IMO the Ps2's are definitely worth saving, but you probably aren't going to want them for gaming... sound cards and such for Microchannel are pretty much nonexistent.

The AT is good for early DOS games, and even if you don't need it, it'd be a shame to let it get scrapped... those things are starting to become hard to find.

The GXPro is potentially a very good option for an "all-around" system, there's a pretty extensive analysis of it a few posts down in this thread.

So the Pentium Pro is better than the MMX? I never did quite understand the difference.

I'd take the 386 or 486, but I can't think of anything that would require a 386/486 only and won't play on the Pentium Pro. I suppose there might be stuff that runs too fast, but I think most those non-speed limited games were in the 8086/8286 era and would run just fine on the AT.

Just did some research and it appears that Windows 3.1.1 needs at least a 386. Really? I could have sworn I saw it running on an AT...

So it's looking like:

Early DOS - AT
Windows 3.1.1 - Pentium Pro
Late DOS - Pentium Pro
Windows 95/98 - Pentium III
Windows XP - Pentium III or 4 (depending)

The question is, which Pentium III do I grab? The Optiplex or the Intellistation. The Intellistation is a cool black tower so I'm inclined to go with it, but I need to see what the specs are vs. the Optiplex.

Tempest

Tempest wrote:

So the Pentium Pro is better than the MMX? I never did quite understand the difference.

Yes, and no. Pentium Pros are 1995 processors that are overexpensive 'premium' CPUs for professionals (at the time, it was considered the hot shit to buy dual ppro200s for servers). They lack MMX (introduced in early '97 fyi) and the only games they work best in are Quake engine games due to their neat linear writing and cache make them super friggin fast for that engine, if you don't mind a computer running loud and hot. 😀

A Pentium II is just a consumer-level Pentium Pro with less cache and the MMX on. A Pentium III is a Pentium II with Katmai extensions which are even more rarely used in its introduced era than MMX was.

You might have saw Windows 3.0 on an AT. 3.11 introduced some more memory stuff that thrown its requirements up to 386, IIRC.

For early dos, i'd recommend a low-end 486 (think 33mhz) because of the support of the holy turbo button. A Pentium III system can be a makeshift early dos machine too if you turn off its cache, it can ALMOST run wing commander.

For late dos, I can't think much but the usual standard-for-1996 Pentium 100-200MHz range. You might want to consider having this as your Windows 95 machine too.

One final thing: BEWARE OF OEM SOUND CARDS. Incompatibility with older games and them can be hair-pulling frustration, especially if your computer is post-97 (when AC'97 and PCI128 became more widely adopted than any fine Windows Sound System solution). I think those Optiplexes have PCI128s in them!

The GX110 is a solid system, and pretty nice to work on, but you're limited to either the crappy Intel onboard graphics or a PCI video card. The Intellistation M Pro should have an AGP slot, but Win95/98 can't take advantage of the dual processors.

I know Windows 3.0 would run on an AT, and I believe the standard version of 3.1 (i.e., not "Windows for Workgroups") would as well... though I don't imagine it would be a pleasant experience.

About the PS/2's, if you have room for them, you should save them... and if you honestly don't have the space, at least grab all the parts you can. There's a pretty decent demand for old PS/2 stuff, so even if you don't personally have any use for 'em, you shouldn't have much trouble selling/trading 'em off to IBM collectors.

I use a 650mhz PIII system with a Voodoo 5 5500 graphics card and Win98se for most of my retro PC gaming needs... I prefer to use my good old expanded Amiga for most late 80's and early 90's games 😀

So it's more like:

Early DOS - 486
Windows 3.1.1 - 486
Late DOS - Pentium Pro
Windows 95/98 - Pentium MMX
Windows XP - Pentium III or 4 (depending)

The 486 doesn't have a turbo button IIR, it's a PS/2.

My company has a ton of PS/2 systems, I wonder if I should grab them? I thought they looked nice because they were compact.

Tempest

I'd put late DOS and Win9x in with that P3/P4. I can name a few DOS games that will benefit from a 600 MHz CPU, and quite a few Windows 9x games are not completely smooth until 1 GHz. This can all be satisfied with one speedy P3.

Pentium Pro and Pentium MMX are not really fast enough for some SVGA DOS games and they are far too slow for many 3D Win9x games. And since they are too fast for older DOS games they just aren't ideal for anything. They are 1995-6's best game CPUs but that was that.

So IMO you want a 486 (or DOSBOX) and a P3/P4/Athlon machine.

Oh wait, a GXpro? That's the one Mr. Trixter recommends so highly at http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/friendlyboxes . Emphasis added:

The cream of the crop, the Dell Optiplex GXpro 200 is a Pentium Pro running at 200MHz, is my current machine, and is probably th […]
Show full quote

The cream of the crop, the Dell Optiplex GXpro 200 is a Pentium Pro running at 200MHz, is my current machine, and is probably the best machine I've come across for running old games in addition to being an extremely capable workstation. While not listed on their website any more, you may still be able to purchase it from Dell by asking a sales representative on the phone about their old stock.

Here's the rundown on why this is the best oldskool machine I've ever owned:

* Can toggle between 200MHz and 8MHz on the fly by hitting CTRL-ALT-\ at any time
* The sound card is built onto the motherboard, which, in addition to saving an ISA slot, is 100% Sound Blaster 16 compatible, the settings are perfectly set at 220, 5, 1, 5, and the PC speaker is rerouted to output through the sound card! While the obvious advantage is the control of the PC speaker volume, the real benefit is that PC speaker digitized or synthesized sound is much clearer, since it's being output to real speakers instead of a piezo tweeter.
* There's a free external drive bay, perfect for dropping in a 5.25" drive
* The video card is not on the motherboard (unlike the sound card, which is), so I'm free to choose whatever video card I like (currently using an ATI card with full VESA 2.0 in BIOS 😀

There are other reasons this machine is great that are not directly related to running old games:

* The case comes off easily; just push in two buttons on either side of the case and it lifts right off
* The drives slide right out on their own chassis
* The power supply easily rocks out of the way so you can get at the motherboard
* The ISA and PCI card slots are contained in their own removable cage; you can lift the cage right out of the machine, put your ISA and/or PCI cards in, and then lower the cage right back into the machine

And that's without using a single screw! That's right--no screws.

It is entirely possible that many (or all) new Dell machines are like this, but you might want to peruse their excellent technical website to get the exact specs of the machine you plan to buy. On the OptiPlex GX Pro tech notes, the reference to the key-combo-triggered slowdown toggle is slightly obscure, but it is listed.

As for the PS/2s, I reckon they're best avoided, what with all their proprietary bits.

You're the second person to mention that the IBM PS/2s have proprietary parts. Does this mean that a standard sound and video card won't work in them? I was going to snag them because they look really neat are fairly compact.

Tempest

swaaye wrote:

I'd put late DOS and Win9x in with that P3/P4. I can name a few DOS games that will benefit from a 600 MHz CPU, and quite a few Windows 9x games are not completely smooth until 1 GHz. This can all be satisfied with one speedy P3.

Pentium Pro and Pentium MMX are not really fast enough for some SVGA DOS games and they are far too slow for many 3D Win9x games. And since they are too fast for older DOS games they just aren't ideal for anything. They are 1995-6's best game CPUs but that was that.

So IMO you want a 486 (or DOSBOX) and a P3/P4/Athlon machine.

Really? My first 'gaming rig' was a Gateway P-120 that I got back in 1995 and I don't recall having trouble playing things on it. Then again I was playing 95-96 games on it (Diablo, Warcraft, Doom, etc.) and not much older stuff.

I just did a quick check and it appears that the Intellistation is a PIII 1000/133 (not dual processor) with 512MB memory and the GX110 is a PIII 733 with 128MB memory.

The Intellistation doesn't appear to have ISA slots, just PCI. Is this going to be a problem?

Tempest

I ran into an interesting problem when testing the 486 today. There's some sort of video card in it that looks like it has a VGA port, but the second pin in the second row is filled in so the standard VGA cable won't work. What kind of video port is this?

Tempest

Tempest wrote:

I ran into an interesting problem when testing the 486 today. There's some sort of video card in it that looks like it has a VGA port, but the second pin in the second row is filled in so the standard VGA cable won't work. What kind of video port is this?

Reminds me of this post:

Complete newbie advice on ISA video cards required please (See 2nd photo on page 1)

Then see page 5 for solution. 😀

You're the second person to mention that the IBM PS/2s have proprietary parts. Does this mean that a standard sound and video card won't work in them?

Yes. They do not have any ISA, PCI, or VLB slots, they use Microchannel, and are therefore limited solely to Microchannel cards. There are some decent video options for MCA, but sound cards are extremely rare.

I'd suggest you check the PS/2s there at work, see what sort of cards they have. Depending on what the machines were used for, you might even get lucky and find a sound card... they're worth quite a lot of money if you do find one.

Well the GXPro was dead. It wouldn't boot up and the power supply was fried. I did strip some memory, CD drives, and a Matrox MGA video card out of it so it's not a 100% loss.

I guess I'll snag one of those Dell Optiplex GXMT 5166's then for my Pentium. I like towers over desktops anyway. 😀

Tempest

Quick question, what kind of mouse does the AT use? I know there are nifty adapters for using PS/2 keyboards on the AT so I'm not worried about that, but I don't see anything about AT mice. Was it just a serial mouse of some sort?

Tempest

Probably some of them have PS/2 headers on the motherboard to which a PS/2 connector can be connected. Those connectors can be hard to find, though. Otherwise, the alternative would tend to be a 9-pin serial mouse.

Remember that a PS/2 to serial adapter can only be used on a so-called "combo" mouse that explicitly supports such adapters. (Such mice work via the normally-unused pins in the PS/2 connector.)

Probably the best advice when running old DOS games, is have a machine that you can boot in a 'real' dos flavor (6.22 or Win95/98 DOS mode) and has an ISA sound card.

Sound Blaster 16/Pro is the best for compatibility. I use a Media Vision Jazz16 PAS with good results.

I have 3 PCs for old DOS gaming: (I could consolidate it down to 2 if I wanted to)

k6-2 450mhz, sb16, voodoo3 Win98: Runs late DOS (tomb raider, descent, quake, duke3d) very well. Especially DOS glide games. Also runs older Windows stuff like quake 2 very well. (Beyond quake 3 it sucks) I originally had a PCI sound card, but the real ISA SB16 lets me run DOS games in DOS mode!

486 dx5-133, pro audio spectrum, DOS 6.22: Runs anything up to Descent. (Descent runs, just choppy fullscreen when too many enemies). For some stupid reason, I have intermittent trouble with EGA games (palette is messed up, only on some days.)

286-12, SB16, Trident SVGA: This machine runs anything up to Wolf3d (choppy). I wouldn't need this if the above 486 ran EGA ok. (When I put ISA video card in the 486, EGA is ok, so I think my 486 needs a new VLB card, or there's a bad trace/connector pin somewhere).

If you get a midrange Pentium with ISA slots, you could probably coax it to run almost any DOS game.

My company is also throwing out a lot of old monitors. In addition to the standard 14-18 inch Dell monitors there are a bunch of old IBM monitors like a 14P (9524). Are any of these worth saving? I must admit, I like the square IBM look, it's very 80's.

Tempest

They are only worth saving if you think you are going to get sufficient use out of a heavy, bulky CRT with a relatively tiny viewing area.

I guess some people still like CRTs due to their higher response time, better black levels, and versatile viewing angles. I can do without.