VOGONS


Reply 20 of 29, by Jo22

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brostenen wrote:

Get a haircut you young hippies..... 😁

Man, where do you know of my haircut from ?? 😳
(Just kidding!)

Baoran wrote:

I do play some nostalgic music that I used to listen in early 90s with .mod and .s3m files.
I just loved scream tracker back then. I also run software used for testing different hardware in dos.

Building these little Covox plugs really helped me liking that kind of music.
As time went by, I found out that some songs are actually more than the acoustic equivalent of graffiti.

Baoran wrote:

I think that gaming is the most unique thing you can do with old hardware.
If you want all the games to work how they used to, you pretty much need old hardware.

That's one other reason I keep old parts. I preserve/fix them for testing/comparison.
While I'm not a good programmer, my hardware might help some other dev in the future to check behavior of the real thing.
Also Hercules and monochrome LCD or plasma screens aren't properly emulated yet.
It's good to be able to see these old gems of games with the eyes of their developers (through the use of old hardware).

Gered wrote:

I'm learning Pascal for the first time through Turbo Pascal 7 and I'm having a blast. 😀
I love that it has the ease-of-use of QBasic, but also a more advanced type system, a bunch of advanced features (like pointers) from C/C++,

That retro game, Paku Paku, was also made by its auhor with the help of TP7 (that cheater! 😉 )
But yeah, TP is a fine piece of software. Personally, I grew up with v3 and v6.
Version 3 was also popular on non-PC platforms, I remember.
It was recently given free for CP/M-80, or so I heard (better double check).
Also interesting retro languages are QuickBasic 4.5 and Visual Basic for DOS. And K&R C (no C++).
Last time, I used a nifty old Basic to C transpiler (B2C) to port a program for my gameport project.

Gered wrote:

I do my retro-programming on a 486, and Watcom C (which I also use for some projects currently) now feels
painful in comparison each time I have to wait for the compiler, heh.

I'm often using both DOSBox and a 286 for that. 😀
Though I also have my Compaq Contura w/ 486 that I use now and then.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 21 of 29, by canthearu

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looking4awayout wrote:

it turned out I find more enjoyable to use my Pentium 3 Tualatin with Windows XP Pro SP3 as my main PC, rather than my Asus i7-7500u laptop with Windows 10.

Why not put together a nicer desktop PC then for your modern needs. Get a good processor, lots of RAM and SSD drive. Big screen and nice mechanical keyboard.

A laptop is always going to be an inferior, more cramped experience compared to a desktop, so it is hard to tell whether you just like the old operating system experience or like the more comfortable ergonomic and more productive layout of a good desktop.

Pretty soon, using windows XP for modern web browsing or other network activities will be like using windows 98 for modern web browsing, in that there are sniffs of what is possible, but otherwise impractical.

Reply 22 of 29, by .legaCy

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Hello, i'm 25 by this date.
I have several retro builds
vlb dx4-100(dos + win 3.11), s7 pentium 133(Windows 95 OSR2), compaq lte 5000 series pentium laptop(Windows 95 OSR2),s370 pentium 3 + voodoo 3(Windows 98), s462 athlon xp 2600+(Windows XP SP3), s775 pentium 4(Windows 98)
but my preferred retro system is my pentium 4 because every part is cheap to replace and it is compatible and fast enough, and i do more than retro gaming, i have mIRC installed so usually i go to some IRC a chat, i have MSN Messenger(using escargot) but i don't have any contacts to chat with 🙁
I also like to develop software there, i did some html page editing for my project of website , sometimes i just put some old music on winamp and work on something else.
I'm into computers since i was 6 or 7, i used to go online only on weekends(because on weekends the phone company didn't charged for minutes), go to chat rooms(and i always remember my parents enforcing that i should not publish any personal information), sometimes i played some kids educational / entertainment that came on magazines but most of gaming was done on my older brother Nintendo 64(Mostly Starfox64 and 007 GoldenEye and laterly perfect dark).
Some years since then i went for a lan house for the first time, they had broadband connection then i got to know some games like MU Online, CS 1.5, and UT99.
And that is the experience that i attempt to recreate.

Reply 23 of 29, by Damaniel

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Jo22 wrote:
That retro game, Paku Paku, was also made by its auhor with the help of TP7 (that cheater! ;) ) But yeah, TP is a fine piece of […]
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That retro game, Paku Paku, was also made by its auhor with the help of TP7 (that cheater! 😉 )
But yeah, TP is a fine piece of software. Personally, I grew up with v3 and v6.
Version 3 was also popular on non-PC platforms, I remember.
It was recently given free for CP/M-80, or so I heard (better double check).
Also interesting retro languages are QuickBasic 4.5 and Visual Basic for DOS. And K&R C (no C++).
Last time, I used a nifty old Basic to C transpiler (B2C) to port a program for my gameport project.

The author also released his code into the public domain, and I've used his CGA 160x100 library to create not only my own games, including a Sokoban clone called Move-It, Man!, and an in-progress Arkanoid clone called Damanoid, but also a sprite editor compatible with his sprite format. My only experience with Pascal at the time was from a class I took in high school over 20 years ago (which used ThinkPascal on Mac), but picking it back up was really easy.

Back in the day, I also played around a lot with QBasic since my PC had it already installed. I can't say that I really made anything exciting, but I threw together a handful of small, crappy games. I didn't really create a 'serious' project until I discovered DJGPP in high school.

Reply 24 of 29, by brostenen

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Jo22 wrote:
brostenen wrote:

Get a haircut you young hippies..... 😁

Man, where do you know of my haircut from ?? 😳
(Just kidding!)

Heh' 😁 For some odd reason I was thinking about Futurama's version of Nixon. 😉 Or was I projecting?
(Me and my hair down to the waist)

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 25 of 29, by looking4awayout

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canthearu wrote:

Why not put together a nicer desktop PC then for your modern needs. Get a good processor, lots of RAM and SSD drive. Big screen and nice mechanical keyboard.

A laptop is always going to be an inferior, more cramped experience compared to a desktop, so it is hard to tell whether you just like the old operating system experience or like the more comfortable ergonomic and more productive layout of a good desktop.

Pretty soon, using windows XP for modern web browsing or other network activities will be like using windows 98 for modern web browsing, in that there are sniffs of what is possible, but otherwise impractical.

Two reasons, the nostalgia factor (forgot to say I'm 27!), as it belongs to a time period where I was a child and so brings me back a lot of memories, and space constraints. The Tualatin is the only desktop I can keep as I have a small room and only one desk. But once the day XP will be pretty much useless for web browsing, I already have alternatives set up, such as setting up Lubuntu (which I already used and have very good memories of it, being slick and stable, perhaps one of my most favourite Linux distro!) or trying some other Linux distros I set my eyes upon. In case someday the Tualatin won't cut anymore, I have a S478 Pentium 4 motherboard I can fit in, although I dream of using an Athlon XP 3200+, which I only have the CPU, at the moment. But who knows I can't get a motherboard for it in future! Maybe one that supports the 3200+ and has dual floppy drives support... I'd love one!

I'd say the "legacy friendly" aspect is another reason why I enjoy using this computer, since I have two serial ports, a parallel one, I can easily use 3,5" and 5,25" disks, use an ISA sound card if I can get one, as well as using programs and games that won't run on any other version of Windows than XP downwards. Those things can always come in handy both for work and play. 😀

My Retro Daily Driver: Pentium !!!-S 1.7GHz | 3GB PC166 ECC SDRAM | Geforce 6800 Ultra 256MB | 128GB Lite-On SSD + 500GB WD Blue SSD | ESS Allegro PCI | Windows XP Professional SP3

Reply 26 of 29, by Samir.Habib

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Greetings everyone, my name is Sam and I 31 years old. My journey to the retro computing began in 2015, when Windows 10 arrived. I was planning to build ultimate Windows 8.1 machine to run all games from Win Vista & 7 era without any troubles. But I find out, that soon I’m going to be a father, and that my plan to spend money on the expensive 2015 high end PC must be set aside. After a few weeks, with remembering about childhood, family pc’s of mid 90s any early 2ks, I began feeling nostalgia. Without any analyzation, and absolutely 100% sure that 32 bit Windows XP have compatibility with everything I need, I bought used LGA 775 office mini ATX pc, and put there GeForce 8800 GTS. I planned to install there all games from 1991 until 2006. I don’t know where I involving myself, and that everything is just beginning. After some fails with dos and win 9x games, I started to find, and buy time correct parts for my Windows 95 ultimate PC, and I finished it, I understood that I can’t stop the rock)

So here what i have today:

PC based on Intel Pentium II 450 Deschutes
ASUS P2B based on Intel 440BX chipset
Intel Pentium II 450 MHz, 512K Cache, 100 MHz FSB
192 Mb SDRAM PC100 (3 x 64 Mb)
10 Gb IDE HDD
Windows 95 OSR 2.5; DirectX 6; IE 4.0 SP2; Office 97 PRO
nVIDIA RIVA TNT 16 Mb Direct3D + OpenGL
Creative Sound Blaster Live! CT4620
3Dfx Voodoo2 12 Mb only Glide API (TR1,CARM1,NFS2, GTA1, Unreal)

After some time i felt that i wan't more

PC based on Intel Pentium III 1.0EB Coppermine
ASUS CUSL2-C based on Intel 815EP chipset
Intel Pentium III 1000 MHz 256K Cache, 133 MHz FSB
320 Mb SDRAM PC133 (2 x 128 + 64 Mb)
40 Gb IDE HDD
Windows 98 SE; DirectX 7; IE 5.5 SP2, Office 2000 Pro
Nvidia GeForce2 Ultra 64 Mb
Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 SB0060

PC based on Intel Pentium 4 2.8 Northwood
ASUS P4T533 based on Intel 850E chipset
Intel Pentium 4 2800 MHz 512K Cache, 533 MHz FSB
512 Mb RDRAM PC4200 (2 x 256 Mb)
80 Gb IDE HDD
Windows ME; DirectX 8.1; IE 6.0 SP1; Office XP pro
Nvidia GeForce4 Ti4600 128 Mb
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 SB0240

Then i decided to rebuild XP machine. Old components i decided to kepp is CPU and GPU

PC based on Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Conroe
ASUS P5B Deluxe based on Intel P965 chipset
Intel Core 2 Duo 2667 MHz, 4M Cache, 1066 MHz FSB
4 Gb Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066 (4 x 1 Gb)
150 Gb SATA WD1500AHFD Raptor
Windows XP Pro SP2 64-bit; DirectX 9c; IE 8, Office 2003 pro
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 640 Mb
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi SB0460

Now i'm working with this PC

PC based on Intel Pentium-S 133 P54CS
ASUS P/I-P55TP4XE with 256K Cache based on Intel 430FX chipset
Intel Pentium-S 133 66 MHz FSB
32 Mb EDORAM PC66 (4 x 8 Mb)
2 Gb IDE HDD
Matrox MillenniMS-DOS 6.22
Creative Sound Blaster AWE32 CT3990

But in real, i can't install anythin on dos. There some errors with floppy.

Reply 27 of 29, by kixs

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Anything else besides games on your retro PC?

Well... even back then I didn't play games that much. I did play the most legendary (Wolf3D, Dune 2, Descent, F1GP, Warcraft II, ...) but I did like to play with hardware and optimizing things and this is what I do now with retro gear. Of course now I have much more hardware to play with 🤣

So, mostly there are different benchmarks on my CF card/HDDs. I don't even remember what game did I play last...

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs

Reply 28 of 29, by gex85

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canthearu wrote:

Why not put together a nicer desktop PC then for your modern needs. Get a good processor, lots of RAM and SSD drive. Big screen and nice mechanical keyboard.

A laptop is always going to be an inferior, more cramped experience compared to a desktop[...]

Well, I disagree with that statement. I still use my 2010 Thinkpad X201 on a daily basis and I actually like it better than my current desktop PC, which is a quadcore Xeon E3-1240v5 (aka i7-6700) with 24GB of DDR4 RAM and a GeForce GT1030 GPU.
The Thinkpad is exceptionally well built, has an excellent keyboard, the classic trackpoint and has been upgraded with 8GB of RAM, 240GB SSD and Windows 10.
It does (almost) everything I need it to do, the desktop PC is basically just there for processing RAW images from my camera and a few other tasks that require either processing power or a decent screen.

A bit more on topic, I am 33 by now and was pretty enthusiastic about building and modding PCs as a teenager. I usually try to keep my retro builds period correct to a certain year and my main motivation is that I like to use them as little "time machines". They bring back the memories and joys of these 'old' days. It's in equal parts about sourcing the components, building and configuring the machines and using them for games and applications (like programming in Delphi 5 😁). Luckily many components that I could never have afforded when they were new can be found for a few bucks or even for free today 😀

My retro computers

Reply 29 of 29, by buckeye

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tayyare wrote:
First of all, my "modern PC" is not a really modern system, actually, it is even in the verge of being retro. A C2Q system that […]
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First of all, my "modern PC" is not a really modern system, actually, it is even in the verge of being retro. A C2Q system that I put together in 2009, with a modified Xeon LGA775 CPU, recently upgraded GTX770 GPU, 8GB of RAM, of which only 4 is usable due to Windows 7 32bit. All six of the HDDs on it are mechanical and it still has a FDD. 🤣

That said, I still use my AutoCAD Lt. 2000 (never had any newer version) in my W98 rig, This version creates many diffierent issues even under XP.

My MS-DOS/Windows 3.11 rig has all the programs from my past (Word 2.0, Excel 3.0, many FORTRAN and BASIC compilers, CorelDRAW 4, Micrographics Designer 2, Quatro Pro DOS, Professional Write, very old versons of Matlab, Mathematica, MathCAD and some obscure engineering software) for the sake of nostalgia. Actually, It has only a single game on it: TIE Fighter CD.

In my XP rig, I am able to do almost everything that I can in my main rig. It serves more of a secondary/backup PC role than a gaming PC. I use it for daily things frequently when my main PC is down for an update or upgrade or whatever.

I'm 47 by the way 😊

I do CAD for a living so can identify with using AcadLT, but use Bricscad (acad replica w/ sheet metal & 3D built in) at work.

My W98 rig was originally built to play Front Page Sports Football Pro 98. A game I'm addicted to for the love of all things football.
Other than that as far as games I'm more interested in solving issues to get them to work more than actually playing them which
probably doesn't make any sense but it's how I'm "wired".

Case in point I recently bought Tomb Raider 1 to get running on my XP rig via Glidos, not so much to play it through but to see if it works and
what the graphics look like. In my earlier years married with children never got the time to play these older games when they came out, now
I do so it's sort of a hobby. For the record my next project is getting TR1 going on my Win98 ring with a V2 SLI, wish me luck!

I'm a 54 year old "fossil" - no blushing!

Asus P5N-E Intel Core 2 Duo 3.33ghz. 4GB DDR2 Geforce 470 1GB SB X-Fi Titanium 650W XP SP3
Intel SE440BX P3 450 256MB 80GB SSD Radeon 7200 64mb SB 32pnp 350W 98SE
MSI x570 Gaming Pro Carbon Ryzen 3700x 32GB DDR4 Zotac RTX 3070 8GB WD Black 1TB 850W