I've always wanted an actual dedicated MS-DOS/Win 98SE machine for gaming, but living in Japan it's very difficult to find anything here for a reasonable price. I had resigned myself to just using DOSBOX (no offense to DOSBOX, it's awesome) for the longest time, though I recently set up a 386-33 and 486-33 in PCEM and really enjoy using that.
Having said that, I decided to get a DOS machine on Ebay. I didn't want to spend hundreds, and shipping anything that heavy here will basically add an instant $100 USD to the price. I ended up winning a very compact Socket 370 Celeron 900Mhz ISA-based machine with a genuine Sound Blaster card, and am anxiously awaiting it; I've already got a very nice largish VGA CRT monitor in storage for it as well. Playing DOS games at native res on a VGA CRT is really the impetus for this whole thing, as I just don't like how low res DOS games look on LCDs even if I use integer scaling or filters or what have you.
I know Socket 370 is not 100% ideal as the frequency cannot be adjusted, but I am hoping I can get some of the more speed-dependent games working decently through disabling the cache or using throttling/slowdown utilities.
I also won bids on Yahoo Japan for a couple of joysticks:
- CH Flight Stick
- CH Flight Stick Pro w/ Throttle
Neither have been tested, but the prices were low and I am somewhat handy with repairs.
Finally, I ordered a gameport-MIDI converter so I can hook my Roland MT-32 and SC55 once everything is up and running.