athlon-power wrote:For me, I do enjoy the games, but I also enjoy the hardware and using the older software itself. I'm not sure why, though I have an idea. I'm not going to get into that because it's an incredibly long explanation encapsulating what is essentially my entire life story, something an old computer forum probably doesn't need nor want to hear.
Maybe it's just me, but I didn't join a community of retro hardware enthusiasts merely to ask for images of driver disks and suggestions on which Nvidia driver to use. It's a community of people with their own histories and tales, and I figure if you're not here to talk to and engage with others of similar interest, why aren't you just going to Wikipedia and Vogons Drivers instead? I.e., if you want to opine away, then by all means, opine away. To me, someone's psychology is far more interesting than yet another question about why a random Socket A board isn't willing to boot. I can adore my hardware alone. I'm here for the social aspect.
OK, to the question at hand...
badmojo wrote:It gets hard to invent new excuses for building retro PCs after a while but I'm still managing it somehow because I enjoy the process (for the most part). I don't go overboard with the "period correct" thing but it adds some extra challenge and opportunity for obsessive pedantry. Contrived yes, but isn't that the case for all hobbies?
Well said. There's no challenge or sense of achievement by accepting whatever you found at the dump. The goal is up to you -- whatever makes it fun.
For me, I'm looking to accomplish a few things.
1) I want to re-experience the PCs I had when I was younger. This started out as a quest to get my first DIY build, a DX2/66, as it's the most memorable of all my old builds. It branched out from there, as these things do. Now, I have a similar facsimile to the AMD 386DX/33 that my dad brought home as our first family PC, my first OEM 486SX, my first DIY DX2, my old Pentium II, and so on. I have and do cheat, sometimes by way of circumstance but other times intentionally, when it feels right. (E.g., the family 386 clone is a hair smaller case in the same model line [only got so much room!] and is an AMD DX/40 because ... how cool is that?)
2) I also wanted to achieve some hardware goals I couldn't afford, or get ahold of, along the way. The PIII Tualatin 1.0GHz, for example. It was just too expensive to ever make any sense until it was obsolete. Now I have one, and I #%!$ love that box.
3) I want a place to showcase some of my favorite hardware. I adore my old AWE32, Live!, PAS16, Matrox Mystique, various Radeons, I found out (to my surprise) that I owned a Voodoo 5 AGP somehow... And who doesn't love VLB?!? I miss discrete controller cards and 3Com NICs. Got to have some 905C love in my collection.
Things have morphed along the way. I ended up wanting a representative of every generation of CPU (mostly because I was already so close it felt obligatory.) I wanted a way to enjoy the evolution of Sound Blaster cards - most of which I owned at some point, but some I didn't. Plus my foray into MediaVision hardware.
I recently decided I want a couple of my old builds to be accurate depictions of the hardware and software I had at the time:
sf78 wrote:To me part of it was getting matching monitors and keyboards for the desktop. I only have a few IBM's and Canon's that I would consider "complete" and everything else is just a mixed back of whatever I can throw together.
My OEM 486SX, for example. I got the original KB and mouse. Using it feels like it did when I was in Jr. High. I would love to have the OG CRT, but the one I had was not a very noteworthy monitor, and is likely going to be difficult to source because nobody was hanging on to those out of love. Space and shipping costs are, of course, an issue as well. In the meantime, I found floppy images of the OEM DOS 5.0 it came with, and MS Works 3.0 (which it also came with), and VB 3.0 Pro (which I used a lot during that time). Works is terrible, as is Visual Basic in general, but these are integral parts of the experience to me, and that's the purpose this computer serves.
It causes a little consternation, though, because the goal for period authenticity throws a bit of a wrench in the neat timeline of escalating platform and sound card pairings I had. Not to mention, the family 386 had a Creative 2X CD-ROM, but the SCSI caddy-loading drive I had found for that build matches the aesthetic better. So I have to pick a compromise, and I've spent the weekend fretting about this to a point that's a little ridiculous even to me. 😉 But that's just part of the fun I guess.
There's a certain kind of joy to sitting down to a replica of your first computer, complete with the software you had access to at the time. I would not want to max these builds out -- in fact, I'm actually planning to rip out the CD-ROM I put in my 486SX, because I never had one in that build back then, and it feels right to have that limitation. I'm also considering keeping one build with PC speaker only, for the same reason. I mean, how many of us ever go back to enjoy the effort game devs put in to the single-tone soundtrack? For a while, that's all I had. It doesn't feel right to gloss over that experience entirely just because I can.
Anyway, this is far too long, and I apologize for the sea of words. I got caught up in the love of the hobby, and I'm going to roll with it, because I want that to happen for everyone here. So let's wrap up:
There's no obligation to define your thrill by someone else's yardstick. You have to figure out what captivates your own whimsy. Perhaps, if you don't have a reference PC of your own from that era to lust after, look up some old magazine ads and find one that you feel you would've wanted to buy back then. Imagine staring at it for hours while you saved up. Then go out and build it, piece for piece, with substitutions if you are so inclined, but there's nothing quite like the satisfaction of having that case, with that CPU, that sound card, and that optical drive. Put out saved searches and acquire the real deal one part at a time.
If you want a genuine period build, you can always pawn off your non-conforming parts to someone else. It may be their dream part, after all. IMO, it's perfectly OK to obsess over details. I'm happy to put up with a 400MB hard drive on a computer that can't ID a 1GB drive, because I can always hop on over to my P4 and have 100GB of space to play with. The limitation is what makes it unique and interesting. Likewise, I can't stand seeing a 52X drive in a 486 myself, but if your dream PC is one you had for ten years and upgraded along the way with parts that span a range that doesn't even make sense, then get to it! Or, just live with it until you can find the right part.