devius wrote on 2020-09-22, 10:38:
That's interesting. These are machines you probably didn't have much (or any) contact with when they were new, and people I know that are into this hobby are usually older and had these machines growing up, so what's it like looking at these machines that are older than you?
It's actually quite fascinating, and I generally enjoy tinkering with stuff, mainly computers, but not exclusively. I like learning about stuff, and I always find something I didn't know about computers, even old ones. I also like to see first-hand-ish how far we've come since then, not to mention the awesome games that were available on them that for whatever reason don't work, or just work better/feel more authentic in their "natural habitat", even though I don't really go period-correct in my builds. Or well-made OPL2/3 music that still doesn't sound quite right on emulators. Anyway, I find it hard to justify having anything older than Socket5/7, though I still want to build a 486 or two 😉 I also like the challenge in getting them to work and repairing them if necessary. Knowing how to setup resources on a ISA add-on cards or maximising conventional memory in DOS, while not really useful nowadays, is still interesting to me.
I'm not so sure about that. At least over here it's still possible to find good deals if you search and are patient. You just need to talk to people when you see they are selling some computer parts. Some times they have more and it can be older stuff they thing is not worth mentioning in an ad. Other times there is nothing more. The "hunt" is part of the fun.
The thing is, if I had started now, I wouldn't know where to look, or even WHAT to look for. And to be frank, I'm not quite at my best shape mentally and emotionally. The current prices and the pandemic have also made this harder, considering bazaars opened for only a little bit, and closed again, not to mention jobs getting harder to find. The classifieds in my country rarely have anything particularly interesting to me. I only bought things from classifieds like 5 times, and for various reasons only one of them actually works. I'll keep in mind your advice to ask, though. Bazaars on the other hand, are loaded with all kinds of old stuff, that surprisingly more often than not is actually decent and working (or worth fixing). On Ebay only once (Pentium E5800's are dirt cheap!). The 'hunt' is part of the fun, but not so much fun if you can't even find anything close to what you're looking for, or all you find is overpriced. Imagine your first purchase being something very expensive (e.g. a Voodoo 5) and it turns out it was broken, or it wasn't even what was listed to begin with. Sure, you might be able to get a refund, but it doesn't inspire confidence... Of course, having been into this hobby for so long, I know where to look, but there always is more to know than we already do.