- Joined
- Sep 20, 2001
- Location
- Bakersfield, CA
You might have issues when......you use Google Sheets to track all of your hardware, their capabilities and compatibilities.
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Got hobby issues?
- Thread starter Voodoo Rufus
- Start date
- Joined
- May 17, 2012
That is cool! 
I see your oldest OS is Win98SE....Thats cool too! My very first PC had Win95 and at work we used NT. But I was nowhere near the hobbyist I am now.
When I was 19yo my neighbor got me a job at IBM. I did what they called Element Exchange meaning I fixed CRT's and KB's. I had a bigazz white van loaded with parts. I would hang out with him in his garage at night drinking Jim Beam and Coke. He was always tinkering with machines while I just watched and threw darts. Wow, your post just rattled my cage. Sorry for the banter. But thank you for that.
Edit: To clarify...We used NT at a different job, not IBM, at a DSL CLEC called Northpoint. That was a fun job too.
I see your oldest OS is Win98SE....Thats cool too! My very first PC had Win95 and at work we used NT. But I was nowhere near the hobbyist I am now.
When I was 19yo my neighbor got me a job at IBM. I did what they called Element Exchange meaning I fixed CRT's and KB's. I had a bigazz white van loaded with parts. I would hang out with him in his garage at night drinking Jim Beam and Coke. He was always tinkering with machines while I just watched and threw darts. Wow, your post just rattled my cage. Sorry for the banter. But thank you for that.
Edit: To clarify...We used NT at a different job, not IBM, at a DSL CLEC called Northpoint. That was a fun job too.
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OP
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2001
- Location
- Bakersfield, CA
- Thread Starter
- #3
That one is a tentative build. I still have some *gasp* floppies for old Star Wars DOS games, which makes a Win98SE machine make sense. Voodoo2's aren't terribly expensive. But honestly, everything I would play from that era was ported to Steam in a functional matter, so I don't think I'll do it. I think my father has a K6-3 550 ACR somewhere, which is gold in the retro market. He probably bought it for $20 on ebay a decade ago. He also still uses DOS Orcad for his electronics drafting, and imports it to modern Windows for everything else.
The real ticket is the games that use EAX, which needs hardware audio and was broken in everything past Win7 since Windows Vista and 10 made hardware accelerated sound obsolete.
The sheet is also useful for what I've learned on this whole vintage gaming adventure. What works and what doesn't, in order to get the best possible experience for games that would wouldn't even run at decent FPS when they were new at resolutions that we would cringe at today. Now they will run at HD resolutions or better, maxing out the game engines, and with hardware accelerated sound, making for a better experience than we ever did then.
For example: WinXP doesn't know what to do with HDMI outside of the original spec, but you can force it to use Displayport to get 1440p and force the refresh rate to what you want. EAX is no problem. Windows 7 can handle all the games in DX11 that destroyed systems at the time, like the original Crysis, but will loaf along with GPUs that have drivers for it still today. A GTX960 is cheap but has all the modern outputs, and is the last card to have WinXP drivers. The Titan Black is the fastest card for WinXP, but the outputs are more limited. Not like it matters for that OS, as everything will be more CPU bound from that era. I intend to play FEAR, Crysis, Doom 3 and Dirt 2 in the older OS'es, but that's about it. I also found a hack to get Dirt 2 to work in Windows 10 since "Games for Windows Live" servers were shut down, which may have made the Win7 rig pointless. Cest la vie.
The real ticket is the games that use EAX, which needs hardware audio and was broken in everything past Win7 since Windows Vista and 10 made hardware accelerated sound obsolete.
The sheet is also useful for what I've learned on this whole vintage gaming adventure. What works and what doesn't, in order to get the best possible experience for games that would wouldn't even run at decent FPS when they were new at resolutions that we would cringe at today. Now they will run at HD resolutions or better, maxing out the game engines, and with hardware accelerated sound, making for a better experience than we ever did then.
For example: WinXP doesn't know what to do with HDMI outside of the original spec, but you can force it to use Displayport to get 1440p and force the refresh rate to what you want. EAX is no problem. Windows 7 can handle all the games in DX11 that destroyed systems at the time, like the original Crysis, but will loaf along with GPUs that have drivers for it still today. A GTX960 is cheap but has all the modern outputs, and is the last card to have WinXP drivers. The Titan Black is the fastest card for WinXP, but the outputs are more limited. Not like it matters for that OS, as everything will be more CPU bound from that era. I intend to play FEAR, Crysis, Doom 3 and Dirt 2 in the older OS'es, but that's about it. I also found a hack to get Dirt 2 to work in Windows 10 since "Games for Windows Live" servers were shut down, which may have made the Win7 rig pointless. Cest la vie.
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I wish I had kept more detailed records like you do.
I bought my first home computer in 1979 but didn't start documenting things until 2002.
I bought my first PC compatible computer in January 1995. Here is all I can remember about it:
Intel 486DX2-66 CPU
Multi-I/O-Controller on VESA Local Bus
Video Card on VESA Local Bus
Sound card with 2x CD/RW drive combo
750MB hard drive
DOS 6.22/Windows for Workgroups 3.11 *
* March 1995 upgraded to Windows 95 Beta
Back in 1997 I ran Slackware Linux. It was really primitive because every time it booted it had to scan for hardware and try to load drivers.
I bought my first home computer in 1979 but didn't start documenting things until 2002.
I bought my first PC compatible computer in January 1995. Here is all I can remember about it:
Intel 486DX2-66 CPU
Multi-I/O-Controller on VESA Local Bus
Video Card on VESA Local Bus
Sound card with 2x CD/RW drive combo
750MB hard drive
DOS 6.22/Windows for Workgroups 3.11 *
* March 1995 upgraded to Windows 95 Beta
Back in 1997 I ran Slackware Linux. It was really primitive because every time it booted it had to scan for hardware and try to load drivers.
- Joined
- May 17, 2005
- Location
- High Desert, Calif.
You know there's help for that, I think they have a program at the Betty Ford Clinic. Just kidding! I wish I had kept a hardware document listing all components that have passed through my hands. I see you still have a Geforce 3 ti 4200, yes? Oh man, what fun I had overclocking and benchmarking those on Mad Onion....good times.
OP
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2001
- Location
- Bakersfield, CA
- Thread Starter
- #9
Lol. I don't have time to list all my sh1t. Takes all the fun out of being a hoarder.
I imagine your hoard as a full basement filled with OEM boxes, with plenty of dust and 1990s era beige cases.
I was forced to sell some hardware because of lack of space and I simply needed money on something new. It wasn't the oldest stuff, but still worth something. It's not worth to sell anything very old. If it's not Mac 1 then it's worth $1 (maybe will be worth some more in some years). Now you can get good money for first generations of Nvidia and ATI graphics cards, Voodoo series and similar things.
I still have a lot of CPUs, but motherboards are mainly broken. I'm not sure why, but well-packed older motherboards after a couple of years simply don't work. Older like Socket A, s478 or LGA775. Slot A and anything P1-P3 era works fine. ASUS s478 mobos work fine, all other brands are dead. The same every single s754/939 is broken, doesn't work at all, or memory slots are not working.
I used to track results and tested hardware on hwbot, which was very handy for that. There were 5k+ results or something. I don't even remember and I wasn't checking hwbot for long months. I still have something around 30-40 untested CPUs, but most motherboards are dead and nothing good on auctions. I don't even have time or motivation to back to some series. I would still play with something like Slot A or later P3, but it's nearly impossible to find them nowadays.
The oldest working hardware that I have is Bondwell 8, 1984/1985 model. Nothing to do on that as there is only a single floppy with Basic, but I know it works.
I still have a lot of CPUs, but motherboards are mainly broken. I'm not sure why, but well-packed older motherboards after a couple of years simply don't work. Older like Socket A, s478 or LGA775. Slot A and anything P1-P3 era works fine. ASUS s478 mobos work fine, all other brands are dead. The same every single s754/939 is broken, doesn't work at all, or memory slots are not working.
I used to track results and tested hardware on hwbot, which was very handy for that. There were 5k+ results or something. I don't even remember and I wasn't checking hwbot for long months. I still have something around 30-40 untested CPUs, but most motherboards are dead and nothing good on auctions. I don't even have time or motivation to back to some series. I would still play with something like Slot A or later P3, but it's nearly impossible to find them nowadays.
The oldest working hardware that I have is Bondwell 8, 1984/1985 model. Nothing to do on that as there is only a single floppy with Basic, but I know it works.
OP
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2001
- Location
- Bakersfield, CA
- Thread Starter
- #11
If you have dead boards, it's most likely the capacitors. Those are a cheap swap, and you can get far superior caps these days that will last essentially forever. Worst case, the boards might be the early days of ROHS and the lead-less solder was garbage and didn't always age well. I think it's better now.
I guess the second issue as it was about when all were removing lead from electronics. It's still too much work only to check if it's going to work when I don't really have plans to bench it again. Maybe if I had any of the top series mobos, then I would try to fix it.
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