We really skipped over the Pentium and Pentium MMX era computers, which was fine as I don't remember there being a lot, if any, games that really made me think I was missing out

OMG!! MDK, POD, GP2, Tomb Raider, Quake, Diablo, Fire Fight...

...represent a new budget computer from 1996. For example, we are squarely looking at Socket 7 Intel Pentium or AMD K5 processor, probably 133Mhz with 32 or 64MB of RAM. Sound card would be an AWE32...

No budget computer from 1996 had 32MB of RAM, let alone 64MB. Same thing with the AWE32. That wasn't exactly a "budget" sound card back then. SB16 clones is what you'd find in budget builds.

devius wrote:

OMG!! MDK, POD, GP2, Tomb Raider, Quake, Diablo, Fire Fight...

Yeah, of those I did eventually get Tomb Raider and Quake, but only after we got our P2 machine, so a couple years after those games were released. I dunno, at the time, I guess, it didn't seem like I missed out much.

devius wrote:

No budget computer from 1996 had 32MB of RAM, let alone 64MB. Same thing with the AWE32. That wasn't exactly a "budget" sound card back then. SB16 clones is what you'd find in budget builds.

That's a fair assessment. I recall reading various places (including here) that 32MB was kind of the "ideal" that not a lot of people had for Windows 95 machines, which this would obviously be. This will be revealed in future (pre-dated?) posts that I ended up putting 64MB of RAM in the computer, but mostly because that's what I had lying around for PC100 RAM.
As far as the AWE32, I really really wanted to find one to put in the machine, because that is one of the few things as a kid I remember drooling over in magazines. I ended up finding an SB32, which is fairly "budget" oriented.

Hey, it's your build, so you can do with it what you want 😀 Just pointing out stuff that caught my eye in your post.

I had a DX2-66 in 1996 still, so I also didn't (properly) experience those games until 1998.

I just posted a new entry on the blog where I highlight the build and assembly (I back-dated it to be around when I actually assembled it); thought you guys might be interested:

http://retropcbuilder.blogspot.ca/2016/10/fin … d-assembly.html

The specs of the machine are:

• PC Chips M571 Socket 7 Motherboard (ca. 1997)
• Intel Pentium MMX 166Mhz (ca. 1996)
• 128MB SDRAM (I had two 64MB sticks of SDRAM lying around, and the maximum cacheable memory size of the SiS 5598 chipset is 128MB, so I'm thinking, why not)
• S3 Trio64V+ (disabling the onboard SiS 5598 VGA chipset) (ca. 1995)
• 3Com 905TX PCI (ca. 1996)
• Creative Labs SoundBlaster 32 CT3600 with 2MB SIMM RAM (disabling the onboard CM3880 chipset) (ca. 1995)
• Kingston 4GB CompactFlash (ca. 2005) with generic CF-to-IDE adapter
• LG 52x IDE CD-ROM, Black Faceplate (ca. 2007)
• Hitachi 2.88MB 3.5" Floppy Drive, Black Faceplate (ca. 1997)
• Cooler Master Centurian-5 Mid-Tower Case, Black, c/w 420W ATX Power Supply (ca. 2007)

As discussed before, I know this is not strictly a "budget" build like I originally set out to do... a budget build would probably be just the M571 motherboard by itself, but I wasn't happy with just that, so... yeah, I did basically whatever I felt like based on the components I had available to me.

P.S. I did change the URL (it was retropcbuild.blogspot.ca before)... for some reason I thought adding the 'er' made it a little more generic should I want to do something else with the blog later one.

So, basically the only "budget" thing in that build is the motherboard 😀

I bought an old PC a while back that was actually a budget PC and probably from 1997. It also has a SiS 5598 motherboard, but only 16MB of RAM in two 72-pin SIMMs, and a Pentium 120MHz. No expansion cards, it's all built-in and it's terrible, so I can understand why you would want to improve on that to have a computer that is actually useful for more than games up to 1995.

BTW, the Pentium 166 MMX was introduced in January 1997 according to cpu-world.

Also, I never realized there was a "traditional top slot" for mounting CD-ROM drives 😁

devius wrote:

BTW, the Pentium 166 MMX was introduced in January 1997 according to cpu-world.

I stand corrected! I guess I shouldn't go by the copyright label on the chip. The Pentium MMX was introduced late 1996, but I guess the 166Mhz wasn't released until January.

devius wrote:

Also, I never realized there was a "traditional top slot" for mounting CD-ROM drives 😁

Well.. perhaps I was a little zealous calling it "traditional", but every PC I've ever built the optical drive goes in the top position, and same for any other computer I've seen in the wild, save for some machines I've seen home-built by others.

Reading through your blog I noticed the choice of tower, your current build is neat and everything except the Mobo is "high end" for that era, although I would expect a fitting case to go with the build. The modern tower does kinda ruin the concept of a retro build. My advice is to go to your local second hand websites (like Ebay), visit some flea markets closeby. Thats how I got my case which was a ATX case from 1996 (I bought on a gamble for €10,- based on the production date of the FDD (which was also '96. When I opened the case and started cleaning I also removed the fron panel which had a production date embedded in it).
Although I reckong finding a proper AT tower would be a bit harder, then again finding a decent ATX mobo is also hard as ie. bargain 😵 (right chipset, ram and enough ISA/PCI slots). my previous mobo had the same chipset, which by itself is a good one. Have fun with the build 😀

Richo wrote:

The modern tower does kinda ruin the concept of a retro build.

It does, for sure... a nice plain unassuming beige case would have been much better. I don't know where I talked about it now, I thought it was in the blog post somewhere, but essentially it came down to the fact that I didn't want to spend any money (or, extremely little, anyway) and that was a decent case that I had available to me (actually, I found two identical in the dumpster at work...). I also thought it was pretty cool that I found a black-bezel CD-ROM (not CD-RW or DVD-ROM), and black-bezel 3.5" floppy drive.

RJDog wrote:

http://retropcbuild.blogspot.ca/

Apparently the link is dead now?

Yeah, it's http://retropcbuilder.blogspot.ca now

devius wrote:

Yeah, it's http://retropcbuilder.blogspot.ca now

Cheers, reading it now 😀

I think your explanation on what kind of issues one can run into when using emulation is done really well and the writing style is pleasant 😀

I think you picked your components well, you really thought it through and did the best you could do. I was personally pleasantly surprised to (for a change) see someone else using a 2.88MB floppy drive in a build and by absolute pure chance, my previous main rig (an Athlon 64 s939 AGP rig) also used a black-bezeled 2.88MB floppy drive (mine was a Sony though, not Hitachi) and all of it was also assembled in a Cooler Master Centurion 5 🤣!
What surprises me is that your 2.88MB floppy drives was apparently made in 1997, so it's probably a PC-variant and not one of those custom IBM ones.
Only difference with the cases we used, is that yours is the generic model case while mine is the all-black variant, which imo does look a little bit nicer.

Is your 2.88MB floppy drive a PC-standard one or did you convert it from an IBM)? What modelnumber is it? Do you also have any of its disks?

I ended up liking the Centurion 5 so much that I ended up getting myself a couple spares 😁

I don't think your build is period-correct, but it's more an optimized rig, which is something that I prefer to do myself.

I also like the fact that you also build a rig based on SiS5598, though my SiS5598 build was ATX.

I'm not a fan of flash IDE drives and prefer to use actual drives, seeking out one that seems to fit the rig just right while still maintaining performance.

But all in all, nicely done! 😀

RJDog wrote:

I stand corrected! I guess I shouldn't go by the copyright label on the chip. The Pentium MMX was introduced late 1996, but I guess the 166Mhz wasn't released until January.

You can figure out what production week your CPU is by looking at its part number.
It's explained a bit more in detail on this page http://cpumuseum.jimdo.com/guides-tutorials/i … identification/

Actually, many parts have their production week coded somewhere on the part.

Large PCBs like motherboards may even have many different production dates, each chip soldered to the board and even the board itself usually has a production date (usually looking something like 2499, which would translate to 24th week of the year 1999).

I usually don't like to read a lot, more into videos and podcasts, but I'm enjoying your blog. Its short and sweet and I share a lot of your thoughts 😀

Tetrium wrote:

Apparently the link is dead now?

Sorry about that, I edited the original post to be the correct URL to avoid future confusion.

Tetrium wrote:

Is your 2.88MB floppy drive a PC-standard one or did you convert it from an IBM? What modelnumber is it? Do you also have any of its disks?

I found it in a bin at work, and it absolutely looks like a regular-old standard 3.5" floppy drive, so I'm assuming not IBM. Unfortunately I don't know the model number (I'd have to tear it out of the system to see, I suppose), nor have any disks that are specific to the drive (didn't know there were drive-specific disks?)... I have it configured in the BIOS as a 1.44MB drive, and seems to work fine, although I've barely used it if at all, as I've always booted off of and installed from CD...

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I usually don't like to read a lot, more into videos and podcasts, but I'm enjoying your blog. Its short and sweet and I share a lot of your thoughts 😀

I'm glad you enjoy(ed) it!

Tetrium wrote:

Is your 2.88MB floppy drive a PC-standard one or did you convert it from an IBM? What modelnumber is it? Do you also have any of its disks?

I found it in a bin at work, and it absolutely looks like a regular-old standard 3.5" floppy drive, so I'm assuming not IBM. Unfortunately I don't know the model number (I'd have to tear it out of the system to see, I suppose), nor have any disks that are specific to the drive (didn't know there were drive-specific disks?)... I have it configured in the BIOS as a 1.44MB drive, and seems to work fine, although I've barely used it if at all, as I've always booted off of and installed from CD...

So how do you know for sure it's a 2.88MB floppy drive if you don't have a model number and have it set as 1.44 in the BIOS and have it working as a 1.44MB floppy drive? Edit: nvm, the model number is probably there but not readable without taking the drive out of the system, I was just being stupid there 🤣

I'd be very interested in finding out the model number btw

And btw, yes there were 2.88MB floppy disks (4MB unformatted), I doubt reformatting HD disks can be guaranteed to work reformatted as 2.88MB, but you could give this a try? At least you get a chance at tasting the true power of the 2.88MB at the cost of making a hole in one of your HD floppies (you can cover up the hole with tape if you decide you'd rather reformat the reformatted disk back to 1.44MB).