After lots of reading and soul searching, I've decided to forgo an older machine in favor of dosbox. That covers my itch for older games but still leaves a nice gap of Win9x era games that hate being run on NT-based systems. I've decided along the same lines of Great Hierophant's Latest and Greatest …

Aside from the desire to play games on the original hardware, I have no reason to shun dosbox. However, the couple of games I can think of that absolutely require the original hardware are falcon 3.0 and wing commander I

Funny, it was that gateway whose hard drive I hosed that got me into IT. Made me want to fix things.

Goo be gone should take care of the foil without messing up the paint, I use that stuff by the gallon on the the classic video games I find. The drives yellowing can be fixed the same way reversing the yellowing on old macs does, soaking in peroxide or full on bleach should do it.

Any pics? For some reason, I'm all about aesthetics on this project.

I was thinking a nice big gateway or ast case. One of those big bastards that let you know there was some tech under that hood. I've always liked how sparse and functional they were. I dunno, it's a complete 360 from the gorgeous macs that I own now. Even the valuepoint cases that IBM had. Each …

So, I looked up the et4000s. Is there a specific version fo that chipset I should look for? Is the w32i the one I should be looking for on a card?

My dad had a no-name 386 way back when, and we had a few compaqs and gateway 2000s in school. I remember the first time I learned the wrong way to wipe a drive is to delete all the files in the C: drive from windows file explorer and then try to reboot... Yeah, I've learned a lot since then. Anyway, …

Is there anything specific I should be looking for in an ISA video card for the 386? Or should I just be looking for something fast and compatible? Any recommendations, or does it matter?

Well, that too. I was kind of hoping to figure it out myself, though. If there just really isn't all that much to learn, then ok.. I know with the pentium and later, it was more about chipsets than what chip you had. Is there a consensus about what parts to slap onto a 386 box? Does it matter what …

Alright, I've decided on two machines. A good 386 for most of the older stuff, and a balls to the wall 440bx pIII for everything else. Now, it occurred to me that I know exactly nothing about the 386 era machines and what to look for or even where to begin. So, does anyone have any good links to …

So my girlfriend has this old p2 rig in her closet that she used to use as a linux box. I ripped it apart and took note of what was in there. This is what I found: Create LXE-AT 440ex/lx mobo ( I can't find anything other than base specs on this thing. Would anyone happen to have a manual?) p2-300 …

From reading through the board, it seems like there is some kind of concensus as to what parts work best for what uses. Of course there is some wiggle room for personal preference. I was wondering if maybe we could put together a guide for what parts/specs should go together for certain specific …

Well, like I said, it'd be mostly for CD-based multimedia games. I never got into ultima or it's style of RPG and I didn't get into Wing Commander until 3, which has windows versions. I guess I need to rethink this a little. I want to recreate the feeling I had when I first got that packard bell. It …

Well... I was thinking of basing it around a p233mmx or ppro 200. I haven't decided yet. I am still learning about the various chipsets and features available for supporting those chips back then. What I figure out there will determine the CPU family. I was kind of oblivious to the way it all worked …

Alright, so I've decided to take up the mantle of (finally) building a classic rig...or three. Anyway, I went through my big box of parts and came up with the following three video cards: Diamond Stealth 3D Pro MSI-8088 (Vanta TNT2/M64) (agp) PNY Geforce4 MX 400? (pci) (not sure if it's a 440 or …