ncmark wrote:

I got started thinking about this looking at an old Commodore 64 on Ebay. I used to have two of those and learned a lot of programming on them. It might be fun to get one, hook it up, and turn it on. That would last for about five minutes, and then you'd realize you can't really do anything with it, not by today's standards.

Nonsense!

You can combine real retro hardware with modern hardware, to enhance the retro gaming experience.

For instance, with your C64, you can make an XE1541 cable, and play games from disk images hosted on a modern computer.

Not only do games load way faster, but you also don't have to deal with fickle floppy disks.

Right now I only go as far back as 486s simply because that's what I have. On the PC front I probably wouldn't go further back than a 386, just because I haven't found enough that justifies needing a slower machine. For other computer hardware, I'd like to go back but simply can't afford anything right now. I'd get a C64, an Amiga, an Apple II or an Atari 8-bit machine in a heartbeat if I could just find one for a reasonable price, for example.

I thought it went something like this:

1) Get a bee in your bonnet
2) Gather parts
3) Build system
4) Brag about system
5) Maybe play games on it
6) Goto 1

TheLazy1 wrote:

I thought it went something like this: […]
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I thought it went something like this:

1) Get a bee in your bonnet
2) Gather parts
3) Build system
4) Brag about system
5) Maybe play games on it
6) Goto 1

Exactly. Although, I've only gone back as far as a 286.

TheLazy1 wrote:

I thought it went something like this: […]
Show full quote

I thought it went something like this:

1) Get a bee in your bonnet
2) Gather parts
3) Build system
4) Brag about system
5) Maybe play games on it
6) Goto 1

did you read my mind? 😁 😁
Personally I found the most amazing computer to mod the Amiga1200. there are a gazillion expansions for it that add features, from clip-on scandoublers to complete busboards and dual-architecture cpu upgrades (680x0+603/4 ppc running at the same time) in slots/places where they should not be 😊 😁 😁

TheLazy1 wrote:

I thought it went something like this: […]
Show full quote

I thought it went something like this:

1) Get a bee in your bonnet
2) Gather parts
3) Build system
4) Brag about system
5) Maybe play games on it
6) Goto 1

Excellent post.

SquallStrife wrote:

Nonsense! […]
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ncmark wrote:

I got started thinking about this looking at an old Commodore 64 on Ebay. I used to have two of those and learned a lot of programming on them. It might be fun to get one, hook it up, and turn it on. That would last for about five minutes, and then you'd realize you can't really do anything with it, not by today's standards.

Nonsense!

You can combine real retro hardware with modern hardware, to enhance the retro gaming experience.

For instance, with your C64, you can make an XE1541 cable, and play games from disk images hosted on a modern computer.

Not only do games load way faster, but you also don't have to deal with fickle floppy disks.

You've been able to use PC's as print/file/network/internet servers for machines like Commodore's and Atari's for a lot longer than you think. That's not just a modern day retro computing thing.

Of course it's not new, but it's a good setup if all you want to do is play games.

At various times I had an XT, 286, a 386, a 486, a CGA monitor/card. One day I decided on Windows 95 as a standard configuration and canned everything else. Now I regret that - I don't miss the 8088 or 286, but the 386 and certainly the 486 I wish I still had. I have a lot of good memories of that 486 - it was my first "real" computer.

My dad used to have an IBM PS/2 with 512k of RAM. That was the first computer I remember owning. (He passed it on to me in college and I kept it until the motherboard and tube fried one day.) I think I ended up having to pitch it when I moved locally at one point- it was just too much to carry around. It ran DOS 3.1 if I recall correctly.

I wax and wane on this subject. Sometimes I think - throw all the old stuff out; at this point anything less than 1 GHz should go.

After all, the OS's are all backwards compatible, right? That's the rub. It USED to be the case but I think a lot of things have changed at Micro$oft.

Also, I am not convinced the newer OS"s are always better. We have some newer computers at work running windows 7, and the load times are just ridiculous - like five minutes just to log on. Seems like no matter how fast a machine they make, Micro$oft can invent an OS that slows it to a crawl (I know THAT is another topic all together)

Give me a P3 or Athlon class machine running win98 and it will do 95% of the tasks and run circles around the new OS. I have WIn98 on an Athlon XP2800 at home and it boots in like 5 seconds 😀

I remember reading a website - granted they were selling the re-capping of motherboards, but were claiming more people than ever were getting old computers fixed because of "that blight called windows vista"

Win9x is a shitfest though. I've never had Win7 crash on my PC and it boots in 30 seconds or less, without an SSD. I think they key to success is having a light firewall/antivirus suite, make sure no crap gets loaded during booting, run CCleaner once every two weeks or so and Auslogics Disk Defrag once a month and Spybot for malware !

People complain about 98 being unstable but I've never had any trouble with it.
At least if I decide to wipe my drive and reinstall i don't have to call someone and explain what I am doing 😀=

98 is stable if you have perfect drivers and have patience if something doesn't work and have to wait for it to respond cause ending a task only kindof works and you don't want to run a whole lot of stuff at once.

Not to mention windows 7 x64 is still pretty backwards compatible as long as you don't want 16bit windows or dos stuff. 5 minute logon times sound like dns is missing or something like that, nothing that is the fault of the OS.

Actually on topic though. If I have it I'm interested in it but I'm not really actively searching for anything older then 286 or Amstrad stuff 😀

Since I do have one of my CPC464s permanently on my desk it seems.

If I had enough space I would still have each of my old computers, XT, 286, 486, etc. But for space reasons, I keep a Pentium III around for old Win9x stuff, and everything else I use emulators on a modern system.

ncmark wrote:

Also, I am not convinced the newer OS"s are always better. We have some newer computers at work running windows 7, and the load times are just ridiculous - like five minutes just to log on. Seems like no matter how fast a machine they make, Micro$oft can invent an OS that slows it to a crawl (I know THAT is another topic all together)

Just a side note, but this doesn't sound right. Are the machines at your work on a domain and pushing policies? Anyway, Windows 7 on a personal machine flies, in my experience.

Stull wrote:

ncmark wrote:

Also, I am not convinced the newer OS"s are always better. We have some newer computers at work running windows 7, and the load times are just ridiculous - like five minutes just to log on. Seems like no matter how fast a machine they make, Micro$oft can invent an OS that slows it to a crawl (I know THAT is another topic all together)

Just a side note, but this doesn't sound right. Are the machines at your work on a domain and pushing policies? Anyway, Windows 7 on a personal machine flies, in my experience.

Windows 7 is the only reason why I am not still using XP. It wasn't worth upgrading until Vista had been consigned to the dustbin of history. I have my doubts about Windows 8, though. I'm not ready to do away with the idea of the traditional desktop for a more tablet/smartphone oriented OS on my PC.

ncmark wrote:

People complain about 98 being unstable but I've never had any trouble with it.

You're probably the only person in the world to say that. There's a reason why everytime someone refers to Windows (be it 98 or 7) there's a blue screen joke. Windows NT and 2000 were SO much better in pretty much every regard, but you had to be a bit more in the knowhow to use them (NT drivers were kind of a pain sometimes, but at least they worked! 🙄 ).
I only use Win9x for some very specific early Windows games that refuse to run on anything besides that and sometimes for nostalgia reasons. I've found that my main PC can play everything I want thanks to DOSBox and Windows Compatibility (and patience sometimes 😁)

I think one of the reasons win98 has been stable for me is I keep a minimal installation. I disable all unused devices in BIOS, and do a minimal software install. For example, you'll never see me installing things like instant messengers. Also, I do not have internet explorer installed.