VOGONS


First post, by Woolie Wool

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I likely won't be able to afford all the parts I need for months since i spent way more on the Athlon Thunderbird rig than I originally intended, but I figured I might as well post about my plans and solicit advice on how to make the build even better than it otherwise would. This thread will periodically be bumped as I work towards collecting the parts.

This is going to be a period-correct theme build, and the conceit behind it is that it was supposedly originally built in 1996 and sold for somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000 as a Windows NT workstation for video editing, and was purchased by some rich nut who wanted to have the baddest-ass DOS gaming rig ever to play 3D-intensive games like Descent II, MechWarrior 2 Mercenaries, Quake, etc. I grew up using a 486DX2/66 with 8MB RAM and a 8-bit Sound Blaster, and by 1996 the machine was really struggling with newer games (if they could even be installed; there was no CD-ROM drive). I read through catalogs my mother had shipped to her and the readme/catalog files of various shareware games and dreamed of all the exotic hardware games were supporting now--the "586" Pentium, the Sound Blaster AWE32, the Gravis Ultrasound, and most mysterious of all, an even faster Pentium called the Pentium Pro. 8-year-old me knew the Pentium Pro had to be the most awesome CPU in the world. I looked at the hulking Pentium Pro workstations costing so many thousands of dollars and dreamed.

But they don't cost that much anymore! So I'm going to build my own, a computer that would have made my child self have a heart attack and die from its overwhelming majesty. Please tell me if anything about this build can be improved. I want to stick mostly to workstation and professional parts that happen to be good for playing games, not dedicated gaming gear (though I'll use a Voodoo since back then it was the only 3D card worth having for games).
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This is the case I will use (seller's photo), a Chenbro SR20503. Probably not the nicest full tower in the world but it looks correct and I've already bought it and it's on the way, new for $50.

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I've purchased an NOS Pentium Pro 180 MHz but I may end up not using it if I can find a suitable board that's pre-assembled with a 200 MHz Pentium Pro (or two). Is it true that the 180 and 200 MHz models have incompatible bus speeds and require different motherboards?

I'm going to use a socket 8 E-ATX motherboard with 64 MB of EDO RAM. Suggestions on good board makes and models would be highly appreciated because I don't know shit.

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For video, I'll be using this Matrox Millennium MGA 2064W I have here and add a 6MB memory daughterboard, for a total of 10 megs of video RAM, with a medusa cable going into a 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics (not yet purchased).

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For sound, my first choice will be a Terratec EWS64L (even though it's from '97), but if I can't swing the cost I'll settle for an AWE32 unless you guys can recommend me a good pro-quality SB compatible card that won't cost $200 or make me want to kill myself setting it up.

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Hooked up to that will be a Roland SC-88, which I own, but it's on its way from Japan so I can't photograph it yet so here's the seller's photo. I originally wanted an SC-88 Pro but they're vastly more expensive for, AFAIK, virtually no improvement for gaming and not period correct.

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Here's the D-Link DFE-538TX 10/100Mbit network card; again a seller's photo because it's on the way from Canada.

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For storage, I plan to have a 3.5" floppy drive, 5.25" floppy drive, Iomega Zip drive, 8X CD-ROM drive, two 2GB hard drives, and some bulk backup solution (Iomega Jaz? DAT?), with as much of it as possible hooked up via SCSI because of course a 22-year-old computer that cost more than a new subcompact car would have SCSI. What SCSI options were available in 1996? I know there are multiple incompatible standards.

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The power supply will be a StarTech ATXPOWER300 300W unit. It is not old, but looks it and has the 5V rail to match, and 300W will be plenty for this machine.

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The machine will boot MS-DOS 6 and Windows NT v4.0. Not sure what I'll actually be able to do with NT4 because I've heard NT workstations weren't actually useful for much actual work even in the day. I guess it will run Quake II? Nevertheless I'll keep it for authenticity's sake.

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1wpfky-2.png REDBOX
3q6x0e-2.png FUNKENSTEIN_3D

Reply 1 of 23, by squiggly

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> Not sure what I'll actually be able to do with NT4 because I've heard NT workstations weren't actually useful for much actual work even in the day

They were *only* useful for work. Games on the other hand...

Reply 2 of 23, by Woolie Wool

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Well the thing was it seems like Unix RISC machines were way better at pretty much any kind of serious work than NT4, so NT kind of sank until Windows 2000 (personally I think Microsoft should have worked on drivers and DirectX support for NT early, worked with OEMs to ship dual-boot DOS/NT machines, and skipped Windows 98, it would have saved people a lot of headaches in the late '90s).

But anyway, it's a workstation, so it's got to have NT even if it will only be used 1% of the time.

wp0kyr-2.png CALIFORNIA_RAYZEN
1wpfky-2.png REDBOX
3q6x0e-2.png FUNKENSTEIN_3D

Reply 4 of 23, by Nick4

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Very nice build! Like how you are going Pro.
I tried to use NT4.0 for games, it is not a good idea. Almost nothing i wanted, ran properly. Quake II did not ran. Also, it is great os for nostalgia and Space Cadet pinball=)

Reply 5 of 23, by oeuvre

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NT4 is still useful for FTP'ing stuff and things like Office 97 and 2000 work on it. I believe Roller Coaster Tycoon will work on it as well. Where did you get that case from?

HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7
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Reply 7 of 23, by Anonymous Coward

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Try to get the 512kb cache versions of the 200MHz Ppro.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 8 of 23, by luckybob

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Once you've bashed your skull on the desk enough and NT4 is fully setup it is a ROCK.

As for scsi drives, I personally prefer these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/132507836485
They are quiet, they are decent enough in the speed category. they also come in 4.3gb flavors, are usually cheaper too. Whatever you decide is sufficient.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 9 of 23, by kixs

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Nick4 wrote:

Very nice build! Like how you are going Pro.
I tried to use NT4.0 for games, it is not a good idea. Almost nothing i wanted, ran properly. Quake II did not ran. Also, it is great os for nostalgia and Space Cadet pinball=)

This is clearly not true.

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs

Reply 10 of 23, by gdjacobs

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Those Chenbro cases always look so chunky and industrial. Lovin' it.

Woolie Wool wrote:
https://i.imgur.com/h8i85opm.jpg The power supply will be a StarTech ATXPOWER300 300W unit. It is not old, but looks it and has […]
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h8i85opm.jpg
The power supply will be a StarTech ATXPOWER300 300W unit. It is not old, but looks it and has the 5V rail to match, and 300W will be plenty for this machine.

Could you please do me a favor by popping the top of this PSU and taking some pictures of the guts for the PSU Bust a Myth thread? People have been wondering about this PSU and how well made it is.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 11 of 23, by Radical Vision

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It will be glorious system when it is finished, after all Pentium Pro is like a Titan...
Too bad they are hard to find, also the boards as well. But on the bright side you have at least Pentium Pro and even in box like new, so is still a start (for example i don`t have even a Pentium Pro as they are all too expensive bcuz of the f**king gold.....) and later on you will find what you need.

On other hand for example i don`t plan to make on build, specially in short period of time, as the high end parts are really hard to find, (specially when you don`t want to spend a penny). So what i do is just collecting and searching for old parts, and at some point i just find some great things.

Last months i did found things like Pentium IV 3.2GHz (as they are hard to get when i don`t want to pay money), i did also get before a time Intel 478 desktop board for free instead of paying much. Previous day for example i did found GEforce 4 TI4800SE (at least the box of that card is there the seller is not sure if he have the card or not, if i have luck he will have it), also i did found ASUS P3B-F with as well MSI 370>Slot 1 adapter that can be modded to be used with Tualatin.

So you will find what you need, but somewhere in the time, if you want the system to be up and running very fast, then you will need to pay a lot...

Mah systems retro, old, newer (Radical stuff)
W3680 4.5/ GA-x58 UD7/ R9 280x
K7 2.6/ NF7-S/ HD3850
IBM x2 P3 933/ GA-6VXD7/ Voodoo V 5.5K
Cmq P2 450/ GA-BX2000/ V2 SLI
IBM PC365
Cmq DeskPRO 486/33
IBM PS/2 Model 56
SPS IntelleXT 8088

Reply 12 of 23, by amadeus777999

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Beautiful setup.
Pentium Pro is the most interesting "vintage" CPU. Even though I like the Pentium60 more the PPro is THE "thing" when it comes to early 3D accelerated Quake and processor "pron".

Reply 13 of 23, by chinny22

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As soon as you mention a 2nd CPU its overkill, only sensible thing is to keep going!

Wouldn't say NT4 wasn't useful back in the day, it was just more expensive and people were happy enough with Win9x.
My "fileserver" runs NT4 Server but it is hard to find uses for the OS today, but the challenge is fun.

Reply 14 of 23, by Katmai500

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gdjacobs wrote:

Those Chenbro cases always look so chunky and industrial. Lovin' it.

Woolie Wool wrote:
https://i.imgur.com/h8i85opm.jpg The power supply will be a StarTech ATXPOWER300 300W unit. It is not old, but looks it and has […]
Show full quote

h8i85opm.jpg
The power supply will be a StarTech ATXPOWER300 300W unit. It is not old, but looks it and has the 5V rail to match, and 300W will be plenty for this machine.

Could you please do me a favor by popping the top of this PSU and taking some pictures of the guts for the PSU Bust a Myth thread? People have been wondering about this PSU and how well made it is.

I just got one of these and have been putting it through it's paces on my test bench. I'll pop it open and post some pictures next chance I get. 😀

Reply 15 of 23, by Errius

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I have a Dell PowerEdge 2100/180 from 1996 with roughly similar specs. No AGP though. Was AGP a thing in 1996?

ETA: just noticed this thread is a necro. Did the OP ever complete the build?

Last edited by Errius on 2018-07-18, 19:58. Edited 1 time in total.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 16 of 23, by chinny22

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Errius wrote:

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2100/180 from 1996 with roughly similar specs. No AGP though. Was AGP a thing in 1996?

LX based boards were the first with AGP and they didn't really hit the market till around 1997

Reply 18 of 23, by matze79

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NT4 is fine for OpenGL Games, but forget about DirectX, latest Version is inofficial DirectX 5.2.. maybe some dx6 titles with manually copying dll files over.
But only Software Emulation Direct3D.

https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board