So continuing my quest to find ways to justify to myself spending money I'm thinking the following will allow me to cover the majority of games I'd want to play, on real hardware, in as pleasant an experience as possible. Anything falling outside this would be done by emulation, 86box, PCEm, DOSBox, compatibility mode, VMware (probably not) etc. I also have a modern fairly high end gaming build (for all those modern high end games I don't play) but I don't enjoy emulating on this machine.

I want to cover the period from when I switched to PC from my Atari ST, which was around 1991. My first PC was a 386, but I think a 486 will still mostly stretch back ok to cover the 386 period.

Machine 1 - A 486DX66 or similar. It seems I can buy a board, or a base unit in a horrible state and swap over the CPU myself. Looks like a turbo button will be handy. I've not yet looked into what the board will require to have. A SB pro2 seems ideal I believe, with some kind of output somewhere to something doing Roland/GM. Ideally I want OPL3, digital sound, and Roland/GM, and for graphics presumably some kind of SVGA card - I'll need to explore if I want VLB, because I can't remember much about it.

Machine 2 - A Socket 7 of some description with AGP and ISA. This should be the meat and potatoes of the WIn98SE era, which from what I've been reading and some very kind and helpful replies is a good idea. My own memory tells me that Win98SE was more stable than Win95, but that's something along the lines of saying having your leg cut off is better than your arm cut off. I'll be looking for a SB16 perhaps. Or maybe the SBLive I have already. I'll need to look into if OPL3 was still being used. Maybe I could use the SBLive and an older SB card. Or maybe I can find a card that ticks all the boxes. I'll need to research. I'll want an AGP card that came out before Win98SE was obsolete so that it's as stable as possible.

Machine 3 - I already own this machine. It's an AM3 1100t Thuban with 32GB of memory (which is far, far too much!) a nVidia Quadro 2000, (not the FX) and a Xonar Essence STX. This has Windows 7 installed, I'll probably install Windows XP as well (if I find there's a benefit) and this will do post-Win98SE stuff. By this period I feel hardware was a little more uniform and there were less competing standards.

All 3 of these machines will be connected up to the beige 21" CRT monitor that hopefully will arrive in one piece. A nice beige IBM Model M style keyboard (sadly dome switches not buckling spring) on a nice beige pullout keyboard tray, a nice beige mouse (there's a theme!). I have a nice beige desktop case, and I'll probably get another couple of beige towers for the other machines. I'll use a switch to change keyboard/mouse/CRT between the 3 machines.

Is this a reasonable plan? I'm not in an particular hurry to get to the end of this journey, and I do enjoy searching for bargains on ebay, I enjoy playing around with the hardware and building PCs, and I have a full soldering etc setup for repairs. So the whole process not just the end result is going to be enjoyable (and frustrating) for me. But once I've decided it's sensible, then I can start researching components and start keeping an eye on eBay.

With all things retro I find that prices are constantly on the rise, so I feel that once I know I want something it's best to get it. (which is why I have literally 20 microcomputers in this room...)