I was *not* expecting to score one of these today but here we are. Didn't get a PSU (it uses some proprietary 4-pin 28V thing because of *course* it does) or any accessories but I'll find something that works eventually. For now it's an interesting and attractive shelf decoration. I might try to dual-boot Linux PPC & OS9 on this; I have a boxed copy of Tiger sitting around but I don't think that setup would do anything I can't do on my G5 w/Leopard.

Not your usual retro hardware.

Had to dig them out of the back of an incredibly packed garage. $200 cash for the pair, but $400 in blood, sweat, and tears loading them up and driving 200 miles back home...

The PacMan works very well, fully functional but a wobbly upper flipper. Eight Ball is DOA, severe corrosion damage from a corroded barrel battery.

corrosion? doh. rottendog make spare boards. shame its not an 8ball deluxe! 8bd is fun. was never a fan of bally pacman or the babypac's. hows the playfield wear and tear?

The object that has spent over a DECADE on my "must acquire" list has finally been paid for:

The Asus p65up8!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSoNGaaETKQ

I paid more than I care to admit. But this will be the centerpiece of a NT4 gaming rig. As soon as it gets here from Russia. And I get some other parts...

luckybob wrote:

The object that has spent over a DECADE on my "must acquire" list has finally been paid for: […]
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The object that has spent over a DECADE on my "must acquire" list has finally been paid for:

The Asus p65up8!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSoNGaaETKQ

I paid more than I care to admit. But this will be the centerpiece of a NT4 gaming rig. As soon as it gets here from Russia. And I get some other parts...

Great board! I wanted one for some time as well 😀 Could you explain the benefits or the point of NT4 gaming on a dual-CPU system? In short, what is NT capable of compared to 98, besides multithreading?

Aside from multi-threading, NY is wonderfully stable. I'm hoping games use one cpu and background/cd emulator on cpu #2.

Oh, and I'm going to replace the slot-1 crus for pentium pros.

My GeForce 6800GS AGP arrived from NZ on the weekend. Luckily the PSU in my P4 had the necessary power connector and I spent a good few hours on the weekend completing Half Life 2 and starting Fallout 3. Never played F3 on PC before - seems like the game could use a lot more power as it doesn't look quite as good as on my X360 and the 6800 seems to be the lowest supported card for that game, but it's still quite playable.

AnacreonZA wrote:

My GeForce 6800GS AGP arrived from NZ on the weekend. Luckily the PSU in my P4 had the necessary power connector and I spent a good few hours on the weekend completing Half Life 2 and starting Fallout 3. Never played F3 on PC before - seems like the game could use a lot more power as it doesn't look quite as good as on my X360 and the 6800 seems to be the lowest supported card for that game, but it's still quite playable.

Yea Fallout 3 needs way more grunt:

Building the Fallout 3 Retro Gaming PC

I don't mean any offense (and would not like to question anyone's activity; open any Pandora's box, etc.), but I just can't force myself to think of any PC capable of running Fallout 3 as a retro machine, in any respect (uness it's some crazy project like running this 2008 (!) game on mid-90s Pentium class machine). It's simply too new by at least one decade. It's like with cars - before they become "youngtimers" (I would grant this status to Pentium-Pentium II era systems), they are simply obsolete, but still not retro - and quite devoid of any of their past and potential future "sexyness".

Maybe the reason for that is that my point of reference is 286-386 era stuff, and this is perceived in a different way by someone younger.

tikoellner wrote:

Maybe the reason for that is that my point of reference is 286-386 era stuff, and this is perceived in a different way by someone younger.

Yea you're just too old 😊

Probably.

I think this retro hobby is in large part driven by the desire to build the largest and most powerful nostalgia bomb possible. But each one has his own bomb.

tikoellner wrote:

Probably.

I think this retro hobby is in large part driven by the desire to build the largest and most powerful nostalgia bomb possible. But each one has his own bomb.

I think this is right on the spot. Personally I have little interest in anything pre-486 and my main focus is 1996 and forward. I've also recently gotten more interested in the 2000-2007 era thanks to more reviews popping up on youtube (ggmanlives) and all the 2000-2005 talk here on Vogons mostly driven by Skyscraper and Phil 😀

I personally have very little interest in 286 and even less in 8088. I guess I will stick with one 386 maxed-out build and some 486 variants. I have already got myself 5x86 machine, which is very modern to my taste, so now I will look for some older state-of-the-art, period-correct VLB stuff to work with something not faster 486DX 50.

Then I hope to end my endeavours, as I don't really feel well with the idea of hoarding 😀

I got this Toshiba Satellite 310CDT from the flea market yesterday. It's in near mind condition, still has the original hard drive with Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 on it. Screen is 800x600 TFT and it also has real OPL3 sound. The CPU is Pentium 200 MMX which is a little bit too fast for some DOS stuff but I'm not sure what I'll be using it for anyway. I just couldn't resist because it was so cheap. Came without the PSU or any other accessories. Red trackpoint came from one of my old Thinkpads.

Very nice find. My ideal would be 640x480 TFT, but still, very nice retro gaming machine.

vetz wrote:

tikoellner wrote:

Probably.

I think this retro hobby is in large part driven by the desire to build the largest and most powerful nostalgia bomb possible. But each one has his own bomb.

I think this is right on the spot. Personally I have little interest in anything pre-486 and my main focus is 1996 and forward. I've also recently gotten more interested in the 2000-2007 era thanks to more reviews popping up on youtube (ggmanlives) and all the 2000-2005 talk here on Vogons mostly driven by Skyscraper and Phil 😀

I see the DOS era 1981 to ~1997 as more retro than newer stuff but 1998 - 2006 is a very interesting period when it comes to hardware non the less because hardware development moved so fast. From the Pentium II and Voodoo to the quad-core QX6700 and Geforce 8800GTX in the same time span as we went from the first 386 to fast 486 machines.

My first PC was an IBM 55SX 386SX-16 but I still like 286 machines and my newest project is an XT clone.

tikoellner wrote:

Probably.

I think this retro hobby is in large part driven by the desire to build the largest and most powerful nostalgia bomb possible. But each one has his own bomb.

You hit the nail on the head there with that one, yep.

Each of us have our own initiatives with older hardware.. some are collectors, some are builders (like me) some are explorers that like playing with stupidly obscure hardware most folks have never seen and seek rare impossible-to-find configurations.. but.. For me, my "drive" and goal with "retro" hardware is to build multiple different "The most powerful machine possible of their respective era" by combining what would of been obscenely expensive and "unobtanium" hardware during the time when they were originally sold as new in the world, but today could be had for a pittence if we hunt and are patient.

So far I have several machines like that.. I've come up with what I think is the fastest ever possible native-stable windows 98 se era machine... (Athlon-XP @ 2.5 ghz + Geforce 6800 ultra + SB Live)

I have another one that's very nearly the fastest possible ever ms-dos gaming machine.. capable of VESA modes up to 1280x1024 @ 60 FPS in real mode ms-dos with wavetable midi music support. (1.8 ghz AthlonXP mobile + Geforce 2 ultra).

I have a really fast 486 with a 133 mhz Kingston CPU, 64MB ram, fast cache, and a caching VLB hard drive controller with 16MB onboard.. and a fast hard drive in it, and VLB video card and wavetable audio.. etc.

And here pretty soon in 4-6 months I'll be retiring one of my "older" from 2008 machines from 8 years of daily usage and "active service" and devoting it to only random/occasional windows XP gaming.. I7-920 @ 4.4 ghz + two heavily overclocked and water cooled GTX-470's.

Likely going to be dedicated to windows XP 32-bit for older XP games. So yeah see.. I even have machines like that last one that I'll probably be considering my "fastest DirectX-9 era gaming machine possible" sort of.

I also own a working 386 for very old games.. and that's my computer line-up so far. That's what I'm in to, building extremely exotic top-end-of-their-era machines at different stages in computing history. I'm very near to the point I have everything covered. This i7 will fill the last "gap" in my lineup between the Win98 machine and my modern system.

kithylin wrote:

tikoellner wrote:

Probably.

I think this retro hobby is in large part driven by the desire to build the largest and most powerful nostalgia bomb possible. But each one has his own bomb.

"unobtanium"

Yes pretty much. My own retro journey started with me building a replica of the 386 PC I bought + built with my own money from when I finished school back in 1992, but it definitely grew from there and storage is becoming a bit of a problem recently. I too wouldn't exactly regard a P4 as retro, but I found all the components for almost nothing and I missed that entire era of PC gaming due to being a Mac and console person at that time.

But the unobtainium element is strong. I'd love to get my hands on a Roland Sound Canvas or a Ultrasound MAX for a decent price - those things were just items in the sound setup menu for me for a long time and I'd always wondered about them. I remember when I started working I could only look at the Mac G3s our design department were using - I could never touch or let alone use them. When I see those machines being thrown away now I just can't resist owning hardware I'd drooled over for so long.

AnacreonZA wrote:

I remember when I started working I could only look at the Mac G3s our design department were using - I could never touch or let alone use them. When I see those machines being thrown away now I just can't resist owning hardware I'd drooled over for so long.

That's exactly the point I have too. I remember in the AthlonXP era, seeing those nforce2-ultra-400 motherboards and drooling at them on the wall in the local store. And dreaming of owning something like that.. and alas at the time I was instead forced to buy the cheaper cut-down versions and then later moved on and then due to obsolessence, those sorts of systems became obscure and I didn't find any online for sale used for many many years all the way until happening on to one on accident for $16 in 2013.

Likewise I dreamed of those custom water cooled nvidia SLI setups I'd seen people using online for years.. and through perserverence and some luck of timing I happened on to a pair of water cooled video cards in 2013 and set about setting em up and using em. Also back in my 486 era I had a packard bell with a 486-SX in it..The only reason I built my fast 486 is because I never could afford one back then and had always wanted one. I still want one of the ever-ellusive PCI + VLB 486 systems, but finding one in good shape is hard.. anyway I'm rambling off topic but retro hardware has different mental value to different folks.

I don't want to sound rude but could you take your discussion elsewhere? You're somewhat off-topic 😀