Just a thought... Even if you'd have all the space... you still won't have the time to actually use them all more then a few hours per year. But the feeling would be great to have all the systems completed and ready to go in one place 😀

yeah i'd like to wire them up with kvm switches and when i'm in the mood, simply fire up whichever of them i want right now to play with. even bought old kvm switches already. i think if they're ready to go, i'd use them more.

nemail wrote:

Hey […]
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Hey

you know that feeling/situation, when you are absolutely flooded with PC hardware and absolutely can't decide which PCs have to go to the basement/attic/whatever?
I have no space in my apartment for any more PCs but still there are lying around mainboards begging to be built into some case (which I don't have space for). I'm talking about beautiful Asus Slot 1 boards for a nice Katmai build, powered by Voodoo 2 SLI or something like that. Also, there is a Tyan Dual Socket 8 board somewhere. Tyan SS7 too.
Other systems which are already built (and taking up space) are like Dual S370 P3 with Voodoo 5 AGP, AMD K6-3+ on Asus P5A, 386 DX40 on Asus ISA 386 (one of the first mass production boards they've ever made), Athlon XP 3200+ Barton on A7N8X and so on. Not really systems I could decide to get rid of or put them to the basement (where already a IBM PS/2 Model 90 or 95 sits which would be cool to have up here too).

In fact hovewer, I didn't have time for my retro computing hobby at all in the past few months so all the PCs could have stayed in the basement all the time but on the other side, if I put them there, I forget about them sooner or later and won't get them up here anytime soon.

What's the conclusion? I need a bigger apartment. Right? 🤣

Perhaps. I tended to just keep the rigs here till I needed the room and then decide which ones I probably won't be using anymore.

I do have an extra 'step' before stuff goes back into (lets say permanent) storage.

If they don't get in the way and you don't mind them, just keep them there. If you haven't enough room then keep the ones closest that you use (or simply like) the most.

I've even build rigs in the past that I set up everything (drivers, DX, some games), ran a couple benchmarks and then put it into permanent storage right after that 🤣.

This kind of thread comes every now and then... being in this hobby will easily procure more than we actually need or use. The excitement of getting the stuff you always wanted and when seeing the package arrive on your doorstep is indescribable. In that excitement we tend to forget how many stuff we already have...

At one point of time, I had 3x LAPC-I cards, 2x Roland CM-500, 2x CM-64, 2x CM-32L, many PII SLot 1 CPUs, obscene amount of Pentium MMX CPUs, 486DX2 CPUs, AT casinngs, soundcards, graphics, etc,etc,etc... I still have 3 unused AWE32 cards with 28MB RAM on each...

As time passes by, I realize that I can't use them all, and they really fill up any space..

It's still fun to assemble a "new" 486 or Pentium machine and play around mix n' match graphics and sound cards and see. But in the end I tend to keep my 486 Machine for older games and my Pentium II for relatively newer classics.

Most of the stuff I sold back on ebay.

With the advent of Dosbox and MUNT - the MT-32 emulator, I now use the real machines even less and less, since I can play all the Dos classics complete with CM-32L sounds roms via MUNT on my Dell Tablet anywhere anytime. In fact, all my modern systems - my main desktop and my main laptop all have Dosbox + MUNT setup. (Usually the first to be installed when I get them new.)

I can firmly say DOSBOX with MUNT and Sound Canvas VA plugins have greatly helped me to manage my room space. 😉

I've found 86Box has pretty much taken care of all my retro needs

There's a limit to how many PCs you can build and how useful they are, but the number does keep increasing. Microsoft broke various games in Windows 10 as they (correctly) stopped some of the kernel level software copy protection working, so that's another OS combination to support. That currently leaves me at four PCs to do PC gaming (486 (old, DOS games), PII (faster DOS, some Windows, OS/2), Core2 (modern-ish, XP/Windows 8 games), and modern). I'm maxed out on PC gaming boxes.

The temptation now is different platforms and other operating systems. A recent PowerMac 4400/7220 purchase enabled me to run pre Mac OS 9.2 (7.5.3->8.6) games, plus BeOS PPC (I thought this would be pointless, but there are some System 1-6 games, and unless I want to buy a Macintosh II it's probably easier to run Basilisk II under BeOS).

I've got pentium 4 systems and a Cyrix MII-300 motherboard that are basically doing nothing. Tempted to try and get Nextstep up and running on one of them. If I ever see a compatible Power Series machine, I'm not sure if I could resist being able to boot OS/2 PowerPC, even though that really is even more pointless than BeOS PPC..

If I can't find a useful purpose for my spare boxes, I will be ebaying them!

The sad thing is that at the moment I'm doing most of my computing on a laptop, because re-arranging my computer room is taking a while, and isn't a top priority. I'm doing more gaming on retro consoles than PCs, because they're set up and not changing and 'just work'.

ynari wrote:

The temptation now is different platforms and other operating systems. A recent PowerMac 4400/7220 purchase enabled me to run pre Mac OS 9.2 (7.5.3->8.6) games, plus BeOS PPC (I thought this would be pointless, but there are some System 1-6 games, and unless I want to buy a Macintosh II it's probably easier to run Basilisk II under BeOS).

There is nothing to be gained running Basilisk II under BeOS instead of the Windows port of Basilisk II. Mini vMac also seems to be increasingly preferable when it comes to older system software.

Currently I just keep one Katmai/Voodoo3 Win98SE system because that lets me play 99% of stuff I can't play on a modern Win7 PC. I'm also building a UMC 486S-33 box for older DOS games that break on faster hardware. The rest of my systems are in storage and built just for novelty and collection's sake..

Sorry for being offline for so long, work is currently quite f***ing my free time.
Katmai is another system i want to build and I also have got all the parts for it except the case (yay, another system i don't have space for).

Recently I got my 2nd PPro 200MHz for 20€ so now my Dual PPro build is also in the pipeline - even bought a vintage desktop ATX case today for it. I'm soooo sooo doomed 🤣

Emulation doesn't make me happy. I want to tinker with old hardware, enjoy hunting rate parts or parts I like because of I had or wanted them in my childhood, I want to tinker with old software and optimize until it runs all smooth and so on. So emulation probably isn't something for me.

In the end, I'd like too keep one 386 DX40, one 386 SX16, one 486DX2-66, one 486DX4-100 or AMD133, one P1-166 or 200MMX, the dual PPro200 (not built yet), the K6-3+ 400, the P3-450 (not built yet), the Dual P3-1000 and the Athlon XP 3200+.

there we are, 10 PCs 🤣 🤣 do i need therapy? 🤣

Here's some impessions of the PPro build:

nemail wrote:

there we are, 10 PCs 🤣 🤣 do i need therapy? 🤣

Here's some impessions of the PPro build:

You'll only need therapy if there is a problem 😜

Nice heatsinks 😜

And you're missing a Tualatin hehe 😁

Tetrium wrote:

You'll only need therapy if there is a problem 😜

Nice heatsinks 😜

And you're missing a Tualatin hehe 😁

🤣

Thanks, got them NOS from ebay and they weren't expensive either.

Yeah, I gave up on the Tualatin thing, way too expensive and too much searching 😁 Perhaps I'll end up buying some old Compaq Proliant with Tualatins if I wanted something like that. ML350 G3 should have them, right?

edit: nah, i was wrong. ML350 G2 has the dual Tualatin powaaarrrr: https://www.harddrivesdirect.com/quickspecs_p … ant_ML330G2.php

nemail wrote:

:lol: […]
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Tetrium wrote:

You'll only need therapy if there is a problem 😜

Nice heatsinks 😜

And you're missing a Tualatin hehe 😁

🤣

Thanks, got them NOS from ebay and they weren't expensive either.

Yeah, I gave up on the Tualatin thing, way too expensive and too much searching 😁 Perhaps I'll end up buying some old Compaq Proliant with Tualatins if I wanted something like that. ML350 G3 should have them, right?

edit: nah, i was wrong. ML350 G2 has the dual Tualatin powaaarrrr: https://www.harddrivesdirect.com/quickspecs_p … ant_ML330G2.php

Well if you ever do need therapy, you can always sell a couple rigs so you can pay for it lmao!

And about the Tualatins being so expensive, I guess you entered that market a bit too late 😢

You could always get one of those pin-modded chips and a standard Coppermine board, but I'm pretty much sure you already considered this.

Btw, I used to want to have at least one rig of every generation, but that was when sA and s478 were brand new. It's kinda impossible and unpractical these days 🤣! Oh well... 😜

Which OS's have you not tried yet btw? 😜

And it could help to actually use some of your rigs for certain specific tasks. I used to use one of my 1GHz Coppermine rigs solely for quick-formatting harddrives at some point so it at least saw some use. And that way, if it did end up frying due to some malfunctioning harddrive (which has happened to me twice 😵 ), you won't be down one of your specific retro gaming rigs 😎

Tetrium wrote:

Well if you ever do need therapy, you can always sell a couple rigs so you can pay for it lmao! […]
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Well if you ever do need therapy, you can always sell a couple rigs so you can pay for it lmao!

And about the Tualatins being so expensive, I guess you entered that market a bit too late 😢

You could always get one of those pin-modded chips and a standard Coppermine board, but I'm pretty much sure you already considered this.

Btw, I used to want to have at least one rig of every generation, but that was when sA and s478 were brand new. It's kinda impossible and unpractical these days 🤣! Oh well... 😜

Which OS's have you not tried yet btw? 😜

And it could help to actually use some of your rigs for certain specific tasks. I used to use one of my 1GHz Coppermine rigs solely for quick-formatting harddrives at some point so it at least saw some use. And that way, if it did end up frying due to some malfunctioning harddrive (which has happened to me twice 😵 ), you won't be down one of your specific retro gaming rigs 😎

yeah that's true 🤣

I'm fine having no dual tualatin. the whole S370 era was something I kind of skipped anyway. I survived with a K6-2 400 until I got some Socket A machine... I'm happy with my Dual 1GHz Coppermine. I read about those pin modded things but that's not worth it for me.

I use them from time to time for playing old games or trying new hardware. However recently I wasn't able to do any of this due to work 😢

I tried various DOS versions from about 3.00 to 7.0, Windows 3.1(1), Win95B/C, Win98SE, WinME and Windows 2000. It makes me puke when I have to install Windows XP but on my Athlon XP 3200+ that's the best choice, unfortunately. WinXP time was mostly when I started to work.
Didn't try any Linux yet, nor OS/2 or anything else.

DOS and Win9x/ME/2000 is where my childhood was 😉 maybe nt4.0 too a little bit (at school).

In my "retro" collection I have:
2 486's
3 P3 Slot 1's
1 P4 Win98 PC
2 WinXP PC's

Each are connected via KVM and ready to go. Sometimes to answer a question here, sometime just for 30 min game when I have a chance. but works for me sitting in the corner just waiting to be used

I have quite a lot of towers that only occasionally get used, however I've not run out of room yet 😀

I keep them stacked in my closet, and every few months take all out and run them to make sure everything is up and running, and just to get them warmed up 🤣