Hi, all. Seems like I'm more or less finished with building and upgrading my first Socket 7 machine so I wanted to share my results!

At first I was inspired with Boxer — a beautiful OS X frontend for DosBox. For instance, it has this:

It emulates MT-32 and the messages that the game would send to it. At that point I thought: "So it's quite an expensive audio device a lot of people probably didn't have. Yet the guys at Sierra actually figured out a way to use it for easter eggs. Cool!" This was the first time I've learnt that Sound Blaster was just a tip of the iceberg for DOS/early Windows machines, and AdLib was not just a poor man's sound card (as I thought as a child).

I started listening to various MIDI samples on YouTube. After that I learnt that DOS games are supposed to look better on an old school curved CRT screen. Ditto for FMV games with interlaced video — and I'm a sucker for those. Another point was that joysticks were seemingly more popular at that time, and there were a lot of space/mecha sims I've never heard of.

All that made me think: "Why not build an actual DOS machine?" This is how I wanted it to look, originally (via Kotaku):

Originally, I thought that I would build this machine just like I would any modern rig: pick the parts, find them on Avito (Russian version of eBay), assemble them. After some research I realised that would complicate things: I needed to pick not just major components, but also every cable and screw. So I decided to find a working machine I could use as a starting point.

My original "classic desktop" vision didn't pan out, though. As many of you pointed out, they weren't all that popular in the Pentium era. Most of horizontal cases were OEM builds, like Compaq Deskpro or HP Vanta. And those are:

- rare and more expensive. If a motherboard or PSU turns out to be dead, I'm pretty much screwed as the spare parts would be impossible to find;
- limited in their upgradeability. I'm yet to see a Compaq with 4/3 PCI/ISA slots although I know they exist. To be fair, those machines typically have integrated PS/2, COM/LPT and USB ports as opposed to having dedicated expansions cards taking up slots;
- have their quirks like BIOS HDD limit, proprietary lock-ins, etc;
- have integrated components, such as GPU, sound or LAN that I'll also have to deal with.

So, this is the machine I picked out as a starting point:

Fun fact: I bought this from an actual (ex?) FSB officer family. I didn't know until I came to their block and realised I can't get through security without company, which is unusual for a Russian residential area, to say the least. For those who don't know, FSB is Russian intelligence, kind of like CIA. When I got to their apartment, my host acknowledged the whole FSB thing, and there were a lot of FSB memorabilia (banners, medals, etc) lying around 😀

Looks like this was a Formoza build — that was an OEM popular in 90s Russia. I did not get a horizontal desktop case, but this case also has value for me — it's exactly the same no-name case I had as a child in a Pentium II machine. So, yeah, that was right in the feels, folks.

Disclaimer: I haven't figured a way to upload all the photos here past the 5 photos limit. So most of the photos I use here are from places I've bought the parts from. In some cases, they are just from the internet. Sorry. I'll try to add some photos of my own if somebody is interested, though I realise that none of my parts are actual rarities.

Here are the original specs:

- Pentium MMX 233;
- 32 MB RAM, single DIMM;
- LuckyStar 5ITX1 rev 2.0 motherboard (Intel 430TX chipset) — it's a Taiwanese manufacturer that was often used by Formoza. Most of the information I could find on this brand was in Russian, so I suppose, it wasn't that popular in other countries;

- S3 Trio/Virge GPU with no added RAM;

- Cirrus Logic CrystalClear 4235-KQ;
- Quantum Fireball 2.5a 2,5 GB HDD;
- Pioneer DR-444 12x CD-ROM;
- Genius EasyMouse;
- "Turbotrak Keyboard";
- Creative SBS20 speakers;
- Samsung SyncMaster 755DFX 17" CRT screen. I actually had a choice between this and a 15 inch curved Panasonic screen. But when I've seen the latter in person, it turned out to be actually painful to look at and it was in much worse condition. So yeah, a 2003 CRT screen is not that "period accurate" but it has a pretty nice picture.

First upgrade

This project actually made me travel all over the Moscow (it has a population of 15 mil, so...) and visit a bunch of places I would normally never go to. First was an actual second hand store for electronics. Here's what I bought:

- a Diamond Monster Voodoo II V-1000 videocard;

- Sony CRX230E CD-RW drive to burn my ISOs (I have no other PC with an optical drive in my house);

- 3Com 3C905C-TXM PCI network card;

- an 80GB Seagate IDE drive

My first joystick

A Gravis Phoenix joystick! Near mint condition, the original package, manual, drivers floppy and Descent disc!

It looks really cool, but it turned out to have awful ergonomics. First, both triggers can't be used at the same time, you have to switch between them. The buttons are tiny and the handle feels weird in hand. Second, it comes with programming software I'm yet to figure out. And even the bundled Descent can't use it without configuration. So I'm thinking of getting a cheap Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick this week.

Fun fact: I bought it on an actual parking lot of a strip club. The guy didn't look like a criminal, but for some reason he did pick that spot. 🤣

Next came the 80 gigs HDD issue. My LuckyStar motherboard does have an 120GB support patch, but looks like it's for another revision. Anyways, I couldn't apply it. So I decided that I want another motherboard.

Asus motherboard

I always had Asus motherboards, and so my first pick was an Asus TX97-E. I bought it for 2,5 bucks with a Pentium 120 megahertz CPU and some SIMMs.

With it came my first experience with motherboard jumpers. If someone wants a facepalm moment, you can read it here. Long story short, looks like I fried my Pentium MMX, though I'm still not sure what exactly I did wrong.

The next revelation was that Asus motherboard did not use common PS/2 and USB explansion cards. It needed a combined one, like this:

The guy who sold me this motherboard didn't have it and I could not find any on the net (buying from eBay was surely an overkill). So I had two options:

- get PCI controllers for USB and PS/2;
- get yet another motherboard.

I picked the latter option.

AOpen motherboard

I found a guy with an AOpen AP5T motherboard, a 32 MB DIMM module, some SIMM modules, two Pentium MMX 200MHz and some ESS sound cards. It all cost me 9 dollars.

Funnily, I always thought AOpen only makes cheap HDMI cables, but the motherboard actually seems to be built better than Asus or LuckyStar.

The motherboard came with the Pentium overclocked to 250 MHz, so I didn't need to fiddle with jumpers anymore. I also now have 64 megs of RAM, the maximum for the 430TX chipset. Finally I have a dual HDD configuration, a 40 GB Samsung drive and an 80 GB Seagate drive — that's more than enough storage.

A bunch of GPUs and sound cards

Russian internet has its own version of almost everything — not because the original versions are banned (like in China), but because either someone came up with an alternative before the original gained prominence in the local market (Vkontakte vs Facebook) or because the original version worked poorly in Russia (Avito vs eBay). So we also have a Russian Reddit called Leprosorium. It's a bit weird because it's invite-only (you can't even read it unless you have an account), subscription-based ($10 a year) and supposedly very "elite". Which means its members are really helpful to each other!

When I told others I'm building a retro machine, another member reached out to me and told he had a bunch of parts he could give for free. He gave me about 20 PCI GPUs and 6 sound cards. Here is the list:

Video:

- S3 Trio64V2/DX;
- S3 Virge 325;
- Alliance AT24 — Diamond Multimedia Stealth Video 2500;
- 2 x Ati Mach64 VT (Charger??);
- Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430;
- SiS 6215 (PCI-VGA6215-1M rev.1.0);
- ALi M3141A;
- VGA card S3 Virge/GX Quad Head, 16MB (??);
- 5 x Matrox G200 — MGI G2+/DUALP-PL;
- 2 x Matrox G200 — MGI G2+/QUADP-PL/7;
- 2 x Nvidia Quadro4 400NVS;

Sound:

- AWE64 CT4500;
- Vibra 16XV CT4170;
- Vibra 16C CT4180;
- Vibra 16 CT2940;
- Formoza SC1620;
- MediaMagic ISP-16.

Again, none of these are rarities. Some of them don't even work. Most are double or quad heads. But I got a choice of a better sound card than my Cirrus Logic, a better S3 Virge card and a bunch of RAM modules for it, a bunch of cables and screws I could use in my build. I settled for a CT4170 as I couldn't set up AWE64. Either it's dead or I need to reflash its BIOS. The system freezes at POST with it.

So, here are my current specs:

- Pentium MMX 200, overclocked to 250 MHz;
- 64 MB SDRAM;
- S3 Virge 325;
- VooDoo 2 V-1000;
- Vibra 16XV CT4170;
- 40+80 GB HDD;
- 52X CD-RW;
- 100MB NIC.

I'm sure these specs scream MOAR IS BETTER to the purists among you, but the idea behind the whole huge HDD thing was that I could download a batch of ISOs from my FTP server (another rig) overnight and then burn them to CDs. Besides, I'm actually thinking about giving Baldur's Gate 1/2 another run on this machine and these games just love taking up space. Also, I got a Voodoo 2 because it's cheaper and easier to find than a Voodoo 1.

Next steps:

1. Cable management. Well, you've all seen it. 🤣
2. Get a Microsoft Sidewinder joystick. Quickshot joysticks also look nice, though don't seem too practical for Wing Commander or X-Wing.
3. Add a USB card and get a Microsoft steerwing wheel. Never had a wheel, let alone a force feedback one.
4. Be on a lookout for better sound/MIDI cards. When I started this project, I did not realise how expensive Roland MT-32s were. I could only find one in Moscow for about 280 USD without a power supply or any other included stuff. AWE32s also cost a bit more I'm ready to pay right now — though it might be a nice birthday present to myself!
5. I'm also getting a DIN-5 Mitsumi Classic keyboard. I'm not sure it's gonna be any better than my noname current keyboard, but it's free and unused. Also want to get a better mouse with a third button or a wheel (an original Intellimouse, perhaps).

Thanks for sticking with me. It's my first build and I know I made a lot of mistakes. The part where I fried a CPU was a particulary painful one. Still I'd welcome any feedback! I'll also try to post photos of some weird parts I ended up with.