The Serpent Rider wrote:

486DX2/486DX4 were pretty common "gaming" systems all the way up to 1997. And low-end Pentiums/Cyrix 686/AMD K5 just started to be affordable in 1996.

dr.ido wrote:

Until 97 I was still running a 486SLC2 66MHz. Upgraded to a Cyrix 686-200 on a shitty no brand 430TX board with 32MB RAM - Cost me AU$300+ at the time.

I fit this pattern as well. (I have a poor concept of time, and barely keep last week straight much less 2.5 decades ago, so I'm trying to piece together the dates below based on what specific software and hardware I used at the time.)

1991: My dad bought our family 386DX/33.
1993: I saved up and bought my own OEM 486SX/25 (with some help from the parents).
1995: Upgraded to a DX2/66 -- my first from-parts build.
1997: Upgraded the motherboard / CPU to a Cyrix 5x86 something. (Also a $@%# no-name board, the VRMs kept overheating and crashing.)
1998-9: My first ATX build with a proper Asus motherboard -- a Pentium II 350MHz, which I still have.
2001: Things start getting murky. I was going to college at a trade school for IT and got a low-end PIII as part of the curriculum. Also started working at a computer store, which meant I got paid in hardware. So things got built and swapped around a lot. 😀

Are you just going to play old DOS games from up to the manufacture date of your computer hardware build too ?
If you want to play all old DOS games up to year 2000 then time period correct does not really matter.
It's more about "Function" over hardware manufacture date.

Summer 1990, 386/DX-33 (clone build)
Fall of 1994, Pentium 90mhz (Dell build)
Summer of 1998, Celeron 266@400 (self build)

krcroft wrote:

Summer 1990, 386/DX-33 (clone build)
Fall of 1994, Pentium 90mhz (Dell build)
Summer of 1998, Celeron 266@400 (self build)

A 386DX in 1990 & and Pentium 90 in 94... those must have cost a few bucks.

When we got our first new family PC, i remember going round PCWorld with the folks. I must have been about 10/11 and circa 1995. We came away with a Packard Bell 486 SX2-50, with the multimedia pack. I also remember there were both 486 DX machines as well as pentiums in the store, but they were significantly more expensive.

Later i remember a K6-233 which was a self-build type system, not sure where that came from, and then later a K6-III 450, which was getting to the point of me doing things myself and upgrading bits etc.

I got a Geforce DDR for christmas '99, i remember it was very expensive and really stretched the budget, but certainly that was top end at the time.

However i'm fairly sure it went into the K6-III machine.

I later upgraded to a Duron 900 as the Athlon was too expensive, and eventaully once i'd got a part time job saved up (a lot!) I bought a Tyan Tiger MP and a pair of Athlon XP1800's. A massive outlay, but that system lasted me a good 8 or 9 years, as i jumped from that to a Core2Quad Q9400.

dave343 wrote:

The Serpent Rider wrote:

486DX2/486DX4 were pretty common "gaming" systems all the way up to 1997. And low-end Pentiums/Cyrix 686/AMD K5 just started to be affordable in 1996.

Yeah, it's like building a P75 would be period correct for 1994, but period *affordable* correct would have been a P75 in 1996/97. I was a teenager in the 90's so it's only now I've learned how un-affordabe the early Pentiums were, until like you said around 1996+. I never realized how few people actually had Pentium systems and still ran 486 systems until the mid/late 90's.

It really wasn't that hard to do as ram was a lot cheaper(ie free) and the software was working fine. Even a 486DX2/66 on 56k dailup worked rather well. Using plain ol MSDos 6.*/Win3.1 combination with a few extras such as the win3.11 update, win32s, the Calmira shell and some other utils. The interweb wasn't that bloated back then.

Was still on until about 2006 or so using my win98fe system and in that time managed to scrounge up enough 10Base2 cable, terminators and nics to share dailup with 3 systems, running 3 different OSs(OS/2 V4, Linux & Win98FE) using the win98 box as the gateway system.

I suppose especially in those days, system requirements of major games were a good indication of what the upper bound of 'affordable norm' would be for the average gamer.
For example, my 386SX-16 pretty much coincided with Wolfenstein 3D, the 486DX2-66 with DOOM, and the Pentium 133 with Quake.
DOOM was a big reason why I wanted to upgrade the 386SX-16 to a 486, because it was quite unplayable on the 386SX.
Quite a few of my friends were still on an 8088/V20 machine, and upgraded to a 286 or 386SX around the launch of Wolf3D.
Likewise, for Quake you really NEEDED a Pentium, no 486 made the game really playable, even if they were clocked at 133+ MHz. So, quite a few gamers would upgrade to a Pentium around that time.
For me personally it wasn't Quake, but Need For Speed, that made me want that Pentium. It ran okay on the 486DX2, but only in lowres or hires interlaced mode. The Pentium could run in full non-interlaced 640x480, which was pretty awesome at the time.

So in my experience, such games generally pushed the 'high end' for gamers. They were not like Crysis, where the absolute fastest machine that money can buy was required. But they did set a certain standard for machines. All the machines I bought were pretty much in the same pricerange, which probably was no coincidence. Just a certain sweet-spot in the market, which game devs would target, I suppose.
I mean, theoretically DOOM could have been released in 1992, because the 486 was already around. They could have skipped Wolfenstein 3D altogether, if they would target the fastest machines available. Likewise, Quake was possible when DOOM was released, on the fastest Pentiums available at the time.

My uncle, who was the chief electrician at the local steel plant, and my aunt, who was a registered nurse, had a 486 with Windows 3 in the early nineties, but I barely got to use it, and don't know its specs or how much it cost at the time.
I didn't get my first computer (as in, didn't even have a computer in the home while growing up) until I was 20, and that was in late 1998. I ordered it from a catalog (as I lived in the middle of nowhere with no car) as a complete system. CTX branded, $800 (US) + S&H
Mid-tower with two external 5.25" drive bays, and one floppy bay, with one internal 3.5" HDD bay.
300MHz AMD K6-2 with 3DNow
32MB SDRAM
3.2 GB Fujitsu HDD
Unknown CDROM drive that died 20 days into ownership, CTX denied warranty request without reason and hung up on me every time I called. Glad they went under.
ESS AudioDrive ISA sound card
LT PCI WinModem
Unknown 2MB 2D VGA card
15" CRT monitor
Stereo speakers
104 key PS/2 keyboard
2 button PS/2 mouse
Windows 98

This system wasn't top of the line, but it also wasn't clearance garbage.

BushLin wrote:

My mid 90's PC was an "upgrade" from an Amiga, it was like trading in a Vespa for a big heavy truck. Sure I could do more with […]
Show full quote

My mid 90's PC was an "upgrade" from an Amiga, it was like trading in a Vespa for a big heavy truck. Sure I could do more with it but it felt less nimble, slower to do the same tasks. Up until relatively recently I was never satisfied with the performance of consumer PC hardware.

dave343 wrote:

So I know we all build period correct PC's on here, and limit builds to what was available in a given month/year...

Well, you can count at least one person on here out of that tribe. I'm nostalgic for the software mostly. I looked to see how good I can make a system with no compatibility issues; taking into consideration heat and noise, meaning a modern case with large fans running at low RPM and wonderful Noctua coolers I would have killed for back when the software was current.
Sony CRTs, IBM PS/2 keyboards and early optical Microsoft mice get the thumbs up for compatibility and standing the test of time. Crappy gameport gamepads are unavoidable for some DOS games but running a SATA SSD on DOS/98/NT is bliss and I have no desire to re-create the exact PC experience of the 90s when it's just an arbitrary choice for something worse.
When I found out about Asrock's 775i65 board I was stoked, supporting 45nm CPUs, SATA, DDR400 and 8x AGP while running the Intel 865 chipset with all the compatibility which comes with it. Nvidia's GPU's from 2000-2003 stomp on period correct; delivering the perfect minimum frame times that mean I'm enjoying the experience rather than recalling what was considered acceptable back in the day. The only real compromise was having to use a Soundblaster Live but that has its upsides too.
There's no need to go overboard, stick to sensible limits for what can actually run reliably; like 512MB RAM and 16GB partitions for Win98, Nvidia GPUs which run the 45.23 drivers, 800mhz bus CPUs for the 865 chipset (1066mhz actually runs slower). This wasn't meant to be a long post and I've always shied away from anything that could be seen as showing off but I just wanted to illustrate just how far period correct is from what's possible. I understand everyone has nostalgia for different things but personally I'm happy to not have to use most 90s PC hardware. Just a shame that Theme Park only wants to run on a 386, that's where there's an actual need for period correct.

I'm with you there - currently trying to figure out if I want to make my retro PC essentially the 'best version' of what I could have purchased when I built my first all-new rig in late 2000, or go for maxing out this board completely.

Currently I have an ASUS TUSL2-C motherboard, Pentium III S 1.13ghz, 512mb PC133 SDRAM, Elsa Gloria III (Nvidia Quadro 2 Pro) graphics card, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card, Intel 1Gbit NIC (for convenience), Vantec (Sil3114 chip) SATA II RAID card, Star Tech 6 port USB 2.0 card, Kingston 120gb SATA SSD, Asus 24x DVD-RW SATA drive currently on a SATA-> IDE converter, and USB floppy drive emulator.

I've also got a USB 3.0 PCI-E 1x card with a PCI-E to PCI adapter to see if I can get working in Windows 2000, a Quadro FX 4000 SDI that I bought before I had thought to maybe keep this thing ~ 2000 era (I know the Tualatin P3 is cheating, but there was a 1.13ghz chip that year, and I believe the original SB Audigy as well), and an Aureal Vortex 2 supposedly on its way from Russia.

This will all be going in a modern case for space and cooling convenience (as well as quiet!)

Like you said - we can be enthusiasts of the software experience without needing to include the slow load times, loud noises, etc. I consider those more just things we had to put up with, but running with quieter cooling, cases that don't slice your hands up just for looking at them, and "quality of life" upgrades such as SSDs, faster USB and ethernet etc don't detract from enjoying the old software running on period-accurate hardware at all. If anything, I feel like bringing these old rigs up a bit with more modern tech only improve the experience - you can go back and play Quake, or play a CD-ROM game with a virtual CD drive loading the disc ISO from an SSD and not have to sit around all night waiting for loud optical drives to spin up, old slow clunky mechanical HDDs to clatter around, etc.

I never bought a desktop system completely new (only laptops and only till 2011)

i had for some months in 2001 a celeron 300 of an unknown brand but it wasn't name brand
then a lot of pieces were cannibalized as a cousing of mine built a computer around a CUSI-FX
I had a cusi-fx from asus with a celeron 900 from 2001 to 2011
from 2008 i build everything myself and I use mostly used parts
in 2008 i used for some months a frankeinstein system with a Compaq Deskpro EN (440LX chipset) with a 400Mhz Celeron Mendocino Slot1 with some TNT2 in it
then from August 2008 to July 2010 I mostly used an IBM PC 300GL with BX chipset but with the southbridge typical of a 440LX with an S3 Virge DX
4MB PCI in it often (it started with a Celeron 333, then continued to a pentium II 350, then to a pentium III 450 i found in a dumpster)...
sometimes I have used an IBM PC330 that i bought from someone that i put a pentium 166mmx in it and 80 mb of ram
then after that have had tons of old computers... Athlon 64,XP,Duron,lots of Celerons, VIA C7, lots of Pentium II,III,IV,D, Core 2, etc.
Nowadays my main machine is a Dell Optiplex 320 with 3 gb ram, 250gb sata hard drive,a Radeon X300 with 128 mb of ram and a Pentium Dual Core E2160, a no-name (King Year) power supply from 1998 (yes the original one was no longer working that good so I modified and bolted SATA connectors on this one).. runs everything I throw at it just fine (I am running Slackware Linux)
I ran for a lot of time a Dell Pentium 4 HT 2.8 Northwood with 512 mb of ram and a PowerMac G4 400mhz with 512 mb ram in 2016 for a lot of months

Personally I'm mostly interested in things I *didn't* have, and I'm not sure I care much about period correctness per se. I care a certain amount about period authenticity of use - I care more about whether it supports media and runs software well than what was precisely available that year.

That being said for a "norm" build from a year I'd check out magazines or resources from the time and see what tended to be in a "budget build" or was included with package deals, or failing that what was on the bottom end of the price scale. A *lot* of people just used systems that are a few or several years old.

For examples, video cards have been the budget bane for a *long* time, you're going to find decent systems with crappy or nominal cards at least as far back as the late 80s. Also people would keep the higher-end card for longer than the other parts they would upgrade past. So a cheaper or older video card would probably work.

I would just route around storage issues prior to the IDE era, there are a couple of MFM/RLL emulators but they tend to be expensive and really finicky or just really, Really expensive. Most people's builds are in this era now, some SATA systems are even entering the Retro arena.

dave343 wrote:

krcroft wrote:

Summer 1990, 386/DX-33 (clone build)
Fall of 1994, Pentium 90mhz (Dell build)
Summer of 1998, Celeron 266@400 (self build)

A 386DX in 1990 & and Pentium 90 in 94... those must have cost a few bucks.

Yes! I remember my Dad paying around $3,100 USD for the 386 and $2,400 USD for the Pentium. Both were entire systems including keyboard, mouse, and monitor.
When Adjusted to inflated 2019 dollars they become $5,828 and $4,512, respectively. Ouch by today's standards, but those were accepted prices for current-gen hardware back then.
By '98, bang-for-the-buck kept improving, and my '98 Celeron home-build cost around CAD $800 with a modest GPU.

For me, period correctness isn't that important.

I've always had franken-PCs, made up of the weird and wonderful. Had a 486-DX40 with Hercules graphics for a while, as VGA screens were too expensive for poor people like I was. Then I went EGA and then VGA later when I could afford some computer monitors. Always scrounging around the leftover parts from school that they were planning to dispose of. God knows how that happened, I presume that would never be allowed to happen these days now that schools have proper IT departments and stuff.

Likewise, Quake was possible when DOOM was released, on the fastest Pentiums available at the time.

Quake was not really possible in 1993. Only Pentium 60/66 were available and these can run Quake at a whopping 14-15fps even on relatively simple timedemo, so it's even worse in later episodes and/or Nightmare difficlty.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Likewise, Quake was possible when DOOM was released, on the fastest Pentiums available at the time.

Quake was not really possible in 1993. Only Pentium 60/66 were available and these can run Quake at a whopping 14-15fps even on relatively simple timedemo, so it's even worse in later episodes and/or Nightmare difficlty.

Yea, that would have been perfectly acceptable in those days.

dave343 wrote:

So I know we all build period correct PC's on here, and limit builds to what was available in a given month/year, but I'm curious what the actually norm was (affordable norm), vs what was available say during a particular month/year.
For instance, the Pentium 100 was released on or around March 1994, so building a PC based around that would be period time correct. However, how many people actually had a Pentium 100 on release date, let alone even in 1994. My father bought a NEC Ready 166MMX in April 1997 and it was used until 2001. A friend upgraded his PC to a 166 in 1998, another ran his Pentium 100 until early 2000, and another upgrade from a 386 to a AMD 586/133 in Summer 1997 and was still using it as his main rig in 1999.
So putting time period builds aside, what was the norm in say 1995/1996. How many of you were still running Pentium 1 systems in the late 90's? And if you were still using a 486 in the late 90's when and what did you upgrade too? Often forget how expensive PC parts were back then, and I guess that's why so many of my friends at least ran their Pentium system's until very late 90's, even 2000.

Period correctness (in my books) doesn't refer to the period it was affordable rather than the entire timespan it was available at retailers. That includes early adopters and late starters as well.

I was using a 486 DX-2/66 with 12 MB RAM and Windows 95A up until October 1997, when I bought a system consisting of a Pentium 233 MMX and 32 MB RAM which was already a bit outdated as Pentium II systems hit the shelfs and were the hot shit everywhere. This system more or less unchanged stayed with me up until mid 2001.

Scali wrote:

Yea, that would have been perfectly acceptable in those days.

and this is true. A spoiled high-end 1993-period-correct Pentium monster grill is fine and ready for playing Quake. 486s had to catch up in the following years with DX4, though (and still not quite as the Abrash dual pipeline spans driver won't fly as well on them)...

leileilol wrote:

and this is true. A spoiled high-end 1993-period-correct Pentium monster grill is fine and ready for playing Quake. 486s had to catch up in the following years with DX4, though (and still not quite as the Abrash dual pipeline spans driver won't fly as well on them)...

Yea, a quick search dug up this topic: Pentium 60/66 VLB board identification help needed...
The guy runs a Pentium at 66 MHz, with a Trident VLB card, and gets about 18.2 fps from Quake.
A good PCI card would likely perform a bit better than that still.
Interestingly, he remarks that the game is 'oddly playable', not as jittery as on a 486 that would get similar framerates in the timedemo.

In the 90s if you were a PC gamer you could use your 386DX40 well into 1995 and play most games without problems. If you used PC for office work mostly, then you could use it well into late 90s.
Almost all PCs I buy (and I don't buy anything newer than say 486DX2) have most recent files on their HDDs dated on 2000-2002. Some of these PCs are 286s and 386s. And they were used in Germany mostly.

Currently on one hand ~10 years old PC is still capable of running office tasks perfectly (I myself have Dell Optiplex 790 i3-3120 I think, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD from 2011 at work and it runs Win10, dual Full HD monitors without trouble - In fact I don't really see much difference between this PC, and my Ryzen 1700X 32GB RAM at home) but if you are a gamer then you have to switch graphic cards every two years or so which costs as much as the rest of the PC...
So speaking about 2019 - this 8 years old PC is still period correct when it comes to 2019, but if you ask me about some 8 years old gaming graphics card, then I would say, it's no longer period correct...

So in my opinion period correctness is more about what kind of PCs were generally used in specific period of time and not about what was produced/available on the market.

BushLin wrote:

Well, you can count at least one person on here out of that tribe. I'm nostalgic for the software mostly. I looked to see how good I can make a system with no compatibility issues;

There's nothing like running games, and software on the original hardware that it was intented for, regardless if it'll run on something 10 years newer. That being said, my nostalgia has limits. For instance, I don't use CRT anymore, I stick to either 1-4GB CF Cards or brand new *quiet* 40GB+ hard drives, new 400w+ power supplies that won't turn the fans on because they'll never be stressed (or die), and CPU fans like you said can be cooled much better and quieter.

Back on topic, I find the replies interesting. I always thought the transition to Pentium's happened in 93-95, and by 96 not many people were still using 486's unless you upgraded to the DX4 or 5x86. I didn't realize how many 486 systems were still being sold in 95-97 because Pentium's for the most part were still out of the budget range for most.