Welcome 😁

Hi there! Welcome aboard! 😁

gerry wrote on 2020-08-12, 07:49:

How about you - what kind of things do you see a lot of enthusiasm for among fellow retro PC folk that you personally don't do?

Energy saving. I prefer to not to optimize power consumption of vintage gear, unless it's non-critical (like replacing old, slow EPROMs by modern, quicker ones).

That means:

a) That I try to fix old AT PSUs rather than using ATX PSUs with adapter.
b) That I do not replace big transformer power brick by modern, noisy, switching-type models with low quality DC output.
c) That I prefer TTL and NMOS chips over CMOS, unless they emit lots of heat or bring down the aged PSU.
d) That I rather use solar panels and rechargeables than making old gear use less power.
e) That I do not replace venerable 7800/7900 series linear voltage regulators by modern parts which cause nothing but headaches (ripple, noisy, overcurrent, etc).
f) That I am not a fan of fans. If possible, I rather use big heatsinks instead.

😅

Edit: Several edits.

Jo22 wrote on 2020-08-12, 08:48:

f) That I am not a fan of fans. If possible, I rather use big heatsinks instead.

This. So much.

Those old, tiny southbridge fans are the worst offenders, and some of the ancient graphics card fans aren't much better. The noise they produce is so... grating. Whenever possible, I go for motherboards and graphics cards with passive cooling. Either that, or I install aftermarket heat spreaders and fans.

For CPU fans, I go with modern, quiet versions when applicable. I also tend to use a new-ish low noise PSUs, except for special cases like the AthlonXP processors which need something like 30A on the 5V rail which almost no modern PSU can deliver.

1) overclocking/modding hardware
2) sleeper builds
3) builds following a certain colour scheme (all red PCBs, for example), or having chips from one vendor (all UMC or all AMD)
4) brand name builds (I strictly get standard AT/ATX cases)

Solver - I do like making an old troubled PC work again, sometimes spending too long coaxing some old machine into use only to not really use it!

That's me! I occasionally play a game on these old machines but I spend way, way more time on building, configuring and fixing things.

Those old, tiny southbridge fans are the worst offenders, and some of the ancient graphics card fans aren't much better. The noise they produce is so... grating. Whenever possible, I go for motherboards and graphics cards with passive cooling. Either that, or I install aftermarket heat spreaders and fans.

I bought some fan controller (PCI bracket size) on AliExpress for this and lower the fan speeds. I use the internal sensor and an infrared thermometer to keep an eye on the temperature (for example while running 3DMark), but it's so worth it. Even at 60-70% speed the fans are so much quieter.

My biggest task right now that is related to retro stuff: trying to figure out how to get more space to store my things without buying a new house.
It's a hopeless battle.

actually play games or listen to midi music... I'm tinkering around so much I never really get to the actual goal of a build x3

@gerry

Welcome to the forum! I must say I find myself agreeing with the complete majority of items on both your "do" and "don't do" lists. I guess we are of a similar mindset. 😉

I don't have a huge collection of parts, but I do have more working machines than I need (most of them are Thinkpads). I almost never get rid of a working system, and I often work overtime to bring them back to working state when something breaks.

Oh, and I rarely upgrade the main OS on the machine. I usually stay with what was current and period-correct. Found that it typically works better this way. I do upgrade parts here and there. Almost every PC of mine had its hard drive and RAM upgraded at one point or the other, and almost every desktop had a video card upgrade.

Welcome 😁

thanks 😀

Energy saving. I prefer to not to optimize power consumption of vintage gear,

that's interesting, I've always used the psu the box comes with unless something is wrong with it, not a fan of fans either

1) overclocking/modding hardware

I understand the appeal this has for many but I tend to think 'it' was designed to do something specific so let it do that

...I spend way, way more time on building, configuring and fixing things.

I recently spent way too long rescuing an old P3 laptop with broken screen hinge and generally in poor conditions, it works ok again but I don't see it lasting too long!

trying to figure out how to get more space

definitely a limit on configurations for storing the same gear in the same space!

actually play games

I've lurked here and this is common experience it seems! all ready for games but after running a few for tests that's it!

dr_st wrote on 2020-08-12, 13:48:

@gerry […]
Show full quote

@gerry

Welcome to the forum! I must say I find myself agreeing with the complete majority of items on both your "do" and "don't do" lists. I guess we are of a similar mindset. 😉

I don't have a huge collection of parts, but I do have more working machines than I need (most of them are Thinkpads). I almost never get rid of a working system, and I often work overtime to bring them back to working state when something breaks.

Oh, and I rarely upgrade the main OS on the machine. I usually stay with what was current and period-correct. Found that it typically works better this way. I do upgrade parts here and there. Almost every PC of mine had its hard drive and RAM upgraded at one point or the other, and almost every desktop had a video card upgrade.

thanks 😀

"I almost never get rid of a working system, and I often work overtime to bring them back to working state when something breaks." indeed we seem to have the same approach!

If it's windows I do tend to put on the 'next' version if it makes sense, e.g. win 98 on a 1997 Pentium mmx works well, Win XP on a 800mhz with 256mb ram is usually ok. I never try grinding the poor machine down, cramming Windows XP onto a P2 with 64mb ram or trying to persuade win 98 to fly on a core duo or some such

for hardware I will add some RAM if available and I had some TNT2 cards that got distributed too, but I 've only once bought a better card just because the system could take one

Thinkpads are quite collectable in some circles

Replicate - try to get the exact PC from some period in my past
Don't need to, I still have the families first PC and my first PC, hording has it's benefits. I admit if I didn't I would probably do this though

Authenticate - build a PC with strictly period authentic parts
Fair few people like period correct, and I get it, but would say majority of us all into the "modernise" category

Optimise - update every driver, check every ram module pairing, overclock and so on for optimal performance
Sorta, I like running latest drivers, max ram, even if it actually hurts performance. Don't overclock though

Idealise - to create an idealised 'ultimate windows x' machine with all the top of the range parts compatible with it
Guilty, I do have my Ultimate Win98 P4 and I hardly use it preferring the slower P3. oh well

Benchmark - compare various benchmarks and fine tune accordingly
Nah, numbers bore me

Stretch - try to load windows 10 on a P2 or try Windows 98 on a quad core
I've probably an even split of OS's that match the CPU and systems where the CPU is much newer then the OS

Solver - I do like making an old troubled PC work again, sometimes spending too long coaxing some old machine into use only to not really use it!
Yep, telling ourselves we are going to game on it is just an excuse now 😉

Modernise - always happy to use a more modern OS or part that may not have existed when the machine was made
Yep in fact I get a slight kick out of it.

Collect- I have a collection of working PCs and Laptops beyond what I can practically use with any regularity. Some have sat for a few years between boot ups!
Yep and I want to stop, really i do, but nice PC's seem to just find me!

Likewise with parts, I don't have a vast collection but I doubt I will even use all the floppy drives, optical drives and ram modules that I have
That's just smart! been grabbing optical drives off work PC's heading to the dumpster as they are all but gone on newer systems and I'm still going to need them

Economise - everything retro I have is cheap or free
Most my PC's start out this way but once i stat upgrading they don't work out so cheap sometimes 😜

I'm mainly a Solver and a Stretcher.

I put together a couple of retro systems with the goal of doing some DOS gaming only to find myself tinkering with hardware configurations and testing what OSes and multi-boot configurations I can get working. And then it dawned on me: I didn't play a ton of video games back in the day either. The challenge of getting cantankerous old hardware and software working is the game for me. I also realized that this is why modern computing has become so boring to me. Everything works now, and when it doesn't, it's a minor thing and the internet hive mind can almost always answer your questions after 2 web searches. It's great for productivity, but what's the fun in that? Hopefully I'm not the only weirdo who likes to dig through datasheets and search for specs and standards on archive.org. 🤣

Things I don't do:

- Replicate: my old PCs were just cheap frankensteins with whatever I could afford at the time, no real nostalgia about most of the stuff I had, I'd rather focus on building what I would have only dreamed of back then
- Collect: all my parts are used, shuffled around between PCs or stored as spares in case something fails, nothing on display. But I do appreciate seeing other people's collections on this forum
- Stretch: I always choose OS and software that is appropriate for each build, not interested in dealing with compatibility issues or slowness
- Benchmark: I only run benchmarks for testing specific scenarios, it's not really something I enjoy and I don't do it very often

Slightly off-topic: it's rather ironic how frequently in this sub-forum the "Solver" type of people pop up considering the original gaming-related purpose of VOGONS! It's not my case though, even if I don't game as much as I used to due to work/life stuff I still enjoy gaming on my retro PCs very much. In fact, I'd say that not having a lot of time to dedicate to it keeps my interest high instead of burning out. Although I enjoy tinkering with old hardware, there are periods when I don't even touch any of it, I find this balance between tinkering and gaming to be very positive.

gerry wrote on 2020-08-12, 07:49:

Stretch - try to load windows 10 on a P2 or try Windows 98 on a quad core

You say that as if it isn't fun to do dumb things like that 😜

Seriously, though, that kind of thing is a great source for day-projects. It's led to me doing absolutely dumb things like learning that Mac OSX Server 1.0 doesn't like hard drives that are too fast.

TheMobRules wrote on 2020-08-12, 22:17:

Slightly off-topic: it's rather ironic how frequently in this sub-forum the "Solver" type of people pop up considering the original gaming-related purpose of VOGONS! It's not my case though, even if I don't game as much as I used to due to work/life stuff I still enjoy gaming on my retro PCs very much. In fact, I'd say that not having a lot of time to dedicate to it keeps my interest high instead of burning out. Although I enjoy tinkering with old hardware, there are periods when I don't even touch any of it, I find this balance between tinkering and gaming to be very positive.

It's incredibly ironic! I originally got into this because I wanted to play Wing Commander at the 'right' speed with OPL sound: something I hadn't experienced since the mid 90's. I had grand schemes for creating a console-like DOS gaming PC. I was going to use an SD to IDE adapter and create SD cards that can be loaded into the machine like game cartridges, blah blah blah. This 'project' has just turned into me getting more components and trying different configurations, basically for the hell of it.

My guess is games were a gateway to computing for many of us due to all the nonsense we had to do to get things working: creating boot disks, editing startup files, configuring jumpers, etc. It took building a retro PC for me to realize THAT was the fun part of DOS games for me 🤣

Even for folks not interested in gaming, this forum is one of the best resources around. I think it's fair to say the quality of content on VOGONS often transcends the original gaming focus.

BetaC wrote on 2020-08-13, 00:06:

gerry wrote on 2020-08-12, 07:49:

Stretch - try to load windows 10 on a P2 or try Windows 98 on a quad core

You say that as if it isn't fun to do dumb things like that 😜

Seriously, though, that kind of thing is a great source for day-projects. It's led to me doing absolutely dumb things like learning that Mac OSX Server 1.0 doesn't like hard drives that are too fast.

I guess as learning exercise it is good, I'd just never want to use a strangled OS struggling to get by on minimal specs or get a glitchy error prone win 98 experience as it barely copes with a windows 10 era machine, but doing it for learning and challenge - yes I can see that

johnnycontrario wrote on 2020-08-13, 03:43:

My guess is games were a gateway to computing for many of us due to all the nonsense we had to do to get things working: creating boot disks, editing startup files, configuring jumpers, etc. It took building a retro PC for me to realize THAT was the fun part of DOS games for me 🤣

I like the idea that making it work IS the game 😀 "Achievement unlocked: you may now hear sound!"
perhaps there will be less retro PC interest in the future just because these days things tend to work with less effort

things you don't do with a retro PC?
this for starters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wsjroVlu8 🤣

A Retro computer should be looked at like an Arcade machine.
It is for playing old DOS games and listening to music on old Sound cards.

It’s just a piece of Nostalgia.

You should NOT use it like an everyday computer to store your critical data on or surf the internet.