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Keeping "ancient" computers around

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Celeron_Phreak

Celeron_Phreak

Member
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Joined
Mar 28, 2003
Who here still has an old computer (Pentium 1/AMD K5/Cyrix 6x86 or 386/486) that they keep around for the sake of authentic classic gaming? I myself perfer to play the games I grew up with on the hardware it was made to run on. None of this "dosbox" stuff, which tends to be more flakey than Win95 ever was.

I'm currently in the process of building an old AMD K5 PR166 (overclocked to a PR200 :D), 128MB of RAM, S3 2MB video card with a 3DFX Monster3D (Voodoo 1) video accellerator, 10.2GB HD for Windows9x, 3.2GB hard drive for DOS 6.22 & Win 3.11, 12x CD-ROM. 5.25" 1.2MB floppy drive, 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive and a SoundBlaster 16 ISA sound card.


If you do still keep a comp around, please post the specs. :)
 
I have a working
C64/128,
Apple IIgs,
286 somewhere 2x20gig hard drives,
P133(2x2gig HD, 4meg S3 card, 80meg of ram, SB compatible, 5¼ and 3½floppies, a 350mb tape backup)
and an AMD K6-3 450(16meg AIW rage 128, 128meg of ram and SB Live) :).

So to answer your question.... YES! Can never have enough spare computers around.
 
Tandy 486sx

DX2-66
20mb RAM
1.6Gb, 130 Mb HDDs
2Mb vid card (don't remember what it is)
2x 3.5" Floppy
CD-ROM

DOS 6.22, Win 3.1

Used (rarely) to play Caesar2, Star Control2, Wing Commander3, Pacific Air War Gold (still my favorite flight sim game).
 
Ill probably keep my current setup, so 10 years down the line I can still play the greats like Deux Ex, SS2, C&C series, Sims etc.

As for owning a older machine, I really dont need one due to the wonderful programs called emulators :D
 
I still have most of the components to put one together. Still trying to get my brother's Adlib card from him, so I can play with something other than the pc screecher.
 
The reason I keep an old system around is because a lot of the stuff that I enjoy doing/playing just doesn't work right under an emulator. King's Quest 5/6, Nuclear Strike, Descent Freespace, etc.
 
Here's how I've always tended to "classify" older comps. It's not accurate, it's just how I like to look at it, so don't chew me out! lol


Ancient:
8080
8086
8088
286
386
486
Motorola 65xx
Motorola 680x0

Really Old:
Pentium
Pentium II
AMD K5
AMD K6
AMD K6/2
Cyrix 6x86
Celeron up to 500MHz

Old:
Pentium III
Celeron up to 1.0GHz
Pentium 4 up to 1.4GHz
AMD Duron
AMD Athlon up to 1.2GHz

Semi-Old
Pentium 4 up to 2.8Hz
AMD Athlon XP
 
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Got a working Vic20 with the original tapedeck to save your basic programs on tape and about 15 game cartrige.. how old would you rate it?
 
I still play on C64 a lot. emulator just doesn't cut it at all plus a couple games I like to play doesn't run right on emulator. I also have 128D around. Oh yeah a Mac Plus with 4MB RAM and a Mac Centris 610.
 
I would have to say the Vic20 falls into the ancient catagory, as it uses a Motorola 6502A CPU.
 
Man I wish I still had my Commodore 64.
I had such a blast playing games on it way back when it was first introduced.
Unfortunately my parents threw it up into the attic along with all of my 5 1/4" disks.
It gets so hot up there that nothing worked anymore, disks were warped and the Commodore got soft enough to lose it's shape :(
 
I'll try to not go into too much detail so that my list stays somewhat short. :)
1) Source One Systems 8088-2 8MHz, 640KB RAM, 360KB 5.25in fdd, 20MB 5.25in hdd, CGA graphics card and monitor, DOS 3.2 and 6.2, sound=internal speaker
2) Apple PowerMac 7300/180, 32MB RAM, 2GB SCSI hdd, 3.5in fdd, 8x (?) cdrom, 2MB(?) vram, System 7.5.5 and OS9
3) Dell with a 486DX2-66, 16MB RAM, 5.25 and 3.5in fdd, Sound Blaster 16 ISA (IIRC)
4) IBM PS/2 with 386-16, 40MB hdd, not sure how much RAM IIRC 4MB, needs a new BIOS chip
5) IBM PS/1 with 486SX-25MHz, 12MB ram (IIRC), 180MB hdd, 3.5in fdd, integrated gfx, DOS 6.x and Windows 3.1
6) HP Pavilion 6553 with Celeron 466, 128MB PC100 RAM, 210MB hdd

I have more, but they are close to the same as what I listed (mostly 486SX) and so I did not put them.

Edit: Forgot the one that was my main computer from 01-04:
Touch Computer Systems with P200-MMX, 192MB pc100, 2GB hdd, originally a FIC motherboard, now an Asus P5A-B.

Edit 2: Forgot this:
IBM Aptiva with AMD K6-2 250MHz oc to 400MHz, 256MB pc100, integrated ATi Mach64 (?) gfx w/ 8MB vram, 6.4GB hdd, 3.5in fdd
 
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Hmm, I suppose I should list all of the other ones I have. :p

1) Macintosh Classic, 2MB RAM, 500MB SCSI HDD, 3.5" superdrive, System 6.0.1
2)Macintosh Portable Backlit, 1MB RAM, 40MB HDD, 3.5" superdrive, System 7.0.1
3)Apple IIc+, can't remember the specs, but everything is loaded off floppies
4)PowerBook Duo 230 w/Duo Dock, 4MB RAM, 80MB HDD, System 7.0.1
5)Gateway Solo 5300, 256MB RAM, 9.2GB HDD, 3.5" floppy, 32x24x CD/DVD-ROM, WinXP Pro

I've got enough parts in my closet to build a few 286, 386 and 486 computers, but I have no cases ot house them in.
 
Celeron_Phreak said:
The reason I keep an old system around is because a lot of the stuff that I enjoy doing/playing just doesn't work right under an emulator. King's Quest 5/6, Nuclear Strike, Descent Freespace, etc.
Click to expand...

:confused:
I play Conquest of longbow, KQ, QFG and a few others on dosbox just fine. The problem is finding the right settings to make it work right and then making a boot file. For COL I use frameskip=2 and cycles=2500. It runs like a breeze. :)

Probably BETTER then on my 286. Problem I have is their version of copyright protection. Secret codes you need from the manual.... the manual I have lost some time ago. :(

JT
 
I've just found that everything seems to have more "life" to it running on what it was made to run on. KQ6 had midi music in it, which will sound different on different sound cards becasue of their midi decoders. Sound Blaster 16 is what I thougt it always sounded the best on.
 
I have an Abit BP6 with a pair of Celly 366s@550 I keep running strictly for nostalgic purposes. It's not the oldest I have, but only one I actually still tinker with. I don't even consider it all that old...that thing still has a little zip in it.
 
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