebody will tell me Pentium III boards would be more ideal and that is correct but there are none that I can find for a reasonable price at the moment. There are a good few P4 boards still knocking about for less than 20 quid some need caps replacing which are even cheaper. I did have my eye on a PII board for 15 quid but I'm still waiting to hear back about it. The PII would be ideal for a Windows 95 build. Hopefully I'll be picking up a couple nice CRT screens next week too.
 
I've been looking for a joy stick I used to have but can't find it anywhere online but it was around late 80s to early 90s era it was a serial type and could have been used with an Amiga. It was light grey in color with a red square button at the top. It was excellent build quality.
 
Retro6 said:
I've been looking for a joy stick I used to have but can't find it anywhere online but it was around late 80s to early 90s era it was a serial type and could have been used with an Amiga. It was light grey in color with a red square button at the top. It was excellent build quality.
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Quickshot maybe? I had one of these snd a Zipstick (smsller with two square yellow buttons)

https://images.app.goo.gl/VFVzTqivrXbFFYhH7
 
I've been thinking a lot about socket 775 boards and 775 Pentium 4 processors with FBS of 800 MHz or more. I just can't get enough of Windows 98 builds. The only problem is finding DDR2 Ram of 256MB I think I've got some somewhere in my box of old Ram where ever that is but can't be 100% sure, it might all be DDR1 and SDRAM in those capacities... I have so much stuff I need to have a good sort out so I can find things more easily. I'm definitely going to do some more Windows 98 builds and I may already have all the hardware I need. I might get my 486 computer delivered tomorrow as well. That is going to be a Windows 3.11 machine.

What I like about 775 socket motherboards is that they are cheap and plentiful as long as they have a floppy connector and IDE connector then they are good to go. Pentium 4 processors are literally penny's and sound cards are dirt cheap. So are SATA harddrives. I figure that it be better to use a SATA hard drive as they are cheap and there are lots of them about unlike IDE hard drives and will be better than faffing about with CF Cards or other types of SSD. The only costly part of the build will be the GPU but then again I might even have a good one in my box of old GPU's however I don't have drivers for any of them.

I think we need a Windows 98 build thread. Its amazing what can be done on the cheap using modern parts to create a retro machine.
 
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I had one of those asrock boards but didn't like it for XP due to lack of support for later CPUs. I think I bought it for £25 and sold it a few months later for the same!

Haven't said that I'm not that interested in supercharged W98 builds so I don't regret letting it go. I'll stick with my weird 478 PCIE board for that.
 
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