Yup.

That's the rabbit hole of retro computing. The parts are all relatively inexpensive to build the nostalgia machine from your youth (or any other significant age bracket), and we all remember the thrill of getting your hands on that important upgrade which will improve your frag count.

On a deeper level, why am I building "the ultimate" dual xeon 604 system? Not because I need it, not because I don't have enough pc's, but because it's the sort of escapism that's fairly harmless (unlike other habits to relieve stress).

Tinkering with old stuff takes my mind off of other things less enjoyable. It's rewarding to see something that you've built yourself (the LEGO-effect people now have been noticing). Once the build is done, there's still stuff to improve OR you can just build another one.

It's not the sort of hobby that will fill in gaps in your life, be very enlightning (or improve your health), so I'd recommend exercise, a good social network and a balanced diet to go along with retrocomputing.

Scope creep is part of practically every hobby or personal project . IMHO, this is not a bad thing per se, unless one has uncontrollable OCD or at least a very strong perfectionist streak .

I will admit to sometimes having a tendency to throw a bit more money than I should on perfectionist goals or on side quests.

mh nah, quite the opposite... more like, wait why am I trying to run this on a pentium II, oh this game looks better in software mode it'll run on this older 2D card right... also won't this run fine on a pentium MMX? wait this game is older, this should run on a 486... will ist still work fine on a DX2-66? ...maybe if I lower the resolution... but what about 386, I can probably get this to run on my 386 right? 😁

flupke11 wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:38:

sort of escapism that's fairly harmless (unlike other habits to relieve stress).

Spot on.

Hah.. I do both... But mostly upgrading the parts.

geertjanb wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:10:

[...] do you guys also experience this phenomenon/"problem"?

Yeah, we do. 😢 Which is why... ugh... see my signature.

bloodem wrote on 2021-03-31, 19:30:

geertjanb wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:10:

[...] do you guys also experience this phenomenon/"problem"?

Yeah, we do. 😢 Which is why... ugh... see my signature.

How do you count dual or quad cpu computers?

bloodem wrote on 2021-03-31, 19:30:

geertjanb wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:10:

[...] do you guys also experience this phenomenon/"problem"?

Yeah, we do. 😢 Which is why... ugh... see my signature.

I'm looking at your signature and see a lack of socket 479.! 😉

weedeewee wrote on 2021-03-31, 19:41:

How do you count dual or quad cpu computers?

It must be a bit late for my brain, but not sure what you mean 😁

Joakim wrote on 2021-03-31, 19:43:

I'm looking at your signature and see a lack of socket 479.! 😉

There’s a lack of many sockets, but I try as much as possible to not think about it......... 🤣

flupke11 wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:38:

It's not the sort of hobby that will fill in gaps in your life, be very enlightning (or improve your health), so I'd recommend exercise, a good social network and a balanced diet to go along with retrocomputing.

Damn dude... I'm not extremely happy with how my life is going atm (mainly because of my relationship). I sit in my basement working on this machine which has issues and while working on it I'm all happy. As soon as it's fixed I'm no longer distracted and that's why the computer needs changing so I have something on my hands again. I need to fix some things other than computers in my life and your post made me realize that 🙏

flupke11 wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:38:

It's not the sort of hobby that will fill in gaps in your life, be very enlightning (or improve your health), so I'd recommend exercise, a good social network and a balanced diet to go along with retrocomputing.

or if your health is bad, you don't have the energy for exercise, no social life, and a bad diet due to depression... retrocomputing can be perfect thing to fill those gaps and make life somewhat enjoyable at least.

geertjanb wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:10:

so I can play battlefield 1942 and it fits better with the Pentium 3.

Maybe it's more fun to think about playing Battlefield 1942 than it is to actually play Battlefield 1942?

I just make sure I have all the parts and cases to build a system for every need. One day I'll actually get round to taking pics and building the systems 😀

Got about 10 AT cases, 20 or more ATX and mATX cases, 125+ motherboards, 500+ graphics cards, over 1K CPUs (plus more on hold with my drop shipper). And so much clutter that I ran out of space to work on anything 😀

debs3759 wrote on 2021-03-31, 23:46:

And so much clutter that I ran out of space to work on anything 😀

why do I know that so well.

I don't swap, i build yet another win98 pc with some new variation of gpu/sound cards.

imi wrote on 2021-03-31, 20:55:

flupke11 wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:38:

It's not the sort of hobby that will fill in gaps in your life, be very enlightning (or improve your health), so I'd recommend exercise, a good social network and a balanced diet to go along with retrocomputing.

or if your health is bad, you don't have the energy for exercise, no social life, and a bad diet due to depression... retrocomputing can be perfect thing to fill those gaps and make life somewhat enjoyable at least.

Yeah this ! Go mow the lawn ! If you live in an apartment/condo then go walk around the entire complex as many time as you have computers IF you can walk farther then the mailbox 😀

Jorpho wrote on 2021-03-31, 21:22:

geertjanb wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:10:

so I can play battlefield 1942 and it fits better with the Pentium 3.

Maybe it's more fun to think about playing Battlefield 1942 than it is to actually play Battlefield 1942?

It's usually more fun with specifically BF1942. Nothing quite beats killing yourself because you dropped a bomb then dove a little.

I'm a repeat offender in this category. ALL of my retro boxes embrace the notion of scope creep. 😜

That being said, I'm trying a slightly different tack this time around: I'm building a Pentium MMX class system that emulates what I had back in the day, only with a select few parts improved to fix some, ahem, 'annoyances'.

I'm generally very focused on what I want to build. Rarely deviate and even if I do it's almost never something more modern, rather a different product of the same era. This also makes life hard in its own was. It often drives me to overpay for parts because it's just the exact model I was looking for. Or never really get something done, because I don't find what I want for a justifiable price and stick with a "temporary" substitute.