Logistics wrote:

As many have mentioned, it's really about the game of finding old, desirable hardware and making it function, even if it means I have to bust out my soldering rig and update the hardware with modern capacitors, new solder, newer more accurate resistors, new jacks, etc. It's a hobby, and I haven't made any money on it, yet but that's probably because I always end up fixing things for friends and acquaintances who I only have pay for the parts.

I do however, make a living restoring old automobiles, and the same principles could be applied to that.

very true, it's a case of restoration and preservation. After all, if we don't, who will? 😉

Oldbitcollector wrote:

My sixteen year old daughter made the statement one day when she saw me building my second 1998's retro-box, "Dad, why do you build these if you are never going to play with them?" -- It's true that I spend more time on my primary machine doing business, email, forums, videos, and communication, but I honestly like the idea of having a secondary machine which is NOT Internet connected which I know is private for only me. I started collecting old game CDs a couple years ago and trying to play them with DOSbox and Oracle virtual machine, but they tend to be problematic and sluggish at best. Once I built a retro rig and connected it with an A/B switchbox to my primary monitor, running 3dfx I was in heaven. As for if I use the rig as often as she thinks, hey there are guys who build model air-planes, then after they are built, they put them on display and buy another kit. No one questions that.. 😀 (or maybe they do... 😀

I like the hunt for software... It's fun to find a gem for a buck or two at a second hand shop. Not real crazy about getting crap hardware from Ebay lately, but I guess that just adds to the challenge of getting these old machines up and running.

Pretty much sums up me as well, I've only just started really building retro PC's although I've been collecting (hoarding) the hardware for years, sadly I threw out a lot of items when we moved 5 years ago and I'm only now starting to realise what was lost 🙁

I've collected old consoles for years and have built a great collection but PC's have now drawn me back, I guess its the childhood and teenage memories for me of running the old dos games. Nothing like firing up Doom or Theme Park on a real 486! I've started getting games from local charity shops for 50p a pop and got some real classics re-purchased after all these years

I also work in I.T support so love tinkering and building the old machines up with various cards 😁

seob wrote:

Of course you don't need retro pc's for most games. But i think part of the enjoyment of this hobby comes in tracing and finding […]
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Of course you don't need retro pc's for most games. But i think part of the enjoyment of this hobby comes in tracing and finding parts for a build and the actual build itself.
Maybe the some fixing to get this working again, lije replacing caps.
Most of the fun i get from retro computing, is going out for the hunt. Finding good deals and hardware i couldn't afford back then.
But i guess it's the same with other hobbies.

A lot of having retrorigs around is that for me. Being able to have what I once couldn't afford. Its like wanting a high-end sports car when they first come out. There's no way to afford it at $80,000. But, when they hit $20,000 used, they now are now affordable, though it is 10-15 years later! The excitement is unspoiled by the thought of the massive expense!

Roland gear was, for me, insanely expensive when i was 12 years old. I could barely afford adding a Sound Blaster (non pro) to my computer. I always wanted an MT32 and other Roland gear, but couldn't afford it until this hobby. Some Roland gear I STILL can't afford, but there's other options.

Other things I always wanted, but couldn't afford at the time:
-Pentium Pro
-IDE caching controllers
-variety of sound hardware (rolands, gravis, etc)
-joystick setups (HOTAS w/rudders)
-Variety of misc upgrades, etc (32MB of RAM for a 386...useless, but fun to have!)
-High-end VIDEO card setups (Voodoo2 SLI, Voodoo5, etc)

When things are $5 at your local thrift store, its easy to become a little addictive when you're adding things to your collection. But now I have most of whatever I really ever wanted when I couldn't afford them. I think the only thing I'm missing is Gravis Ultrasound, but they are way too collectible to pay the premium for them. I'll wait on the project here for the ARGUS, or until there's an absolute steal for one in box (LOL) 😎

I find DOSBOX and such a hassle. For me simply booting up an old machine and playing a game is great. I do not build systems: I use OEMs exclusively.

The hunt and collecting is fun. But I can never bring myself to hold on to collectibles. I fear machines / PCBs die and I would be out too much $. Plus real life has a way of setting priorities in spending so sinking too much $ is not really an option for me.

I have a simple rule when it comes to retro hardware, nothing over £20, that way you never lose too much and get upset.

I always liked the most accurate emulators stuff but imho real hardware will always make everything running just right it should, no matter how fast the emulating hardware is. For me even virtualizing x86 on a newer x86 with the optimizations meant for it, result in a slower or just different desktop experience.
But anyway as others said, it is more about building the hardware to "just have it" than use it everyday.

The building of the machine, hunting for parts and the nostalgia are definitely the main draw for me but I do have several boxes that rarely get opened up and I spend more time playing games on them than my modern machine. Dosbox has no appeal to me games run best on the hardware they were designed for, but maybe some people find messing with dosbox fun everyone has a hobby

philscomputerlab wrote:

[*]It just works!

Are you having a laugh?

• Documentation for obscure hardware.
• Finding drivers.
• Zero support for USB mass storage if you can't justify the cost of a Go-Tek (well, pre-98 at least).
• Sourcing things like DRAM to complete incomplete components.
• Random hardware instabilities because of component age and having to make repairs to damaged components.
• Rolling the dice with eBay auctions.

Oh wait - all I did was make your list longer.

Setting up DOSBox isn't half as much fun, or half as much frustrating, or half as much rewarding when (if?) you finally get it working.

It doesn't need to have a point. I gave up trying to elaborate some rational motive for me to play with old hardware, I just do it because I like it.
In the end, this is a hobby, and hobbies don't need to have a point, it is just something you enjoy doing in your spare time.

alexanrs wrote:

It doesn't need to have a point. I gave up trying to elaborate some rational motive for me to play with old hardware, I just do it because I like it.
In the end, this is a hobby, and hobbies don't need to have a point, it is just something you enjoy doing in your spare time.

... and waste money on 🤣

It is not wasting... it is spending on recreation xD

Nope 😀. DOSBox is certainly an asset, but I love messing around with hardware equally as much as playing games.

Still not satisfied with emulation personally. So hardware it is... Plus I do enjoy tampering with the hardware, even though I complain when it doesn't work - in reality, I enjoy the troubleshooting involved and the lengths you must sometimes go to in order to have it work the way you want it to. That and when it does mess up, it usually does so in an interesting way like how a Pentium rig I had would randomly go into infinite "DIVIDE BY ZERO" loops for no apparent reason whilst beeping frantically. Stupid thing.

Emulators are fine for me to test things out, like scripts or software that need testing quickly before I take them to the real hardware - sometimes needing more tweaks due to inaccuracies in the emulator. But that's it. Good for other people who do not have/want the hardware. The only thing that grinds my gears is when people upload videos of stuff with their emulator running like shit as if that's the way it is meant to be (and they themselves probably think so too). Works the other way too, some things work better in emulators. Future generations will find those videos and documents and think that was the way things were and that irritates me, it is one of the main reasons I keep going on YouTube and the rest of the internet in an attempt to document things as accurately as possible without using shoddy emulators.

Those OST videos are the worst, there were some of Keen 6 floating around where the mechanical noise in METAL.IMF sounded wrong or was completely silent and they used to be the first ones to appear in the search results. Garbage.

Retrorigs don't make a huge amount of sense, but they're fun. Just being able to build the top-of-the-line 1993 system that you always wanted back in the day is worth a lot.

tametick wrote:

So while browsing ebay for some parts for a win98 build, i realized that aside from building the computer and getting all the so […]
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So while browsing ebay for some parts for a win98 build, i realized that aside from building the computer and getting all the software to work (installing windows, patches, drivers, etc) I'm actually unlikely to ever use it for anything...

I mean theoretically I do this stuff to play old games but if i'm honest all the ones I'm likely to play work in dosbox, modern windows (sometimes via gog-fixed releases), or have source ports (like the id games). Sure, there are a bunch of titles that actually need retro hardware (I think dune 2 was problematic on dosbox because of sound issues?) but aside from once every few years for kicks and giggles i'm not actually playing these games.

But maybe this is the wrong point of view? Maybe just building and caring for old computers is a means to its own end, kinda like building ships in a bottle or restoring old cars?

Food for thought, for me at least 😀

Only 21 posts and already wise beyond his years... 😉

brassicGamer wrote:

Are you having a laugh? […]
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philscomputerlab wrote:

[*]It just works!

Are you having a laugh?

• Documentation for obscure hardware.
• Finding drivers.
• Zero support for USB mass storage if you can't justify the cost of a Go-Tek (well, pre-98 at least).
• Sourcing things like DRAM to complete incomplete components.
• Random hardware instabilities because of component age and having to make repairs to damaged components.
• Rolling the dice with eBay auctions.

Oh wait - all I did was make your list longer.

Setting up DOSBox isn't half as much fun, or half as much frustrating, or half as much rewarding when (if?) you finally get it working.

Or give you half as much possibilities of tinkering with yet-unemulated stuff 😊. I think that as with other hobbies, the point of it isn't going practical, but just doing something you know brings enjoyment into your life. 😀

By the way, I actually find myself and other retro hardware aficionados more competent hardware-wise than most of the people whos job was to build computers back in the day. They were restricted by company policies, lack of internet, etc. I know a guy didn't know there were Tualatin Pentiums, he thought that intel jumped from Coppermine straight to P4 and Tualatin CPUs were but odd-ball Celerons meant to suck last remaingng $ from obsolete Socket370 platform. Guess why? They never bought a P3 Tully! Not to mention AMD, which corporate clients generally ignored.

I prefer real hardware because of compatibility the feel of using the actual hardware and so on but mainly for me it's the nostalgia and being able to have parts that once were worth hundreds or thousands of dollars for only a fraction of the original cost is what keeps me in this hobby. Also, the main reason for me using original hardware over dosbox is the simply because the actual hardware and electronics from the 80s 90s and even early 2000s and 1970s was built so well for the most part and very unique compared to the 'walmart', fake chrome, cheezy, blue light, made in China crap we get today and I enjoy owning and tinkering with this older hardware much more than today's stuff. It's just so much more enjoyable using actual audio equipment and pc's with dials and switches rather than an iPhone app or a computer program that emulates the real thing. Having the real original thing is almost always better IMO. I think that for someone that is into just playing some older games , dosbox is great but for those of us that like the whole experience involved with retro computing you can't beat using and tinkering with the actual hardware. It's like driving a nice older car that you are emotionally attached to and that looks cooler than a lot of the newer cars out there because it's unique and may have features or a look that car makers are just not producing anymore.

The first time I ever built a retro gaming PC was many years ago, when I tried DOSBox. I was impressed with the program, but I didn't like how the Sound Blaster emulation sounded. It didn't sound like my old card. I wanted that sound, so I built a machine around it to play some DOS games.

Since then, I haven't always had a good reason for all the hardware I've acquired. It's just a hobby and I like messing with old hardware. I get curious thinking it would be cool to build some type of system, hopefully with some type of application in mind, and so I just do it. It's easy to have fun with the stuff when you can get it so cheaply.
I have 3 outdated desktop builds that are used for practical purposes. They are practical because I already had the hardware and they are powerful enough to do the job required. I have a 4th that's used as an extra gaming PC for when some young relatives visit. A 5th build was just inspired by questions of what I could get a Pentium 3 to do, that it was never meant to do. ie it's just for fun. It also rocks a CT2760 AWE32 card, so on the rare occasion I feel like listening to MIDI files on an OPL3 or the wavetable, I can.
I have one old laptop which is actually ideal for it's application - a modern laptop wouldn't work nearly as well.

alexanrs wrote:

It doesn't need to have a point. I gave up trying to elaborate some rational motive for me to play with old hardware, I just do it because I like it.
In the end, this is a hobby, and hobbies don't need to have a point, it is just something you enjoy doing in your spare time.

AMEN to that.... 😀