How many rigs do you actually feel like you NEED in order to enjoy this hobby? I just ran through a mental check of what rigs I would absolutely NEED to have.

* Middleweight 486: Gateway 2000 Desktop AT, Win95, Intel 486DX2 66, 8MB RAM, Trident ProVidia 9685 PCI, Soundblaster 16 3rd Gen w/ Real OPL2, 500MB HDD
* Middleweight 586: Baby AT Socket 7 430TX Motherboard, Win98FE, 32MB RAM, Intel Pentium MMX 200, S3 Virge 325 PCI, Soundblaster 16 2nd Gen w/ Real OPL2, 2GB HDD
* Punchy Pentium III: Dell Optiplex GX1 500MBR, Win98SE, Intel Pentium III 500, 384MB SDRAM, NVIDIA RiVA TNT2 M64 PCI + Voodoo 2 12MB, Soundblaster LIVE Gold! + Soundblaster AWE64 Value, 80GB HDD
* Blazing Pentium III: Compaq Deskpro EN, Win98SE, Intel Pentium III 1GHZ, 768MB SDRAM, NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra 64MB, Soundblaster LIVE Gold!, 80GB HDD
* "All things GeForceFX": ABiT VT7 Socket 423 VIA PT880, Windows XP SP2, 2GB DDR 400, Intel Pentium 4 HT 2.8GHZ, 2GB DDR 400, ASUS GeForce FX5950 Ultra 256MB AGP, Soundblaster Audigy2, 320GB + 500GB SATA HDDs
* Shaders 3.0: Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI Socket 939 nForce4, Windows XP SP3, AMD Athlon 64 3500+ @ 2.2GHZ, 2GB DDR400, EVGA GeForce 7900GTO 512MB, Soundblaster Audigy2ZS, 120GB SSD + 500GB HDD
* DX10/DX11: ASUS P5N-D LGA775 nForce 750i, WinXP SP3 + Win7 Dual Boot, Intel Core2 Extreme QX9650 @ 3.0GHZ, 8GB DDR2 1066, Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 2GB, Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeMusic, 3x 500GB HDD
(I really plan to move this system over to a X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty and SSD for the OS partitions)
* My modern gaming rig: ASUS Z87 Deluxe Premium, Windows 10 Latest, Intel Core i7 4770S, 16GB DDR3 2133, AMD Radeon RX5700XT 8GB, Soundblaster Z, 8TB storage onboard.

I feel like this is the minimum to play every game from 1990ish to modernity without any glitches or issues and with at least a semblance of period correctness. Counter arguments? I feel like between drivers introducing compatibility issues with GPUs and OS introduced compatibility breaks eliminating any one of these would leave me with atleast a couple of years in which games released that have issues on the system above or below it.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-26, 03:11:

I feel like this is the minimum to play every game from 1990ish to modernity without any glitches or issues and with at least a semblance of period correctness. Counter arguments?

The counter argument would be utilizing emulation / virtual machines, if the goal is simply to recreate the vintage PC experience for the purpose of gaming. PCem and DOSBox coupled with a CRT hooked up to a modern PC would cover a lot of the retro ground (including emulation of vintage sound cards and video cards). Toss in a virtual machine running Windows XP and you could cover the gamut of XT era to modern era on a modern PC.

In terms of authentic hardware, my current "must have" line up includes:

Tandy 1000 TL (8 MHz XT/286 hybrid)
286-12 MHz (first family computer, so big nostalgia here)
486 DX-33
Pentium MMX 233 (DOS / Windows 95)
Athlon XP 2000+ (Windows 98 / XP)
i7-3770k (Windows XP)
Modern gaming rig

If I can get my hands on a 286 accelerator for my Tandy 1000 SX, I'd probably swap that for the Tandy 1000 TL. The former would allow authentic XT, Turbo-XT and 286 speeds all in one box.

Most of my goals with these rigs is authentic audio hardware ranging from 3-channel Tandy sound to various MIDI modules, to 3D audio hardware like Vortex2 and Creative Labs EAX 5.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-03-26, 04:06:

In terms of authentic hardware, my current "must have" line up includes: […]
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In terms of authentic hardware, my current "must have" line up includes:

Tandy 1000 TL (8 MHz XT/286 hybrid)
286-12 MHz (first family computer, so big nostalgia here)
486 DX-33
Pentium MMX 233 (DOS / Windows 95)
Athlon XP 2000+ (Windows 98 / XP)
i7-3770k (Windows XP)
Modern gaming rig

IMHO I'd have quite similar but slightly different rigs:

1. A DOS rig that can handle either the latest DOS games (VESA resolution and 3D acceleration, wavetable MIDI) as well as speed-sensitive early DOS games by slowing down (SETMUL or disable L1 cache)
   • Ultimate choice: Super Socket 7 MB with AGP + K6-III+ 500 + Voodoo4 4500
     • Alternative (and more reasonable / budget-friendly) choice: Socket 7 MB + Pentium-MMX 233 + S3 Savage4
2. A Win9x rig that can handle all Win9x games before 2002 and tap some early WinXP games (dual boot)
   • Ultimate choice: Socket 939 MB with DDR + Athlon 64 3500+ + Radeon 9800 XT + SB Audigy
     • Alternative (and more reasonable / budget-friendly) choice: Socket 754 MB + Athlon 64 or Sempron + any Radeon 9000 series
3. A WinXP rig that can handle all WinXP games and can act as a reserve machine / LAN party for lightweight modern games (dual boot)
   • Ultimate choice: i7-3770K + GeForce GTX TITAN Z (for the record, TITAN Z is just as fast as 1080 or 2060) + SB X-Fi
     • Alternative (and more reasonable / budget-friendly) choice: any Core-i Sandy or Ivy Bridge + any GTX 700 series

I already have alternative choices 1 & 2; right now my XP rig is far less capable (C2D E7400 + Radeon HD 5670) due to most games I own of that era can be played via platforms like Steam or GOG on the modern rig (i7-8700 + GTX 1060).

dormcat wrote on 2023-03-26, 07:44:

[*]A WinXP rig that can handle all WinXP games and can act as a reserve machine / LAN party for lightweight modern games (dual boot)

• Ultimate choice: i7-3770K + GeForce GTX TITAN Z (for the record, TITAN Z is just as fast as 1080 or 2060) + SB X-Fi

Titan Z would be cool to have, but impractical imo. Kepler SLI doesn't work in xp, and unless utilising SLI in win 7/8/10, would be single GPU (Titan black, approx 980 territory) most of the time.
Very few occasions would it be near 1080 performance and would come with all the funzies of SLI when it does (microstutters, 1.5x relative performance instead of 2x etc etc). Still a beast if wanting compute, albeit power hungry.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-26, 03:11:

* "All things GeForceFX": ABiT VT7 Socket 423 VIA PT880, Windows XP SP2, 2GB DDR 400, Intel Pentium 4 HT 2.8GHZ, 2GB DDR 400, ASUS GeForce FX5950 Ultra 256MB AGP, Soundblaster Audigy2, 320GB + 500GB SATA HDDs

Does that board take Northwoods on a 423-478 interposer? Thought Willamette 2GHz s478 was the limit with that?

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-03-26, 21:07:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-26, 03:11:

* "All things GeForceFX": ABiT VT7 Socket 423 VIA PT880, Windows XP SP2, 2GB DDR 400, Intel Pentium 4 HT 2.8GHZ, 2GB DDR 400, ASUS GeForce FX5950 Ultra 256MB AGP, Soundblaster Audigy2, 320GB + 500GB SATA HDDs

Does that board take Northwoods on a 423-478 interposer? Thought Willamette 2GHz s478 was the limit with that?

Oh shit thats a typo its a 478 board.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-26, 22:03:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-03-26, 21:07:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-26, 03:11:

* "All things GeForceFX": ABiT VT7 Socket 423 VIA PT880, Windows XP SP2, 2GB DDR 400, Intel Pentium 4 HT 2.8GHZ, 2GB DDR 400, ASUS GeForce FX5950 Ultra 256MB AGP, Soundblaster Audigy2, 320GB + 500GB SATA HDDs

Does that board take Northwoods on a 423-478 interposer? Thought Willamette 2GHz s478 was the limit with that?

Oh shit thats a typo its a 478 board.

Makes sense then 😀

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-03-19, 00:57:

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2023-03-19, 00:13:

I read up on the old D&D games that are coming to GOG with the upcoming D&D film. Some look interesting, others not so much.

I remember owning Heroes of the Lance and Dragons of Flame back in the day. Being a huge fan of Dragonlance, I got them expecting them to be proper D&D RPG games. I remember being disappointed to learn they were mediocre side-scrollers.

That said, at least all those old games are coming to GOG.

The latest wave of D&D classic games are now up on GOG and STEAM!

I booted up this Motorola ... w8thing for a important phone call... (from the past).Battery It's on lifesupport, only a few minutes-lasts (need to check that). It supports full size card's so I am ready for the social card sistem or bank card's with my 1995 smart-phone to scan and give a error with. (not my problem they don't/the cards/ work properly).

Since this '96 socket 7 motherboard wasn't going past the boot screen with the dead rtc, I swapped it. Soldered a socket so it's future-proof.
I didn't trust enough my manual skills to modify also the chip so I bought an already modded one.

Question: under that heatsink there is a Pentium 166 P54C. It gets very hot. Does it need active cooling?

EDIT: My 100th post! I'm finally a member.. yay!

mrfusion92 wrote on 2023-03-27, 17:45:

Does it need active cooling?

Yes.

Today I received a bunch of spare pinch rollers for an audio cassette player, from China and set about repairing a spare Commodore 64 Datassette.

I fitted the new pinch roller, which worked fine but then I discovered that the heads were out of alignment. I didn't have an alignment tape to hand so I did it the hard way - I used an Ocean game with the fancy SID music loading screen, these always fail if the heads are out of alignment. I adjusted the screw a tiny bit at a time and then kept trying to load the game. After about 20 minutes of fiddling about, I managed to get it spot on and the game loaded perfectly. I then tested a couple of other games to ensure it was working ok.

All in all, a nice easy & cheap fix and it's always good to have a spare working C64 cassette player!

I just found that artifacting Radeon 9600 that presumably killed that old baby AT s370 board some 2 months ago and decided to check it out in a more modern s478 motherboard, since some of you mentioned maybe the baby AT couldn't deliver enough power and that's why it let out some smoke signs.

Good news, it doesn't artifact anymore.
Bad news, it doesn't post.

PTherapist wrote on 2023-03-27, 18:38:

Today I received a bunch of spare pinch rollers for an audio cassette player, from China and set about repairing a spare Commodore 64 Datassette.

I fitted the new pinch roller, which worked fine but then I discovered that the heads were out of alignment. I didn't have an alignment tape to hand so I did it the hard way - I used an Ocean game with the fancy SID music loading screen, these always fail if the heads are out of alignment. I adjusted the screw a tiny bit at a time and then kept trying to load the game. After about 20 minutes of fiddling about, I managed to get it spot on and the game loaded perfectly. I then tested a couple of other games to ensure it was working ok.

All in all, a nice easy & cheap fix and it's always good to have a spare working C64 cassette player!

Awesome. I just ordered an NOS stock motor for my Sony TC-152SD pressman recorder. I also ordered a new pinch roller for it. Additionally, I ordered a parts machine for my Beocord 3300 that I have been working on. I found it in a thrift shop many years ago, and I just recently discovered that it's a 220V version of the thing and won't turn on. I found a junked 120V version for fairly cheap (a lot cheaper than a new transformer), and I'm going to swap parts to get mine to work. From the schematic, I should be able to just drop in the 120V TF, but if something goes wrong with that, I can always use the entire power supply board from the donor machine.

mrfusion92 wrote on 2023-03-27, 17:45:

Since this '96 socket 7 motherboard wasn't going past the boot screen with the dead rtc, I swapped it. Soldered a socket so it's […]
Show full quote

Since this '96 socket 7 motherboard wasn't going past the boot screen with the dead rtc, I swapped it. Soldered a socket so it's future-proof.
I didn't trust enough my manual skills to modify also the chip so I bought an already modded one.

Question: under that heatsink there is a Pentium 166 P54C. It gets very hot. Does it need active cooling?

20230327_193715_2.jpg

EDIT: My 100th post! I'm finally a member.. yay!

It's a pain in the neck to do, but I would estimate the clock mod needing a lower degree of soldering skill than cleanly removing a chip and installing a socket.

Edit: Oh yah, I would recommend a fan on that P166 for stability, you can see the screw marks where it used to have a ~50mm fan mounted.

Few days ago i got a NEC Mobile Gear MC-MK12, a super obscure MSDOS based palmtop cousin of the HP 200LX but with a 80486SL-33 @ 16 MHz and big flaw: the screen resolution is 640 x 240 so cga games won't run natively. There is a cga driver to what makes some software compatible and I started from yesterday a compatibility list for dos games.

For the moment 23 out of 120 games are fully playable (or with minor annoyances) and around 2/3 of the not working ones either freeze in the main screen or the keyboard doesn't respond (very strange!) so i opened a thread asking for help but that palmtop is so obscure that maybe there is no much people who can help.
It is also possible to install windows 3.0 and 3.1 but for the moment it freezes to me with, again, the keyboard not responding.

nach wrote on 2023-03-28, 10:22:

Few days ago i got a NEC Mobile Gear MC-MK12, a super obscure MSDOS based palmtop cousin of the HP 200LX but with a 80486SL-33 @ 16 MHz and big flaw: the screen resolution is 640 x 240 so cga games won't run natively. There is a cga driver to what makes some software compatible and I started from yesterday a compatibility list for dos games.

For the moment 23 out of 120 games are fully playable (or with minor annoyances) and around 2/3 of the not working ones either freeze in the main screen or the keyboard doesn't respond (very strange!) so i opened a thread asking for help but that palmtop is so obscure that maybe there is no much people who can help.
It is also possible to install windows 3.0 and 3.1 but for the moment it freezes to me with, again, the keyboard not responding.

Interesting machine, I'd love a little DOS palmtop. Possibly the games discussed in this thread, which are in the main able to be emulated by CGA emulator on Hercules, may be less difficult for you, or provide a pool with higher number of them working than random.... Best CGA & Hercules monochrome games

The problem with these early palmtops is that the screen is a passive matrix, and these types of screens have already deteriorated significantly over the years. I've never seen one when they were new, but now they're all a blurry smeary mess. Does this device have a video output?

I think LGR did an episode on a device like this and highlighted these faults.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-28, 14:28:

The problem with these early palmtopa is that the screen is a passive matrix, and these types of screens have already deteriorated significantly over the years. I've never seen one when they were new, but now they're all a blurry smeary mess. Does this device have a video output?

I think LGR did an episode on a device like this and highlighted these faults.[/quote.]

LGR did the Atari Portfolio one i think.
Yes. those screens suffer the vinegar syndrome soon or later. Here in Japan almost all the HP palmtops on sale have the syndrome or they have been repaired.
Luckily the NEC Mobilegears are still mostly intact, or at least all i find on sale are still ok. However most of the nec palmtops have a rubbery coat that is becoming a mush almost 30 years after.

Unfortunately no. Here are the complete specs of the one i have https://gadgets.notjakob.com/DOSPALMTOP/necmcmk12.html

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-03-28, 14:09:

Interesting machine, I'd love a little DOS palmtop. Possibly the games discussed in this thread, which are in the main able to be emulated by CGA emulator on Hercules, may be less difficult for you, or provide a pool with higher number of them working than random.... Best CGA & Hercules monochrome games

Thank you for the thread link, i have checked it but ufortunately most of the games on that thread don't work thanks to the extra 40 pixels of the screen and a not very compatible cga emulator/driver or the keyboard doesn't respond when executing them (main reason of my compatibility thread Nec Mobile Gear MSDOS palmtops. Trying games but mostly keyboard not working. My compatibility list, 413 Games April 7 )

With the kind help and great work from this YouTube video and its author, I managed to build this awesome 41256 DRAM TESTER for so cheap and fully effective.

I tested all my 54 ICs (KM41256AP-12), 10 found to be dead/bad.
Now, I can test ICs ordered from Aliexpress/eBay also.