Great build! Well chosen parts, very balanced. Like that SCSI drive too.

You gotta give props that that Ultrastar. Those guys were beasts back in the day. Right there with the Seagate Cheetah and Quantum Atlas 10k. 😀

Very nice build, brostenen!

Thanks.... It has been an ongoing project for a couple of years now.
It actually started out, with an P-133 in the first place.
All part's besides the floppy are changed from the original build.

clueless1 wrote:

You gotta give props that that Ultrastar. Those guys were beasts back in the day. Right there with the Seagate Cheetah and Quantum Atlas 10k. 😀

Very nice build, brostenen!

Thanks

I have an extra drive, destined for another build.
Going to go along with a 386 or 486 system.

nice job! It's quite hard to set an exact goal with that kind of quest as computers are ever evolving while dragging compatibility from the past technologies. Your setup is very tidy with all the tie-wrap and seem clean, I would trust it would work.
I had that kind of cooler on a pentium-1 and I replaced it with a more well built fan as I found it was kind of noisy and cheaply done. Maybe you will care about the noise if you swap the 10k hdd for a CF.
Is the MP400 useful at all ? I had a p1-166 non-mmx when it came out and I don't remember having any problem watching mpeg-1 movie without any acceleration. Maybe it's purpose is to mix many of them with adobe premier or something like that?

I think you are probably right about that MPEG-1 card. It might be better suited in a 486-dx2.
Though I really like it very much, and I just feel that it belongs in my slowest Win98 machine.
It is Dos compatible, yet I have no need for it in Dos, so it went into this machine.
In this build, however, I can watch VideCD movies and not having any load on the CPU.
Actually a reason why I used a SCSI solution. Only in order to off-load the CPU.

My lineup is based on the following platforms:
286, 386sx33, 486dx33, 5x86-133, P-166, P-II-266, P-III-450, P-III-500, P-III-933, K6-II-500,
K6-III-400 and finally AthlonXP-2400+ just to round it all nice and neat off.

The 486dx33 is missing allmost everything, though it will be build at some point.
And will be the last machine to enter my collection of working build's.
The 5x86 could be swapped with eighter an Intel 486-dx2-66 or an Amd 486-dx2-80.
I have both CPU's and they both fit the mobo with the 5x86-133.

From 286 to 5x86, I am running pure MS-Dos. The 286 is Dos 3.3 and the rest is 6.22.
I might decide to run MS-Dos 5.0 on the 386, in order to get it more aquarate.
I am missing a case for that 386, and I am in the process of sourcing one. (90% found as of now)

The computers that I have mentioned, are just the CPU's that I base the machines on.
Stuff like GFX and sound are to change a bit. Some are done, some need replacing of hardware.
As I mentioned earlier. The 386sx33 and the 486dx33 are the only ones not working as build's.
Changing hardware on the working build's are only to get it right, they are good as of now.
Just not great or 100% final build's. Time will tell. 😀

Like my K6-III-400, wich are based on my original Zitech machine spec's.
That machine have the same mobo model, even save review as the one I originally had in 99/03.
More or less, just a recreation of one of the best and most personal machine's I ever had.

brostenen wrote:

I have looped the S3 into the MP400 and the MP400 into the Voodoo.
]

With 2 pass trough cables,hows the image quality on the monitor ?

very nice build , a classic!

Nice build. SCSI makes everything cooler and the cable management is good for an AT machine.
I always think it's not "finished" until you haven't opened the case for a year though 😎

Cool stuff mate - usual high standards of cable management. 😉

I would also love to have an ultimate machine from each era and I really like that you are taking your time to get each one just right. The temptation is to chuck a system together with whatever is lying around just to get it working but this will ultimately lead to dissatisfaction. You should write a book and call it 'Zen and the Art of PC Building'.

I think the Pentium era is particularly difficult to pin down as the options are so broad. As I already have a P166 MMX laptop I think I would build a desktop with a 200MHz+ CPU.

Nice work! Any benchmarks on the way?

Nahkri wrote:

With 2 pass trough cables,hows the image quality on the monitor ?

I don't think the result is that bad. There are a number of reasons to why I think it is perfectly useable.
First the S3 delivers an extremely good output signal. Second, the MP400 does not really degrade the signal
as much as one could fear. So the signal quality that goes into the Voodoo is just above average.

brassicGamer wrote:

Cool stuff mate - usual high standards of cable management. ;) […]
Show full quote

Cool stuff mate - usual high standards of cable management. 😉

I would also love to have an ultimate machine from each era and I really like that you are taking your time to get each one just right. The temptation is to chuck a system together with whatever is lying around just to get it working but this will ultimately lead to dissatisfaction. You should write a book and call it 'Zen and the Art of PC Building'.

I think the Pentium era is particularly difficult to pin down as the options are so broad. As I already have a P166 MMX laptop I think I would build a desktop with a 200MHz+ CPU.

Nice work! Any benchmarks on the way?

Nope... No benchmarks until next week, as I have my children this weekend.
Book you say. Hmmm.... Not really what I have considered at all. Think I will pass on that.
Though true. The cable management is the exact same standard that I did, when I assembled computers for a living.
Every build had this quality, and I did somewere between 12 and 15 each day.
Thanks for the good words on my way of building machines. Just love to make a build look good.

The P-1 era is indeed spread over a broad spectrum. And I actually had the thought of using a P-133.
Then I thought that it would be too close to a 486 class, so I choose something just above.
I think the 133 to 166 is a good match for something that represents that era by being in the middle of it.
I think it's a thing, somewhat like you have left the 486 era and you have not begon to think of the next era yet.
(does that make sence??)

brostenen wrote:

I think it's a thing, somewhat like you have left the 486 era and you have not begon to think of the next era yet.
(does that make sence??)

Absolutely! I was thinking about this in the car just now. Take 1995: choices were a DX4 or X5 at the budget end, which made the Pentium 75 pretty much obsolete so if you could afford it then a Pentium 133 was the latest and greatest - the next big thing did not yet exist (The PPro didn't come out until November). Despite this, I have a special connection with the DX4 because that was my main computer then. 1997 is another good example because although the P233 MMX the Pentium II was also released that year.

The other approach is to choose an architecture or socket and fill it with the best possible chip but this can make it hard to find such hardware (good luck getting your hands on an X5-200, for example).

Employ all the logic you want though - sometimes having a fondness for a particular CPU makes the decision. Like you say, sometimes it's nice to have the best and worst systems from your personal history, but I also like the idea of filling the gaps that I could never afford to buy at the time.

True....
The K6-II-500 and the 5x86-133 has that special place in my heart. As to why I have gotten that board for my 5x86-133 CPU (wich I bought new back then) and the reason why I did an recreation of the Zitech machine that I had back then. Well... Not exactly, because I have upgraded the GA-5AX to K6-III-400 instead of K6-II-500 and TNT-Ultra instead of TNT2-M64. Basically speaking, the Zitech I had, just on steroids. 🤣

A bit of everything, some lower powered classes and some higher powered stuff, are a great way of mixing a collection. I am totally on you'r side on this. Yeah... Being able to have that "fit" that in some way spans and makes it all piece together is so nice to have.