Nice setup! europe based? Germany or the Netherlands?
JvV wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:54:Nice setup! europe based? Germany or the Netherlands?
Netherlands. You can see a Dutch version of DOS on one of the screens. Could than also be Belgium but the outside is definitely Netherlands.
Nice setup btw. I would be afraid to show my collection so clearly to the outside. Don't know where you are exactly based but in certain places it could attract some uninvited guests. 😉
CrashGalore wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:35:West and east.
Nice room! I feel that CRT on the right of the first picture might be a bit too close to the loudspeaker but maybe you like to live dangerously 😆
Is the Philips green monochrome on the left MDA or CVBS?
Yoghoo wrote on 2026-05-21, 22:12:JvV wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:54:Nice setup! europe based? Germany or the Netherlands?
Netherlands. You can see a Dutch version of DOS on one of the screens. Could than also be Belgium but the outside is definitely Netherlands.
Nice setup btw. I would be afraid to show my collection so clearly to the outside. Don't know where you are exactly based but in certain places it could attract some uninvited guests. 😉
Thanks. Netherlands yes, In the quiet northern part. Not a lot of uninvited guests here. And if they do try to invite themselfs, I got some tricks up my sleef.... Same room but a few weeks ago
MMaximus wrote on 2026-05-22, 09:36:CrashGalore wrote on 2026-05-21, 19:35:West and east.
Nice room! I feel that CRT on the right of the first picture might be a bit too close to the loudspeaker but maybe you like to live dangerously 😆
Is the Philips green monochrome on the left MDA or CVBS?
Hahaaa jaaa. True, it's a VT510 terminal next to the speaker. It's actually doing oke. The philips / Highscreen is a CVBS on the CGA /MDA VTech card the 8086 came with.
Guarding
So here was my command center. Sad story, this was after my first computer got stolen when some bastards enter my house while I was on holidays.... So I managed to get a job after school and start building something with spare parts. The laptop was my moms, she used to use it very little so she let me use it for casual gaming.
A year later I build my first proper gaming pc. It had a amd cpu, can't remember the model but it was 4 cores, a shappire radeon HD6770, 2 gskill about 4gb each. It was great for that time...
Latest reorganization 😀
Still a work-in-progress as I'm forever decorating and fixing old PCs...
This is my "minimalist" approach to doing both everyday computing on my laptop and desktop in my home office, and allowing the use of my retro rigs with the same standing desk and monitor.
Firstly, let me talk about the monitor and KVM setup. I must have had this monitor for about 10 years, it's an LG 34" Ultrawide that displays 3440x1440. It has a few tricks up its sleeve, including "Picture by Picture" where I can run two inputs side by side simultaneously. When it's in 16:9 mode, it behaves like a 27" monitor. The monitor has two active inputs, and thus 2x KVMs. There is an old Trust soundbar plugged in, as the LG Ultrawide does not have great speakers. I've found the PBP mode is super useful, especially when downloading retro drivers and dumping them on an isolated SMB share on my NAS, so I can pick up the files on whatever computer I'm using on the right-hand side.
Let's talk KVMs. Clearly there are various compromises if I were to share absolutely everything. In the end, I decided I valued high-speed data transfer for the modern PCs, and native PS/2 support for the computers I use (which are primarily P2->P4 era machines).
The first KVM is my UGREEN DisplayPort KVM, which I use for toggling between my laptop and my main PC. Plugged into it are a Das Pro Keyboard 6 (Type-C), a Logitech G502X, and an Anker PowerConf webcam. The Das Pro 6 has a built-in USB-C hub, which is good for my personal YubiKeys and my conferencing headset. This keyboard and mouse are usually front and centre, with the "Retro board and mouse" tucked away to the side. There is a button on the underside of the desk which I can hit to swap between laptop and PC. The laptop element is realised by plugging into my Vention USB-C dock, so I have 1 cable to get power and everything else.
The second is an old Belkin 4-way PS/2 + VGA KVM, with the option to use USB on the console (built-in PS/2 to USB converter). Hooked up to it is a Microsoft Wheel Mouse 1.1A with a USB to PS/2 adapter, and some new old stock HP PS/2 keyboard (KB-1156). This is then hooked up to a Startech VGA2HDMIPro scaler, which pulls in the KVM's VGA and audio feed, and spits it out into one of the LG's HDMI inputs.
The main PC is a Ryzen 5700X3D rig with 32GB of RAM, a load of different drives, and an XFX 9070XT Mercury OC. It does occasionally get used for VR, although more often than not, it's checking eBay listings and emails. It was originally fully watercooled; however, I had to remove the GPU from the loop when the XFX 9070XT came out, as no waterblocks were available for it.
The next PC, which is pictured on the right of the screen, is my little "OptiPlex Sleeper". It has a Celeron 1100 MHz with 256 MB of RAM, an Audigy 1, and 2x Creative 3Dfx Voodoo 2 8 MB cards in SLI. It works and displays perfectly, thanks to the scaler.
The big silver tower is my Dual Athlon MP rig. At the moment it has 2x Palomino 2000s with some overclocking to 1750MHz, a 7800GS AGP, and a Creative X-Fi. Really nice rig.
The Dell Precision 410 is not yet posted about and is undergoing some surgery, after all of my spare 5.25" DVD drives seem to be dead. It has 2x Pentium 3s @ 700MHz (slot 1), 512MB RAM, an ASUS v8460 GeForce 4 Ti4600, and a few HDDs. It currently runs Windows 2000 on a 10k WD Raptor, and has an old Cisco 256MB CF card running grub4dos, so I can try and dual-boot NT4 Workstation and OS/2 Warp 4 at some point in the future. I haven't bothered installing one of my Soundblasters, as I'm currently gobsmacked that Windows 2000 works with the built-in audio and that the built-in speaker still works. I may also try some Windows Whistler betas on this box again, as that is a hobby I used to have.
...And for bonus points, my Compaq Portable with a Microsoft Serial Mouse 2.0A attached. It's running DOS 5.0 + Windows 3.0a. Inside it's an 8088 (obviously), with an XT-IDE and a 512MB Sandisk card. It also has an AST SuperPak Plus 3 card fully populated. I will be getting a 2nd serial card at some point, so I can leave the Pi 3 beside it permanently hooked up. The Pi is known as "bastardion", which provides a serial bastion so I can SSH into things for "fun". This machine has had an extensive restoration, consisting of an extensive recapping, cleaning of all the panels, and keyboard foam foil thing replacement.
Nothing wrong with an old computer . The English language and number system has not changed since dos and windows 3x
