What retro things have you done today?

Ninco! · 7 Feb 2020 at 21:27

almoststew1990 said:
I've never understood the fascination with CRTs - they're huge, flickery, hum, hot, power hungry (something I'm aware of with lots of electronics on one plug) and reflect outside light on the glass. I used CRTs until about 2003 but have no nostalgia for them at all.

I need to get myself a nice 4:3 or 5:4 19" LCD which has both VGA and DVI and I'll be sorted.

I have a Iiyama 454 and fighting demons to give it away. I just know I will regret it down the line as its in great shape. Storing away, in say, the attic, it will never be retrieved as it would be a nightmare shifting. Whenever I fire up a retro game, as DrBomb describes - CRT's simply have something over flat panels. Take the obvious choice, Doom, it looks glorious and exactly as back in the day - priceless.

Planting a CRT on my desk (already a triple screen setup) old and new, just don't mix.

Hoping to pick up a suitable unit so I can make the CRT a retro display, in the right room (my office). With imagination; I think it could work from a retro cool perspective and fit with the decor of the room. I'll still want to play the bloody thing, only when its not in use, a fancy screen saver.

That's the plan.

phatboy · 7 Feb 2020 at 22:23

almoststew1990 said:
Have you installed Direct X? That's a separate install and stops my 3D acceleration until I remember i need to install it. Maybe get DX 6 from a game?

Ok so direct x installed and it's now running correctly!

3dmark99 gave a 3dmark of 1190 I think it was an 1382 on the CPU mark. Lord only knows what that means now lol

Most importantly quake 2 is running in OpenGL and NFS3 is running happily too

Thanks again for the heads up

phatboy · 10 Feb 2020 at 15:48

Today's retro purchase is a 3COM PCI windows 95 network card so I can try and get the old girl online. £4 seemed pretty sensible.

Also pondering the purchase of a 64MB MX4000 - anyone know if I will see any decent gain over the Rage 128 Pro 32mb?

Ta

Ben

hohum · 10 Feb 2020 at 16:27

You should do - I have a 128 Pro myself, and swapping it out for a GF2 MX400 saw a noticeable improvement, so something based on a GF4 MX series is going to be even better.

The MX4000 will require a newer base driver version than, say, a GF4 MX440, so you might want to consider one of those instead if compatibility could be an issue (try and get a version with 128-bit memory for best performance).

phatboy · 10 Feb 2020 at 17:08

Not many kicking about, I am limited by a PCI socket so guess I am going to end up with a 64-bit bus

Might be worth trying to snap it up I guess then

hohum · 10 Feb 2020 at 17:23

Ah right, if you're limited to PCI then finding much at all at a decent price is tricky.

LewisRaz · 10 Feb 2020 at 17:36

phatboy said:
Today's retro purchase is a 3COM PCI windows 95 network card so I can try and get the old girl online. £4 seemed pretty sensible.

Also pondering the purchase of a 64MB MX4000 - anyone know if I will see any decent gain over the Rage 128 Pro 32mb?

Ta

Ben

I have a whole bag full of PCI NICs you could have had 1 for postage!

pingwing · 10 Feb 2020 at 20:14

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Well it happened, I have a B&O MX4000 in my living room! Need to set up the calibration disc for my dc, fiddle about with the screen a bit so it can shoot the bottom right with the light guns (you can see the right side has a slight calibration issue).

Will work out how to get the view of RGB cube online soon as it looks just stunning :cool:

phatboy · 10 Feb 2020 at 20:20

Now that is a day of doing something retro! Kudos sir!

LewisRaz · 10 Feb 2020 at 22:43

Won these 2 486 PCs on ebay. £76 total. Bit of a gamble and I am mostly interesting in the tower case but look like fun projects!

Sellers pics(Same seller as I have purchsed from before):

phatboy · 10 Feb 2020 at 23:08

Oh cool, glad you got them

Do like that DECpc case

almoststew1990 · 11 Feb 2020 at 09:45

I'm getting the urge to buy more retro parts

Maybe try OS/2 or Windows 3.1 to see what the fuss is all about. Which of course means I'd need to buy a new system. I've also got my eye on an fairly old itx pc near me...

elh_2009 · 11 Feb 2020 at 13:16

need to get myself on ebay for these old PCs, what do you even search for?

almoststew1990 · 11 Feb 2020 at 14:36

elh_2009 said:
need to get myself on ebay for these old PCs, what do you even search for?

I set up a saved search for the desktop category, within a 20m radius. When i open the search it defaults to the latest ones added so I don't trawl through hundreds of "gaming" PCs with Nvidia 730s each time.

elh_2009 · 11 Feb 2020 at 15:57

almoststew1990 said:
I set up a saved search for the desktop category, within a 20m radius. When i open the search it defaults to the latest ones added so I don't trawl through hundreds of "gaming" PCs with Nvidia 730s each time.

ah ok what are you search terms? wouldnt gaming pc just show everything including modern ones

almoststew1990 · 11 Feb 2020 at 16:59

In effect it is a blank search within the desktop PC category, I don't use a search teen

LewisRaz · 11 Feb 2020 at 17:46

I use this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/dsc/Computer...+in+Person+only",+"can't+post")&LH_PrefLoc=99

Just change postcode and distance to suit yourself

almoststew1990 · 11 Feb 2020 at 22:15

I finally tested out the ATI X600 which may or may not be an all in wonder card. The fan wouldn't spin so I took it off cleaned and, because it is a probably dead £6 card, "pressure washed" the fan itself under the tap. It worked intermittently. None of my chipset heatsinks have the right mounting distances to replace the current tiny heatsink and fan. My search for a quiet, reasonably powerful (ATI 4670 - Nvidia 9800GT sort of thing) single slot, no external GPU continues.

I also bought a bunch of crap games:
TOCA Race Driver 2 - has DRM that only seems to work on XP
Pearl Harbour 2 Day of Infamy (no idea what this is other than a flight game)
Carmageddon TDR2000
Universal Combat - looks to be somehow related to 3000AD space sim?

elh_2009 · 12 Feb 2020 at 15:48

LewisRaz said:
I use this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/dsc/Computers-Tablets-Networking/58058/i.html?_from=R40&LH_TitleDesc=1&_mPrRngCbx=1&_udlo=&_udhi=500.00&_ftrt=901&_ftrv=1&_sabdlo=&_sabdhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=25&_stpos=co2+7qw&_fspt=1&_fslt=1&LH_SellerType=1&_sop=1&_dmd=1&_ipg=100&LH_Auction=1&_nkw=("cash+on+collection",+"buyer+must+collect",+"collection+only",+"no+postage",+"pick+up+only",+"unable+to+post",+"needs+to+be+collected",+"Collection+in+Person+only",+"can't+post")&LH_PrefLoc=99

Just change postcode and distance to suit yourself

Nice one, thanks.!

LewisRaz · 13 Feb 2020 at 22:12

Soldered on another barrel battery on the 386 so I dont have to worry about disabling the charging circuit to use coin cells...
Loaded a few games on it. Had completely forgotten that some games used the PC speaker for the music/effects.. Much to the annoyance of the Mrs who had just got our daughter to sleep

Just need to set up and install a mouse driver then it will be up for a photoshoot and up for sale.

Then onto the 486 projects