What about a laptop with a regular Pentium IV 2.8Ghz that does fully support Windows 98SE?

You would need to use a USB floppy drive though.

Those specs are definitely available with a Geforce FX 5200 Go and possibly even an FX 5600 Go if you can locate one.

The hardest part was tracking down a driver for the FX 5200 Go that actually worked with Windows 98SE.

I have a Toshiba Laptop with those specs and if you are interested in getting something like that I'll post the model number here.

MII-333 wrote:

we'd obviously be looking at Pentium III's (really don't want a mobile Pentium 4).

Any chance a Pentium M could suit your needs since that's closer to the Pentium III in terms of processor design? In that case something like a Dell Latitude D600/D800 or an IBM Thinkpad T40-42 should work great because those were usually equipped with ATI GPUs that are good enough for 9x gaming, I believe the D-series Latitudes have floppy drive modules available so that should satisfy your drive requirements (just use a Micro-USB cable on the Dell floppy module if it needs to have a floppy and CD simultaneously).

Otherwise, my second (and personal favorite) suggestion is a Dell Latitude C800-C810 or Inspiron 8000-8100 which are pretty much the same thing aside from the Inspiron's flashier palmrest design, those models can accommodate both a floppy drive module and the internal CD/DVD drive at once so that takes care of the drive requirements, they're highly upgradable too because they have removable GPU modules that can be upgraded all the way up to a Mobility Radeon 9000* and the processors can be replaced easily as long as it uses the matching mobile CPU socket (the 8000/C800 uses Socket 495, the 8100/C810 uses Socket 479 for Tualatin Pentium III-M).

* Here are two web pages involving video card upgrades for the Inspiron 8x00 and Latitude C8x0 laptops if you need proof:
http://www.bay-wolf.com/videoupgrade.htm
http://www.bay-wolf.com/geforce4-1.htm

I think my father had a Toshiba P4 1.8 (willamette) with a Go MX 420 that got stolen, it would probably be a very nice 98 machine, it was well built, the screen was 15" 1024x768, I can't remember the model.

Had a Compaq N600 in the mid 2000's, Has ATI card, works well with Win98 and has a "Multibay" where you can swap out the CD drive for a floppy or another HDD
https://support.hp.com/ro-en/document/c00056671

I've got 3 laptops that can run 98se/me - a ThinkPad T23 (1.13 GHz P3 Tualatin + 16mb S3 SuperSavage), an LG Xnote LM50a (1.5 GHz Pentium M + Radeon 9200) and a Compaq Evo N800C (1.6 Pentium 4 Mobile + Radeon 7500). The ThinkPad had specific drivers available, the other ones I had to scrounge but I did find compatible ones. Just some suggestions - although the second and third ones don't have floppy drives, you could use a USB one as they work fine.

KCompRoom2000 wrote:

Any chance a Pentium M could suit your needs since that's closer to the Pentium III in terms of processor design? In that case s […]
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MII-333 wrote:

we'd obviously be looking at Pentium III's (really don't want a mobile Pentium 4).

Any chance a Pentium M could suit your needs since that's closer to the Pentium III in terms of processor design? In that case something like a Dell Latitude D600/D800 or an IBM Thinkpad T40-42 should work great because those were usually equipped with ATI GPUs that are good enough for 9x gaming, I believe the D-series Latitudes have floppy drive modules available so that should satisfy your drive requirements (just use a Micro-USB cable on the Dell floppy module if it needs to have a floppy and CD simultaneously).

Otherwise, my second (and personal favorite) suggestion is a Dell Latitude C800-C810 or Inspiron 8000-8100 which are pretty much the same thing aside from the Inspiron's flashier palmrest design, those models can accommodate both a floppy drive module and the internal CD/DVD drive at once so that takes care of the drive requirements, they're highly upgradable too because they have removable GPU modules that can be upgraded all the way up to a Mobility Radeon 9000* and the processors can be replaced easily as long as it uses the matching mobile CPU socket (the 8000/C800 uses Socket 495, the 8100/C810 uses Socket 479 for Tualatin Pentium III-M).

* Here are two web pages involving video card upgrades for the Inspiron 8x00 and Latitude C8x0 laptops if you need proof:
http://www.bay-wolf.com/videoupgrade.htm
http://www.bay-wolf.com/geforce4-1.htm

The Inspiron 8000 actually looks fairly tempting if it is indeed upgradable. I'll have to check out how those things + parts run for. 😀

I have a Toshiba Tecra 9000 from early 2002 that originally shipped from the factory with Win98SE, although I have since reformatted it and installed Win2K. It has a PIIIM 1.2GHz, shipped with 512MB RAM (I've upgraded it to 1GB though), 40GB hard drive, and factory-installed WiFi. I'm genuinely surprised a factory option for Win98SE was still available that late in the game.

I'm biased but go with a ThinkPad.... 600X, T2x, Axx, T30, even a T40-T42 would work for 98SE