My long term plan for once I’d collected everything I wanted to collect was to start content creation for the public to consume. This wouldn’t be a replacement for my typical income, just a hobby and a way to ensure that my collection gets rotated in and out of use as and when I create new content.

paradigital wrote on 2022-07-18, 12:46:

My long term plan for once I’d collected everything I wanted to collect was to start content creation for the public to consume. This wouldn’t be a replacement for my typical income, just a hobby and a way to ensure that my collection gets rotated in and out of use as and when I create new content.

I think it's a smart move if you still want to "rotate" stuff and avoid buying things you will only use a few times.
But as a drawback, you could be a bit "captive" of this cycle. At least if you want your content to pay for the hardware.
But without the money+pressure in the equation, this can be a nice way to share the passion and discover new things.

Ok, so I'll tell you my view on this issue.

Started collecting vintage hardware during Covid-19 pandemic (suddenly you have lots of free time, you know ... ). I'm not an IT or High Tech or any other kind of Tech guy. My knowledge in electronics and programming tends to zero. I'm also not a gamer and never was one.

Now I have close to 50 computers and more than 95% of them are laptops, palmtops etc. so they do not occupy too much space at home. Also I have plenty of different peripheral devices for them to play with.

My idea is to tinker with computers that I'm familiar with or I can understand quickly, i.e. MS-DOS/ Windows, CP/M and Basic based systems. So, no Macs or something like that. Also, I have no intention to reach any goals, participate in any events, or to start any projects. For me it's to enjoy the process of tinkering itself. So, I spend as much (or as little) time on it as I want and I can switch to another activity even in the middle of doing something with one of my devices.

Searching and buying things online of course is also part of the fun, so I buy whatever I want and whenever I want. Of course I keep in mind my budget and whether I have free space for another purchase.

So, I can't say that I'm a pure collector since I have no goals at all and my collection is no more than a bunch of stuff that I'm interested to tinker with.

Is there something "after" collecting ? Of course there is. After I'll loose interest in tinkering with them, I'll sell them back and will enjoy the process of selling as much as I've enjoyed the process of buying.

Hope it was helpful for you.🙂

acl wrote on 2022-07-18, 10:12:

Hi […]
Show full quote

Hi

TL;DR
I've been collecting retro stuff since the late 90's ... and i'm really considering to stop.
Just to clarify, i'm not talking about throwing away everything. But just stopping adding things to my collection.
I think i'm about to reach my goal, even if the goal itself was never strictly defined. And i don't know what to do next.

Did you personally experienced this feeling ? How did you handled that ?

The long story
I'm in my mid 30's and i've been interested in hardware since i was 10yo (97/98).
I started by collecting everything that was at reach. Old computers from family, things found in trash etc...
Unfortunately, i had to dump a lot of things when i moved to my first small apartment (RIP SS7 motherboards)

A few years ago, i restarted my collection. First with a 2005 dreambuild PC.
Then this later expanded to "one config for every 1/2 years period from 1996 to 2010 plus all ATI flagships for this era and some random cool parts".
So the scale went bigger.

And i recently felt that collecting was kind of removing part of the fun. I was sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of hardware to test, clean and repair.
And then having little to no time to use them.
And more and more i felt kind of "snob" by reading some topics of retro enthusiasts trying to revive hardware i considered crap. An in fact they seemed to have a lot more fun than me, while i was trying to score the absolute best period correct parts. Just to test them once, run a few benchmarks and store them "for later". Knowing that later will be never since i will focus on another part next... And yes, you can definitely do boring stuff with an Athlon+9700Pro and have fun with a Celeron+FX5200 (well, probably not with an FX5200, but you get the idea)

I'm now considering a few of options :

• (Of course) play my games
• Create technical online contents/reviews
  • I'm not really a video creator but i gave it a try during the #GpuJune2 event (check it out ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axlZv9zkyE4)
  • Honestly, this was time consuming, my English accent is bad and i finally switched to speech synthesis)
  • I'm considering either articles, of (a few) videos in French + Subs
• Setup retro gaming events at my work
  • I'm thinking of bringing a given retro rig at work for like a week. With a paper sheet for description and instructions.
  • Organizing challenges, hi scores etc...
  • I work in a quite large tech company and some of my colleagues are quite interested i that era too (and i know i can trust them to be extra careful with the hardware)
• Finish all my side projects i left on the side (software and hardware)
  • An unfinished homebuilt Z80 computer is on my workbench for like 5/6 years
  • I started to work on a RaspberryPi "retro companion" box. A self contained thing to be plugged to a retro computer via RS232 Serial, providing Storage, PPP to Ethernet, Web/BBS browsing.

I that something you experienced ? Is there something "after" collecting ?
I'm really interested in your sought and advices !

Thank you

I have a Gainward Golden Sample 5200 Ultra that I have had a ton of fun with, sure it isn't a 5700 Ultra or a Radeon 9600XT but this little card is like that small car that you know is shit but its so much fun to drive and becomes your goto cruising vehicle.

This card is my goto for testing and pissing about with setups before putting the actual GPU in it, its a great little card that I'm happy I took a chance on.

It just works !

As for my collecting, I have hit a point where I have pretty much everything I want and I now just grab the odd thing that interests me or i can use to impove my already built systems. (Though I have a Dual Slot 1 P2B-D build happening now because dual CPU Slot 1 rigs are fucking cool)

Same here, just a few years older and I've got about 25 main systems and another 30 in storage.

I've of my goals was to get a system from about every generation, like 286, 386, 486, Pentium... Then sub generations like dx2, dx4, 5x86... And my mancave is a little over filled now.

I made a little deal with myself. For any next computer that gets in here, another will leave. And anything that comes in, should be a little more competitive or more unique than the former ofc. Like a dx4 100 8k wt will be replaced with a dx4 100/120 16k wb or something. Little improvements.

So actually, no build will ever be finished until there's nothing left to improve while staying period correct.
I even get bored at local trading sites now, showing another DX2 build, because I already had be four. But it still may contain some better graphics card, so I might swap things around a bit.

Aside this, finding more hobbies can also distract a bit and in two or three years the pc collection will become interesting again.

.. i.e. I've got three kids asking for some daddy time, this leaves less hobby time. So when I finally have some hobby time, it'll be a bit more special than before the kids were around.

acl wrote on 2022-07-18, 10:12:

I'm not really a video creator but i gave it a try during the #GpuJune2 event (check it out ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axlZv9zkyE4)

I watched that video and found it very interesting. So I would suggest to keep posting reviews. 😀

IMO, there is still a lot of old hardware that hasn't been properly reviewed and benchmarked from a retro gaming perspective. For example, I'm struggling to find some GeForce FX 5900XT tests conducted under Win98. Everyone on YouTube seems to be using it on WinXP and up. They are also benchmarking newer games which are uninteresting for someone who just wants a high power Win9x build.

Thank you very much for your comments

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-07-18, 13:56:

[...] Started collecting vintage hardware during Covid-19 pandemic (suddenly you have lots of free time, you know ... ). [...] S […]
Show full quote

[...]
Started collecting vintage hardware during Covid-19 pandemic (suddenly you have lots of free time, you know ... ).
[...]
Searching and buying things online of course is also part of the fun, so I buy whatever I want and whenever I want. Of course I keep in mind my budget and whether I have free space for another purchase.
Is there something "after" collecting ? Of course there is. After I'll loose interest in tinkering with them, I'll sell them back and will enjoy the process of selling as much as I've enjoyed the process of buying.
[...]

Yes, the pandemic definitely drove me deeper into the rabbit hole. And i agree, finding and buying stuff is also part of the fun. Just fine tuning your alert rules, hunting parts from blurry pictures.
I like that part too. But i'm not (yet) in the process of selling. Mainly because i have very few parts in duplicate. But i will probably sell parts for which i have a better version. For example, i have a Radeon X1950XT and a X1950XTX. So i can definitely sell the "normal" XT.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-18, 14:20:

[...] As for my collecting, I have hit a point where I have pretty much everything I want and I now just grab the odd thing that […]
Show full quote

[...]
As for my collecting, I have hit a point where I have pretty much everything I want and I now just grab the odd thing that interests me or i can use to impove my already built systems.
[...]
(Though I have a Dual Slot 1 P2B-D build happening now because dual CPU Slot 1 rigs are fucking cool)
[...]

Yes, even if i disabled most of my alerts, i still have an eye on some parts i'm really looking for. To upgrade some i already have, like X850XT PE to replace a non PE XT or a 9800XT to replace a "Pro".

Dual Slot1 are cool (Pentium or Celeron + Slockets ?) I also have a thing for dual socket 8.
I'm just not a big fan of Win NT4, which you need if you want to use both CPU. The last time i tried it (10+ years ago, so my memory is not perfect) i had compatibility issues with some software.

waterbeesje wrote on 2022-07-18, 14:32:

[...] I made a little deal with myself. For any next computer that gets in here, another will leave. [...] Aside this, finding […]
Show full quote

[...]
I made a little deal with myself. For any next computer that gets in here, another will leave.
[...]
Aside this, finding more hobbies can also distract a bit and in two or three years the pc collection will become interesting again.
[...]
.. i.e. I've got three kids asking for some daddy time, this leaves less hobby time. So when I finally have some hobby time, it'll be a bit more special than before the kids were around.
[...]

One in, One out is a good strategy for space management. Room was definitely a problem when i left the parent's house in the 2000's. Now i have plenty of room, but i try to keep the collection tightly packed.
I have only 4 or 5 machines assembled at any time. So i don't have to keep a lot of cases/power supplies. I can use them at anytime with a 4 way KVM switch (1 = Work laptop dock, 2 = Modern Gaming machine, 3 = ~2000 era machine, 4 = 2005 machine) + i have some cases and a test bench for the other builds. Otherwise, parts are packed. And i have a directory with each part i have with pictures, drivers, documentation, benchmarks etc... so, for example, if i don't remember which S370 Pentium III i have, i can have a look in the files. Before that, sometimes i forgot parts. Like "Damn, i forgot i had this Ti4200"

I have another hobby, and i will definitely have to make a choice both in time an money. And that's also a big part of my "what's next" question.

I hope my two sons will have some interest in this. For now, they are too young, but the oldest often asks me to play Burnin' Rubber on Amstrad GX4000. And honnestly, the only thing this game is really Burnin' are my eyes. This game should be burnin' in the 8 bit hell.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-07-18, 14:39:

I watched that video and found it very interesting. So I would suggest to keep posting reviews. :) [...] IMO, there is still a l […]
Show full quote

acl wrote on 2022-07-18, 10:12:

I'm not really a video creator but i gave it a try during the #GpuJune2 event (check it out ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axlZv9zkyE4)

I watched that video and found it very interesting. So I would suggest to keep posting reviews. 😀
[...]
IMO, there is still a lot of old hardware that hasn't been properly reviewed and benchmarked from a retro gaming perspective. For example, I'm struggling to find some GeForce FX 5900XT tests conducted under Win98. Everyone on YouTube seems to be using it on WinXP and up. They are also benchmarking newer games which are uninteresting for someone who just wants a high power Win9x build.
[...]

Thank you very much. I'm still hesitant to continue. I liked the process of testing and writing the text.
But recording is difficult. The whole video took me about a month to prepare.
I also had some quite negative comments about the use of text to speech. As i said, English is not my native language and my accent sucks.
The artificial voice is, at least, not too difficult to understand, even for a non native speaker.

If i'm hesitant, it's not because i'm lazy 😴 (well, i am lazy). It's mostly because i'm not sure to have an exceptional collection. I have some quite nice parts, but no one wants to see another video about the Rage Fury Maxx or a Matrox Parhelia unboxing. So it's more about finding the good topic.
Recently, i got a bit passionate about early (bad) 3D cards. S3 Virge, Intel i740, Cirrus Logic Laguna 3D, Trident 3D Image 9750. But Vlask from vgamuseum.info already made a very good set of videos about these cards. So i have nothing to add.

acl wrote on 2022-07-18, 16:54:

Thank you very much for your comments […]
Show full quote

Thank you very much for your comments

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-07-18, 13:56:

[...] Started collecting vintage hardware during Covid-19 pandemic (suddenly you have lots of free time, you know ... ). [...] S […]
Show full quote

[...]
Started collecting vintage hardware during Covid-19 pandemic (suddenly you have lots of free time, you know ... ).
[...]
Searching and buying things online of course is also part of the fun, so I buy whatever I want and whenever I want. Of course I keep in mind my budget and whether I have free space for another purchase.
Is there something "after" collecting ? Of course there is. After I'll loose interest in tinkering with them, I'll sell them back and will enjoy the process of selling as much as I've enjoyed the process of buying.
[...]

Yes, the pandemic definitely drove me deeper into the rabbit hole. And i agree, finding and buying stuff is also part of the fun. Just fine tuning your alert rules, hunting parts from blurry pictures.
I like that part too. But i'm not (yet) in the process of selling. Mainly because i have very few parts in duplicate. But i will probably sell parts for which i have a better version. For example, i have a Radeon X1950XT and a X1950XTX. So i can definitely sell the "normal" XT.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-18, 14:20:

[...] As for my collecting, I have hit a point where I have pretty much everything I want and I now just grab the odd thing that […]
Show full quote

[...]
As for my collecting, I have hit a point where I have pretty much everything I want and I now just grab the odd thing that interests me or i can use to impove my already built systems.
[...]
(Though I have a Dual Slot 1 P2B-D build happening now because dual CPU Slot 1 rigs are fucking cool)
[...]

Yes, even if i disabled most of my alerts, i still have an eye on some parts i'm really looking for. To upgrade some i already have, like X850XT PE to replace a non PE XT or a 9800XT to replace a "Pro".

Dual Slot1 are cool (Pentium or Celeron + Slockets ?) I also have a thing for dual socket 8.
I'm just not a big fan of Win NT4, which you need if you want to use both CPU. The last time i tried it (10+ years ago, so my memory is not perfect) i had compatibility issues with some software.

waterbeesje wrote on 2022-07-18, 14:32:

[...] I made a little deal with myself. For any next computer that gets in here, another will leave. [...] Aside this, finding […]
Show full quote

[...]
I made a little deal with myself. For any next computer that gets in here, another will leave.
[...]
Aside this, finding more hobbies can also distract a bit and in two or three years the pc collection will become interesting again.
[...]
.. i.e. I've got three kids asking for some daddy time, this leaves less hobby time. So when I finally have some hobby time, it'll be a bit more special than before the kids were around.
[...]

One in, One out is a good strategy for space management. Room was definitely a problem when i left the parent's house in the 2000's. Now i have plenty of room, but i try to keep the collection tightly packed.
I have only 4 or 5 machines assembled at any time. So i don't have to keep a lot of cases/power supplies. I can use them at anytime with a 4 way KVM switch (1 = Work laptop dock, 2 = Modern Gaming machine, 3 = ~2000 era machine, 4 = 2005 machine) + i have some cases and a test bench for the other builds. Otherwise, parts are packed. And i have a directory with each part i have with pictures, drivers, documentation, benchmarks etc... so, for example, if i don't remember which S370 Pentium III i have, i can have a look in the files. Before that, sometimes i forgot parts. Like "Damn, i forgot i had this Ti4200"

I have another hobby, and i will definitely have to make a choice both in time an money. And that's also a big part of my "what's next" question.

I hope my two sons will have some interest in this. For now, they are too young, but the oldest often asks me to play Burnin' Rubber on Amstrad GX4000. And honnestly, the only thing this game is really Burnin' are my eyes. This game should be burnin' in the 8 bit hell.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-07-18, 14:39:

I watched that video and found it very interesting. So I would suggest to keep posting reviews. :) [...] IMO, there is still a l […]
Show full quote

acl wrote on 2022-07-18, 10:12:

I'm not really a video creator but i gave it a try during the #GpuJune2 event (check it out ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axlZv9zkyE4)

I watched that video and found it very interesting. So I would suggest to keep posting reviews. 😀
[...]
IMO, there is still a lot of old hardware that hasn't been properly reviewed and benchmarked from a retro gaming perspective. For example, I'm struggling to find some GeForce FX 5900XT tests conducted under Win98. Everyone on YouTube seems to be using it on WinXP and up. They are also benchmarking newer games which are uninteresting for someone who just wants a high power Win9x build.
[...]

Thank you very much. I'm still hesitant to continue. I liked the process of testing and writing the text.
But recording is difficult. The whole video took me about a month to prepare.
I also had some quite negative comments about the use of text to speech. As i said, English is not my native language and my accent sucks.
The artificial voice is, at least, not too difficult to understand, even for a non native speaker.

If i'm hesitant, it's not because i'm lazy 😴 (well, i am lazy). It's mostly because i'm not sure to have an exceptional collection. I have some quite nice parts, but no one wants to see another video about the Rage Fury Maxx or a Matrox Parhelia unboxing. So it's more about finding the good topic.
Recently, i got a bit passionate about early (bad) 3D cards. S3 Virge, Intel i740, Cirrus Logic Laguna 3D, Trident 3D Image 9750. But Vlask from vgamuseum.info already made a very good set of videos about these cards. So i have nothing to add.

Its an ASUS P2B-D Rev 1.6 D03 board with Dual Pentium II 350s the board fully supports Coppermine so I have a matched pair of Pentium III 667 CPUs for it, going to throw in a Voodoo5 5500 and likely a X-FI Elite Pro, it'll be a Win 2K box initially and possibly a WinXp rig too, I have a lovely DOS machine already so no need for this one to cover it. (I have a Diamond MX300 and 2k drivers for it so perhaps I will run A3D and EAX in the same machine if I can get it working correctly)

I don't think I'll have stop collecting. Been concentrating more on my Blu-Ray and DVD collection lately, but computer parts are the investment for my retirement. I'm 60 in a couple of days, and my goal is to have enough to supplement my pension in 7 years. The original goal of collecting was to test everything, but I have so much now that I'll never get round to that goal 😀

The only thing I want in my collection is a decent 486 PC. Something from DX2-80 up to DX4-120. I have parts of it I'm planning to use (sound card, graphics card, networking card, a DX2-80). The thing is, I can't find a mainboard for a price I'm willing to pay.

However I hoard other more modern and sometimes older hardware and I really should start selling things aside of some spare parts.

As for needs, my Win98BOX and XP/Vista Retro Quad already covers them all. And one could make the case that my 386 with a graphics card upgrade could cover the speed sensitive titles.

The thing is, if I find something valuable way underpriced, I can't resist. If something would be thrown away I can't resist saving it and as for selling, I'm just too lazy to go through my piles, make decent photos including while working list them on trading sites and deal with the hagglers.

I never had specific goals and I don't consider myself a collector — e.g., I don't care about how "rare", "brandname" or "high-end" the specific part is. My main criteria is whether or not a card/motherboard can do something interesting/unique (that I would enjoy). Sometimes all those things intersect, but often not, and a lot of my builds use non-"ultimate" hardware.

That being said in the 8 years I've been doing this, I've amassed about 10 medium boxes of hardware (think IKEA shelf boxes), and I can build anything from XT to Tualatin and Athlon. I generally don't touch anything without an ISA slot and my main area of interest is late 486-Soc5 Pentium (so roughly 1993-1996) — because these are the years when I started gaming and I'm always curious to see what could be done with hardware of the time.

I think in the last 2 years I don't often see hardware parts for sale and think "wow, I need to have this", so I definitely don't hoard as much as I used to, and I actually regularly weed out my collection. There are still some unobtaniums I'd like to have (like a Creative 3D Blaster VLB or a 286 accelerator for Tandy 1000) and some more common parts that I might buy if I find a good deal, but I think I'm mostly done.

So I actually spend more time and money on restoring things — I slowly learn how to solder stuff (through trial and a lot of error), fix various things, etc. Channels like Necroware are a great inspiration for this.

Second, I do a lot of data hoarding, mostly for these:

- BIOS images. especially unusual ones like MR BIOS. Still hope to find a V3 images for an Opti Cobra/Python board one day 😀
- GM soundfonts. Currently slowly trying to figure out how to manually make WFB fonts)
- shareware programs — mostly sound stuff, but I'm slowly building my own personal 90s university-style FTP, complete with 8.3 filenames, styled folder structures and file listings. I'm trying to get most famous utilities and find most complete/updated versions for them, complete with 3rd party fixes, etc. It probably won't ever have some stuff that is not interesting to me (like tax software or phone books), but I hope to get a good snapshot of what people actually used and shared on Usenet and personal pages.

I hope to one day put all this online once it's useable and properly documented. I've found that stuff from early Internet era (especially for my beloved 1993-1996 hardware) can be very hard to track down, since it was mostly on FTPs, and those are largely not preserved by Archive.org and/or not indexed by search engines.

Like, do many people realise ProPatches was not the only custom patch set for Gravis cards? There was also Megabank, Guspro1/2, Pilabank, etc. There could be a Utopia for EWS64 card (maybe incomplete, but still). There was at least one custom GM patchset for Wavefront cards (John Cafarela's one). The soundfonts that are generally available for these cards are probably much better (that's why they got shared a lot and preserved), but those lesser ones are also interesting to me.

I'm going to mess around with all of my stuff when I retire in 10 years. I don't even know if it works 😁 My only goal is a ~2000 Coppermine build. I'm still collecting a few parts to get enough to do something with.

Separately, my father found my old 386 DX complete PC in a box in his basement. I told him to keep it and I'll pick it up when he dies 😁 It probably will have a hole melted through it from the battery. The only thing I remember is that the monitor was a little messed up (flickering lines), but I used to spend a ton of time messing around on that thing.

My goals have changed through time, at first, before there even was a "retro PC" it was just get something I could afford to get on the internet and play DOS games with - that was the 486 DX-33 I built in 2001. In 2012 it was create just enough machines to run all the old games I like on actual hardware and have just enough internet connection to download direct - I far surpassed that now. THen I wanted a portable machine, then that turned into documenting the NEC Versa 1st gen laptops, then I've been getting into NanTan but I don't really need to buy all of them to do that anymore.

Mostly for me, it' s just been to have fun with whatever I have, but I admit it's at a point where I have more machines than I actually need. I have 5 laptops + a Tandy 1000A, GEM 286, Moondog 486, home built 486, and a Compaq Deskpro 386s/20 with a Blue Lightning chip in it. That's a lot for me. And the thing is, they only "need" on elittle rinky dink thing here and there, like the digitizer for my Versa M/75 or the PCMCIA OPL equipped Sound card - but otherwise, I'm happy enough with them I'm not really motivated to be tuning and tweaking much anymore since they all are rather well dialed in at this point.

If it makes you happy and is not interfering with REAL LIFE like eating, shower/bathing/ going to the toilet I think it's fine. Some times you just need to take a break and do something else for bit.

I have plenty of systems to play around with, duplicates in some cases.

As the saying goes GET OFF MY FUNCKEN LAWN!!!

You are NOT going to stop me from doing what I want to do with my own resources.

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-19, 00:43:

You are NOT going to stop me from doing what I want to do with my own resources.

You are not married, are you?

eightbit wrote on 2022-07-19, 03:22:

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-19, 00:43:

You are NOT going to stop me from doing what I want to do with my own resources.

You are not married, are you?

This also explains my current collection, No-one to stop me from buying shit I dont need. 😁

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-19, 03:26:

eightbit wrote on 2022-07-19, 03:22:

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-19, 00:43:

You are NOT going to stop me from doing what I want to do with my own resources.

You are not married, are you?

This also explains my current collection, No-one to stop me from buying shit I dont need. 😁

Lol. I am married (for over 20 years) but my wife is OK with my stuff. It is me that feels guilty sometimes as my stuff consumes more space than her stuff....a lot more space.

eightbit wrote on 2022-07-19, 03:22:

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-19, 00:43:

You are NOT going to stop me from doing what I want to do with my own resources.

You are not married, are you?

Yip. The 1958 model I have is fantastic. My wife has some good shit for her hobby work that I'm free to make use of. You know, belt sanders, electrical tools of all sorts, hand tools, vertical drill press, band saw , you know stuff wives are in to 😀

My goal was to be able to easily step back in time to any hardware/software combination that's meaningful to me (not an extensive list). And to have a few spares, to cover failures over the long term. I don't personally assign much value to "collections", a term which implies acquisition for acquisition's sake. I look at stuff that's sat unused on my shelves for years and feel a bit guilty about it, like what a waste to skin all those dolphins just to make this joystick so it can be 1-of-10 populating my controllers shelf for 99.9% of it's useful lifespan.

Lately my goal has started to shift towards efficiency, and being able to achieve everything I want but with minimal waste and excess. Probably my favourite thing about the MiSTer is the consolidation of so many high quality things into a tiny unified 10-20W device. Though I must admit, I don't see myself abandoning my real Socket 7 PC in favour of the ao486 core anytime soon. Comes back to what's meaningful to me personally. Something which can change over time...