First post, by BeginnerGuy
- Rank
- Oldbie
For $20 I would scoop this for just that case alone, because they are a pain in the neck to find. You have to factor in gas costs on a 3 hour drive though. Also I can't tell from the pictures if he still has the side panel, I can see the top of the case exposed in the top pic.
As for what rigs you need, that entirely depends on what software / games you're looking to run.
Just for conversation sake: For me, a Pentium III machine with a geforce 3 or 4 (glide wrapper if needed) with a few ISA slots covers 95% of everything "retro computing" I like doing, so long as you don't NEED to have time period correct hardware for everything you do. I also find the video output clarity and color to be much better on a later 90s system, though that varies widely especially if you're using DVI and playing 320x200 DOS games.
Some games (Jazz Jackrabbit for example) need patches to run on a Pentium III, others aren't so simple. For anything early 80s to early 90s a 486 with a turbo button is sufficient for 98% of everything I care about from that era. If you really need to cover everything, then I would add an IBM XT class system (I'd like to have an XT 286) into the mix, but again this really depends on what you're doing.
Personally I would drop a Pentium MMX + voodoo in the machine you listed and play quake in all of it's glory 😜. If it's going to be your first an only retro rig, it will be a great choice due to nearly no hassle setup (isa controller cards, tracking down vlb graphics, etc). Chances are if anything you'll be looking for a Pentium 3 next for a better later 90s experience.
---I vote buy it 😜. I wouldn't bother buying a P166 to replace a 133 though.
Sup. I like computers. Are you a computer?