The Pentium 90 to me is the Iconic early pentium, I would sub that in for the 120. You are going quite a bit more granular than you need to of course but I imagine that is just what you want to do.

If you are just choosing those because you are obsessing over "doubling" the Mhz, may I suggest:

IBM XT @ 4.77
IBM AT @ 8 Mhz
386/16Mhz
486 DX2/50 Mhz or if you are a daredevil a 486 DX/50
Pentium 90
Pentium II 400
Pentium 3 800
etc...

i'm not sure why anyone would need more than 1 retro computer.

Yes, I think the earliest Pentium I remember working with was a 75. I guess the 60 and 66 flavors were rare here in rural OK. I don't think I have a P90. The slowest one I have is a 100. Will keep an eye out for one if it isn't too much.

Retro mania. It is a disease... I blame eXo!

lowlytech wrote on 2020-03-11, 23:48:

I started this retro journey back in 2015 after I had tossed all my old stuff back in 2006 or so probably. Like everyone else […]
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I started this retro journey back in 2015 after I had tossed all my old stuff back in 2006 or so probably. Like everyone else all the SB Pro's and other ISA cards/socket 7, etc stuff that were deemed extinct were just taking up precious room, now kicking myself for getting rid of.

Well my first and only build that was going to satisfy me was a p3 1.2GHz tualatin running windows 98se /w 1 ISA slot. Of course being on this forum got me all flustered cause I quickly realized I needed machines to dip down to the 4.77mhz level. More or less my addiction started.

So here is what I am kicking around in my head to be able to have the biggest span of compatible systems. I figure if I build a machine that basically doubles the clock freq. that would hopefully fill any missing holes one would have. Also I like the collection of different sockets and generations. So on my short list is.

8088/ 4.7mhz IBM 5160
80286/8 Mhz IBM 5170
386/16 packard bell
386/40 custom build
486 /66 custom build
Pentium 120 IBM PC Socket 5
Pentium 233 custom build Socket 7
Pentium ii /400 custom build Slot 1
Pentium 3 /800 gateway PC Socket 370
Pentium 4 /1.5GHz socket 423
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz socket 478

I guess at this moment, socket 478 is about as retro as I go. My absolute favorite is probably the 386/40 followed closely by the IBM 5170. Can anyone shed any input on a game or some software they would know that wouldn't fit nicely into one of these setups?

None of them would run Crysis, 🤣. On a more serious note, no new games would run on any of those machines, but you probably do not care / already have a machine for that. Other than that, I see redundancies (what can a pentium 120 do that a 233 MMX can't? same for the two Pentium 4's). Personally, I only have:

- A Pentium 233 MMX (currently being assembled) for DOS / Win95
- A Pentium 4 2.4 GHz for Win98 and some WinXP
- An Athlon XP 5600+ for WinXP
- A Core i5 9th gen for all the rest.

That covers all of my needs and most likely 99.9% of games from 1995 until today, will run on at least one of those machines, however I do not need/want anything from the 386 or older times.

wirerogue wrote on 2020-03-12, 00:20:

i'm not sure why anyone would need more than 1 retro computer.

I think he just wants to...but I find a use for multiple retro machines. I run:

IBM 5170 AT (DOS)
Pentium 90 (DOS/Win 3.11/Win 98SE)
Athlon 3700+ (Windows XP)
X3230 (Windows 98SE/XP)
X5960 (Windows XP/10)
i9900k (Windows 10)

That Athlon is the only PC in my collection that will run a select few games properly such as Incoming! and Pool of Radiance (2nd release) among others. Ever system has a place and there is a place for every system.

A bit off topic, but hey Shagittarius you ever get your Ibm 5154 back in working order?

lowlytech wrote on 2020-03-12, 00:36:

A bit off topic, but hey Shagittarius you ever get your Ibm 5154 back in working order?

Unfortunately no, I took it to the only guy around here who would do the work and he tried twice, and charged me twice and each time it gave up magic smoke within 5 minutes of me getting it home. So I've got it stored away for me to fix when I get a little more space and time. I've got the schematics and the desire, it will be a good project when I get to it.

Hate to hear that Shagittarius. Could you determine where the smoke was coming from? I know those are loaded with 2 of the plastic smoke bomb rectangular RIFA caps. Hope you get it working again soon. Give me a shout if you need any readings on testpoints. Mine only needed the voltage tripler replaced and new caps.

I never took it apart, I didn't let it smoke all the way down last time, I saw the familiar dimming of the CRT and knew what was coming so I shut it down. I don't know how soon I'm going to get to it but thanks for your offer, I'll probably get back to you at some point.

I think it depends on your own whishes and your personal "connection" to the specific hardware.

My slowest Retro-PC is a 486 DX50 (pure ISA) and i am able to run anything old stuff (pre-1992) i have on it, so i have no need for a slower system. I began my PC addiction with a 286 in 1990, but i have no special memories with that system because of too many limitations. In general it was a solid 286 system of its time. I think if you only want to get the authentic feeling with old software you need maybe 3 systems for 1987-2009. If you want to dive into your own history, there are no limitations and its your own decision.

My Retros - with my own personal connection (time of released HW used in this system)

• 486 DX50 ISA Opti495 Mach32 (1992/1993) - DOS
• Socket3 SiS471 VLB POD S3-968 (1994/1995) - DOS/Win 3.11
• Socket7 i430HX K6-III 450 Voodoo3 (1996-1999) - DOS/Win98 SE
• Slot1 i840 Dual-PIII-1000 GF3 (2000-2001) - Win2000
• Socket478 i845 P4 2.8GHz GF-FX5900 (2002-2003) - WinXP
• Socket939 nF4 Opteron 180 GF9800GT-SLI (2005-2008) - WinXP
• Socket775 i965 C2Q-6700 Radeon HD7870 (2006-2012) - WinXP / Win10

Thanks PC-Engineer for sharing your list. I like the feel of a 386 for nostagla, but grew up using 286's and a 8088 as well back in the early nineties, and granted they are very limiting, but sometimes it is fun to see what you can get to work on older systems. However i think if the XT-IDE project and a few other sound card goodies didn't exist, I would probably omitted the older stuff as well.

aha2940..
Thanks for trying to help me decide what is redundant. I was thinking Magic Carpet was supposedly one of the trouble makers on anything faster than a 120'ish MHz P5. Otherwise yes, one less machine to have to maintain would be nice.

Personally I look at hard to run games and hard to run games at right speed and then aim at those with optimal hardware to run them. Then I look at what else I can run with the same systems and what hardware and OS I need to run the other games at good performance.

Out of all my retro PCs, most of the time I only use 3 machines:

1) 12MHz 286 with 1 MB of ram, 256kb Paradise VGA card and SB PRO 2 CT 1600 - I use this little guy to play most of my older dos games - Dyna, Cannon Fodder, Golden Axe, Shadow Knights (Ninja), Supaplex, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem 1&2 and so on.

2) Dell Optiplex GX400 - 1.7GHz Pentium 4 Willamette (socket 423), 384MB of RDRAM, Radeon 9700 PRO and a Creative SB128 - runs Windows 98 Second Edition. I play late dos games like Duke 3D in VESA modes, Crusader, Doom, Heretic, Hexen and Windows games like Command and Conquer Tiberian Dawn, Red alert 1, Red Alert 2, Tiberian sun, Homeworld, Forsaken, Red Faction, Black and White, Unreal Tournament, anything released up to 2003.

3) Core 2 Quad QX6700, nForce 780i evga motherboard, 4GB of 1066MHz Corsair XMS2, evga GTX 280 and a Creative Audigy 2 ZS - runs windows XP. This PC was built last year when I discovered some newer games won't run properly on windows 10 or on newer hardware. I use this PC for Black and White 2 (picky about hardware) Warhammer 40k Dawn of War (1) and other games from that time period that will not run on modern hardware or windows 10.

Occasionally I will use a 400Mhz AMD K6-2 rig - this machine is built around a VIA VPX motherboard that has some odd unofficial FSB settings - 8, 20 and 50MHz among them. The CPU runs at 6x66Mhz, but it can go as slow as 60MHz (3x20) and it will behave like a 100MHz DX4 486. It has 128MB of SDRAM, a PCI Voodoo Banshee and a Guillemot Maxi Sound 64. This rig can play anything from old XT era games (running at 8MHz synchronises de FSB with the AT/ISA clock and disables the external multiplayer regardless of what jumper settings I set) to win9x games like quake 2, half life, dungeon keeper and so on. Messing with jumpers is a bit of a pain in the ass, witch is why this PC is left running at 400Mhz most of the time.