I hate the XP theme but to be honest I never go back to the Windows Classic theme because it's so iconic..

Modern (soon to be) retro hardware*, anything above Pentium 3 is boring. Everything either just works out of the box or completely broken.

While I'm fascinated with pre-386 hardware and the technical solutions in software to utilize the limited hardware, from a consumer's perspective, I borderline don't understand (if at all) how people enjoyed XT era games.

If something a game is so speed sensitive that you can't play it on a Pentium/Pentium 2 without slowing it down, it generally isn't worth bothering with anyway.

I enjoy setting up a 'new' PC the most. Once I configured everything and run some tests, I generally lose interest and just disassemble or put it away in a cabinet.

*not a confession, just a clarification. For me it's retro if manufacturing and/or support have ended at least 10 years ago and vintage if a generation have grown up since it's manufacturing/support ended.

I never owned an Intel platform beyond Socket 370. Not a single one. I just bought an LGA775 motherboardand a Core2Duo CPU for the first time today, and I will combine that with 2GB RAM and an ATI X850PRO PCIe to set up an uber fast Windows 98SE/Windows XP Dual boot system. I feel incredibly dirty.

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-01-27, 13:49:

Modern (soon to be) retro hardware*, anything above Pentium 3 is boring. Everything either just works out of the box or completely broken.

This is me 100%. Pretty much, if it's not a Pentium 1 or older, I'm probably not going to mess with it for the reasons you mention, plus the fact that when all that stuff was new, I was stuck using a 486 as a daily driver and was constantly getting told I needed a "P4 and XP" to do this and that - only to prove them wrong every time.

Other new additions....Never used a CF Card Adapter, ever, it's always been either ATA-133 IDE or SATA drives with converters. My best was putting a 128GB MSATA drive into a 44pin adapter card, then plugging that into a 44 pin to 40 pin adapter and using it on my 486 DX4 desktop - I installed FreeDOS on the DX4 in something like..8 minutes with that paired with a 54X DVD-RW drive for the install media. Boot time? About 10 seconds with networking.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-11-20, 12:40:

newtmonkey wrote on 2020-11-20, 12:03:

hyperrmachine wrote on 2020-11-20, 11:25:

1. Maniac Mansion is a much better game than its sequel, Day of the Tentacle. It's more fun to play than Day of the Tentacle but it's really hard.

Agree 100%. Other than graphics and sound, it seemed like a step back to me from MM back in the day. I also much prefer the corny horror setting of MM over the more cartoony look and feel (and setting) of DoTT.

I can't agree with this. Maniac Mansion has a lot of game over states as well as puzzles that are frustratingly obscure. It also feels like a series of puzzles tied together by a weak narrative that never progresses. It is basically Zak McKraken without the story or charm. Actually, I would say it is LucasArts' weakest graphic adventure; I had less fun with it than even Last Crusade or The Dig (which, IMO is exquisite despite what most people say about it.) Day of the Tentacle has better humor, better puzzles, better narrative. It is to me the unmistakably better game.

What do you mean that Zak McKracken is better than Maniac Mansion? It has one of the WORST UIs I have ever seen. Also it feels pretty avant-garde compared to MM.
Maniac Mansion was good for its time. It may be not good by todays standards, but it has a good game system. The UI's pretty terrible though.
Day of the Tentacle is pretty meh. I dont hate it but I feel like that its not worth playing.

Also why do people like Sam & Max Hit the Road? The graphics, music and voice acting are okay and all, but why would people like a game that has terrible writing and a not-so-polished UI? All because its funny?
Loom's story is disappointing because its short and doesn't have much to offer, but at least the writers didn't really give up?
Sam & Max Hit the Road's story is bad because there are many plot holes. You can tell that the writers gave up to run the story on bad comedy.
Sam & Max's story feels like if you combine the story of Zootopia and The Muppet Movie, grind it up, water it down and put in a bunch of plot holes.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2021-01-26, 20:21:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-01-26, 19:55:

Not really retro...but I do despise all turn based games. I hate them, I hate them and when I'm done hating them I hate them some more.

No OpenXCom, then. Sad. :'(

I've not heard of it...BUT if it is turn based then I can only surmise that I would despise it's very existence. Sorry.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-01-28, 21:01:

xcomcmdr wrote on 2021-01-26, 20:21:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-01-26, 19:55:

Not really retro...but I do despise all turn based games. I hate them, I hate them and when I'm done hating them I hate them some more.

No OpenXCom, then. Sad. :'(

I've not heard of it...BUT if it is turn based then I can only surmise that I would despise it's very existence. Sorry.

For a second, I somehow mis interpreted "turn based" with "RTS" games, and I was gonna get very sad at the notion someone has it out for the Command and Conquer series 🙁

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-01-26, 20:58:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-01-26, 19:55:

.... […]
Show full quote

....

Besides that....my only REAL confession would be that i spend WAY more time tinkering, building and troubleshooting with my retro machines that I ever have playing games.

TBH that is true with my modern machine as well. I've got fairly capable retro and modern gaming rigs that will likely never be used to their real potential.

I work a lot and hve two kids and a wife, all my hobbies (music, cars and computers) pretty much take a backseat to life.

This. A million times, this.

My database says I have 929 physical games in my collection and 82 individual systems (computers or consoles). I resigned myself to the fact that there are some (ok, ok; many) titles in that list that will simply sit on a shelf and never get played.

Absolutely. It's pretty sad I purchased a 34" ultrawide 1400p monitor for my birthday earlier this month and it has maybe two hours of use since then. 🙁

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2021-01-28, 21:15:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-01-28, 21:01:

xcomcmdr wrote on 2021-01-26, 20:21:

No OpenXCom, then. Sad. :'(

I've not heard of it...BUT if it is turn based then I can only surmise that I would despise it's very existence. Sorry.

For a second, I somehow mis interpreted "turn based" with "RTS" games, and I was gonna get very sad at the notion someone has it out for the Command and Conquer series 🙁

🤣, without a doubt. I have ZERO issues with RTS games.

Command and Conquer I did play although not a ton, I was more of a Age of Empires guy I suppose.

kolderman wrote on 2021-01-27, 02:06:

CannibalRetro wrote on 2021-01-27, 01:52:

never owned a voodoo cards or ever heard of it till sometime around 2015 or something around that time.

took awhile to even know that 3dfx was the one who started the SLI configuration with video cards.

The Nvidia bought them and re-used the SLI acronym with slightly different words...

Ah! gotcha, thank you for correcting me!

CannibalRetro wrote on 2021-01-28, 22:03:

kolderman wrote on 2021-01-27, 02:06:

CannibalRetro wrote on 2021-01-27, 01:52:

never owned a voodoo cards or ever heard of it till sometime around 2015 or something around that time.

took awhile to even know that 3dfx was the one who started the SLI configuration with video cards.

The Nvidia bought them and re-used the SLI acronym with slightly different words...

Ah! gotcha, thank you for correcting me!

It wasn't a correction. What you said was true. I was just adding a bit of extra history.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-01-26, 19:55:

Besides that....my only REAL confession would be that i spend WAY more time tinkering, building and troubleshooting with my retro machines that I ever have playing games.

TBH that is true with my modern machine as well. I've got fairly capable retro and modern gaming rigs that will likely never be used to their real potential.

I work a lot and hve two kids and a wife, all my hobbies (music, cars and computers) pretty much take a backseat to life.

A M E N !
😀

Oh I also bought the hitchhiker's guide books years ago. And never read them or listened to the radio show. It watched the movie

I believe that is where vogons come from?

I saw that movie. I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. And yes that is where "vogon" comes from...

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-01-27, 13:49:

Modern (soon to be) retro hardware*, anything above Pentium 3 is boring. Everything either just works out of the box or complete […]
Show full quote

Modern (soon to be) retro hardware*, anything above Pentium 3 is boring. Everything either just works out of the box or completely broken.

While I'm fascinated with pre-386 hardware and the technical solutions in software to utilize the limited hardware, from a consumer's perspective, I borderline don't understand (if at all) how people enjoyed XT era games.

If something a game is so speed sensitive that you can't play it on a Pentium/Pentium 2 without slowing it down, it generally isn't worth bothering with anyway.

I enjoy setting up a 'new' PC the most. Once I configured everything and run some tests, I generally lose interest and just disassemble or put it away in a cabinet.

*not a confession, just a clarification. For me it's retro if manufacturing and/or support have ended at least 10 years ago and vintage if a generation have grown up since it's manufacturing/support ended.

I pretty much agree with all of this.

About anything above Pentium 3 but soon to be retro stuff being boring... I guess the right term in this case is soon to be obsolete rather than retro. Give that type of hardware a decade or two and what hasn't been recycled or otherwise destroyed will be retro. For example, my now brand new computer will be obsolete by 2030 and should it last that long it would become retro by 2050. 😉 By that time many will have forgotten about or never even seen that stuff and they won't think it is boring. They will probably ask themselves how people could manage with such primitive tech in astonishment.

Peter Swinkels wrote on 2021-02-01, 20:07:

About anything above Pentium 3 but soon to be retro stuff being boring... I guess the right term in this case is soon to be obsolete rather than retro. Give that type of hardware a decade or two and what hasn't been recycled or otherwise destroyed will be retro. For example, my now brand new computer will be obsolete by 2030 and should it last that long it would become retro by 2050. 😉 By that time many will have forgotten about or never even seen that stuff and they won't think it is boring. They will probably ask themselves how people could manage with such primitive tech in astonishment.

The Pentium 4, Pentium D, Athlon XP, Athlon 64 are already beyond obsolete. The Core2 is on its last leg as a daily driver web browsing machine. Also, in the past 15 or 20 years the leaps in technology weren't as big and I wouldn't expect to be in the next 20 years either. Nothing that would redefine the way we interact with our PCs like for example graphical user interfaces did. And those didn't chage much since XP which released 20 years ago. More in style rather than in substance.

In the last 20 years we have seen the rise of webbased computing. In many ways a pc has become a glorified web-terminal and has been partially made obsolete by tablets and smartphones. Windows 10 may look and feel similar to XP... I won’t claim to know the details but I think the changes behind the scenes go a lot further than it seems at first glance.

Peter Swinkels wrote on 2021-02-01, 21:24:

In the last 20 years we have seen rise of webbased computing. In many ways a pc has become a glorified web-terminal and has been partially made obsolete by tablets and smartphones. Windows 10 may look and feel similar to XP... I won’t claim to know the details but I think the changes behind the scenes go a lot further than it seems at first glance.

That's the typical use case for most people. Most people think "why should I have this giant monstrosity on my desk or taking up space on my coffee table, when I can just use my phone." That's what Microsoft started trying to prevent from being a thing starting with WIndows 8.0 - which failed because it left out a segment of us who use non-touch-screen computers, and the Corporate usage because that screen full of "tiles" looked really unprofessional and "toy-like" in the workplace with it's Social Media, Games, and other tiles that would normally get you in trouble for putting on your PC. So they responded with 8.1 - nobody liked 8.1 because, while the start button was back, it just brought up that Playskool type interface for touch users. Then 10 came out, and fixed all that, but you still have this weird duality where you can have the tiles screen, but you can also have the start menu. This was obviously left in for the Microsoft Surface line of devices so that when you "undocked" the "tablet" part of the computer it would put it in "touch mode" and you could utilize the "touch apps" rather than the "Desktop Apps". This also makes support a bit annoying because you have dual UI's for a lot of settings - you have the "Settings UI" and then you have all the old *.cpl UI's for stuff, and somethings things would get unsynched and cause support headaches - or certain things like Azure favor the new style UI to the old one. It's gotten better with each build though.

Well, most people don't need a giant monstrosity - I personally I am so thankful tablets and smart phones exist. When I want to do things a phone or tablet aren't really suited to these I use my pc. And as those toy like features, it's good thing Microsoft included a lot of options to configure Windows. Some of those options may be a bit hard to find, but still. And oh, Windows 8.x looked unprofessional with it's tiles? It was a good thing you could easily change it but I really didn't like XP's default desktop background and window styles. When was I through configuring it to suit my preferences at home it looked a lot more like Windows 2000. (Much more business like.)