We can also use vm for about anything but we still prefer the real thing.
I enjoy being limited and building the computer itself more then actually using it. It's also about owning builds that we couldn't afford back then (voodoo 2 sli and a main gpu new price, then maximum capacity memory).
Tinkering with old stuff is also alothe cheaper so blowing up some parts doesn't hurt that much as with the new stuff 😵

Your p2 could use another 128 mb ram and a voodoo 2 card, use windows 98se and the rig will feel a lot faster.

I have a 486 rig and a P3 rig for old games so I use my other machines for testing hardware I receive and storage of data (text files etc)

Of course I have old games installed on most of them but mainly I try to practically use them since the games are covered.

We stoooooore them! 😁

You can even make a digital wall out of them, once I used 4x2 AT cases as a table for to put my glasses on them 😁

But seriously, I used basically every gen of rig to play through some campaigns. I only used XP rigs to network games (I failed my only attempt with ME mostly because I had messed something up using KernelEx which basically made one of the intended rigs unusable and I never bothered fixing as Unreal still worked in SP). It's a good stability test as well.

Pretty much all of my PCs are pretty old now. The newest system I built, was a spec from around 2010, which I built about 2 years ago. My main day-to-day PC is about 10 years old.

As for my even older systems, I pretty much class anything that cannot run the latest OS and/or software packages well, as fit for only tinkering and/or retro gaming & software purposes. The oldest "active" PC in my collection, that's used somewhat regularly, is a system from around 2001/2002 with a Tualatin-based Intel Celeron 1.2GHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB HDD. It was part of an old EPoS system that got given to me, originally running MS-DOS 6.22 and as such is a weird AT-like small form factor, with external Power Supply. I installed dual boot Windows 98 SE & Windows XP and it came in very handy for firmware flashing & printer resetting. Only recently did I mess around with it some more, to add a retro gaming element - as I discovered it's VIA AC 97 onboard sound had legacy Sound Blaster emulation enabled in the BIOS.

I recently retired from active usage, an old PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0GHz, with 3.5GB RAM, that was previously in use as a server running Mac OS X 10.5 Server. I could have switched the OS to Linux and kept it going for a bit longer, but it was such a pain to work with (Linux doesn't get along well with some of the Nvidia Graphics Cards installed in these PowerPC systems) and so it got replaced by a 2007/2008 spec PC running Ubuntu. I then briefly setup the old G5 as a retro Mac Gaming & Software system, with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger installed for some Classic support. Gaming on the Mac is rather poor though, so I lost interest pretty quickly.

I tinker with them, in order to have something rooted in history. Or you can say, that I am just building a historical minded fleet.
The oldest is a Unisys 286 computer from around 1987 or 1988. Then I have machines up to AthlonXP and P4.
They are not 100% era correct. Sometimes they tend to have parts that are eighter one, two or three years older or newer.
All in all. The collection is a thing, that I can use software on, by just picking the correct system.
Let's say I want to play Lotus The Ultimate Challenge. Well... Then I would pick my 386sx33 or my 486dx2-66 system.
Primaery thing are to build the machines, test that the hardware is working, and then gaming as I mentioned.
The final thing, I am using my hardware for, is to just compare them and see in person how PC's evolved from the 80's to 00's.
Shure there are room for benchmarking and stuff like that.... Just that this is not really what I usually do with all my hardware.

I'm building similar builds if not exact copies of memorable PC configurations I've used over the years, with respective OS and games installed. I then dump them at my parent's house, and mess/play with them when we stay over. My ultimate plan is to get my daughter to play on them in chronological order, starting with my Amiga 500 (or Atari 800XL if I find one working for dirt cheap some day). In the process, I remember things I forgot about old hardware and learn things I never learned, and I love learning and preserving knowledge.

I build'em up real good then stick 'em in the closet! Tinker some, then put 'em back in the closet - my wife doesn't want to see the useless pieces of junk cluttering up the office, so back into the closet they go.

If your games run fine under XP, that makes life a lot easier. Like you say, XP compatible hardware is cheap as chips, likely you can get a Core 2 Duo machine for free if you look around a bit.

For me it's about the building, testing, benching and of course producing videos for my channel. But I don't really have old PCs, just one DOS PC, the rest are just builds that exist for a day or two on my test bench, and then get pulled apart again. So I mostly just have organised PC parts.

Some like to build and test, some like to game. I like a little of both, but my heart is in the games. 😀 I've gotten to the point where I've built all I want in order to play the games I like, and I've stopped building for now. I'm sure if some parts fell in my lap, I'd get right on the building wagon again. But I've stopped spending money on hardware because I've got what I want, which is:
486/66 VLB system for playing DOS games from 1988-1993
K6-2 550 PCI system for DOS games from 1994-1997
Socket 775 WinXP system for games from 1998-2017
POD200MMX system for testing/benchmarking PCI graphics cards in DOS

The Socket 775 is my daily driver and fastest computer. It has a Xeon X3230, GeForce 750Ti, 4GB, and VelociRaptor 500GB. Obviously it won't play the latest and greatest FPS, but it plays almost any RPG just fine. I do see the day where I'll need to upgrade the system for newer RPGs, at least the OS to Win7, if not 10.

@phil Similar here. I mostly collect parts and keep them safe for testing purposes now and then (albeit in a much smaller scale).
I do have a few DOS machines though, mainly 286 systems. I've also got one single XT machine, an old M35 (pic of another user).
And that's about it. A few 286/386 mainboards are also boxed up, from which I repaired some of them myself.

A few older note books and some thin clients are also here, if that counts.
Oh and I'm working on the restoration of an elderly 586 machine right now, which I got from an old friend of my/our family (rip).
He was a ham and probably used this machine for packet radio, his log book software or programs for calculating antennas/filters.
Now I try to fix his machine and then keep it as a memento when finished.
It's not going to be an hot-rod machine, but a humble reminiscence of an 90s era Pentium-class machine.

That being said, I'm not so much of a avid gamer, I'm afraid. I love to play adventure games, jump&runs and some simulations
from time to time, but my real motivation is to learn and to repair/preserve ancient hardware.
No idea why, perhaps it is because of nostalgia or memories of better times. Anyway, there are also a few useful tasks for my machines.
For example, back in the 80s/90s there where many interesting programs written for themes the society no longer cares for:
raytracing, stereoscopy (stereograms), fractals, animations (fli), amiga modules, ascii/ansi art, astronomy, wheater faxes, joke programs ;) ..
Just to name a few. The list could be much longer, if accompanying hardware was also included.

For example, I remember there once was an electronics kit which had a computer module. It was named Hitec, or something along these lines.
The control sotware was written in VB and ran on 286 machines w/ Win 3.1. Another thing was a robot, a little moving plotter named Penman.
It rolled over sheets of paper and drew anything it was told to. Communication was done over serial cable, I believe.
I could be mistaken, but I think it's on-board computer was based on an language like LOGO (another forgotten thing)..

My primary motivation is retro gaming, but also running old operating systems such as OS/2 (16 and 32 bit), and CP/M (on an Amstrad PCW), and sometimes old hardware that doesn't work in newer systems.

My recent foray into Apple systems is partly for retro gaming, partly to run Unix on a different endian system, and partly because I've not really used them much before.

More of a sport, really. I've been doing this for a year and a half, and there are maybe 10 games I've actually completed. Other than that:

- I enjoy hunting down interesting hardware in unusual places for free or really cheap;
- I like learning about new cards and the way the used to work, the limitations they used to have, etc;
- I enjoy gradually building the "ultimate retro battlestation of my dreams". Right now, I'm missing a good SS7 motherboard and an MT-32. Maybe getting a V3500/AGP would be nice (only have a V3000 at the moment), but not crucial.

For me it was retro gaming and nostalgia. Now I also want to keep all my retro bits and show them to my kids when they grow up. I hope they'll be interesed.

It started a few months ago when I was bored and decided to read up about the Glide API. 😎 After that I got more and more interested in building a old PC with a 3Dfx card. After a few weeks I picked up a old PC with everything I needed, especially the Voodoo 3. I struggled for months trying to install a OS without a floppy drive or CDROM drive as I didn't want to spend more money on 25 dollar adapters. 😵 I finally got Windows 2000 Pro installed and got my system up and running.

I use it for benchmarking and playing all the old Glide based games, plus any D3D games from the era of 3Dfx. Its fun, frustrating, but very interesting! I'm glad my girlfriend doesn't seem to mind and listens politely when I blabber about a problem or a part I want. 😘 Overall I just felt that using nGlide, while awesome in its own right, just didn't seem 'right' and I wanted to play my favorite childhood games the way they were meant to be played (where have I heard that from? 😉)

What do I do with mine? I sell them, replace them with something faster, and then later regret it.

Every time.

What will I do with my current PC? Most likely sell it, replace it with a faster one, and later regret it.

Though sometimes I do set up some of the few pieces I keep around as a server (but I don't have any servers set up currently).