Computer 1: this it the slowest computer on your stock and I'd treat it as such.
I'd reduce the ram to 16MB and plug in the DX4-100.
This CPU makes it 'original'. It's a bit slower than the P60, and that's what you want for some older games (along with playing with with cache enable/disable).
Some early 90s games find it hard to cope with more than 16MB ram so that works be my limit.
Soundcard is great, you may also try some ESS1868 based card if one comes by cheap. Very compatible.
Video is probably VLB internally so I'd leave it that way. It's very compatible as well.

Computer 2: the P60 is a nice curiosity and is keep it this way, maybe add the ESS soundcard like above.

Computer 3: the original P100 is great, but relatively close to the 60 compared to the P4. The P200 will serve well. The MMX is great too, but be aware of the voltage difference. It will not survive extended periods of 3.3v
64MB ram probably is the maximum cachable and I'd keep this.

Computer 4: it had AGP. Look for a Geforce 4 Ti4200 and 1GB ram. It'll become a beast with still good Dos compatibility.

Wow, that's a really nice collection!
I think I would make #3 my main machine as it covers everything up to that point.
The more computers you have the more work it is to administrate them all so I would try to stick to few ones for actual usage. With a decent 3D VGA card and a P200 you can also play some earlier Win98 3D games. #2 can't do anything that #3 can't do better.
#4 with a matching 3D card and a good sound card would then cover the later Win98 era
An original 486 is really nice to have but I don't see why I would use it instead of #3 except for emotional reasons of course 😀

waterbeesje wrote on 2022-12-17, 21:45:

Computer 1: this it the slowest computer on your stock and I'd treat it as such. I'd reduce the ram to 16MB and plug in the DX4- […]
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Computer 1: this it the slowest computer on your stock and I'd treat it as such.
I'd reduce the ram to 16MB and plug in the DX4-100.
This CPU makes it 'original'. It's a bit slower than the P60, and that's what you want for some older games (along with playing with with cache enable/disable).
Some early 90s games find it hard to cope with more than 16MB ram so that works be my limit.
Soundcard is great, you may also try some ESS1868 based card if one comes by cheap. Very compatible.
Video is probably VLB internally so I'd leave it that way. It's very compatible as well.

Computer 2: the P60 is a nice curiosity and is keep it this way, maybe add the ESS soundcard like above.

Computer 3: the original P100 is great, but relatively close to the 60 compared to the P4. The P200 will serve well. The MMX is great too, but be aware of the voltage difference. It will not survive extended periods of 3.3v
64MB ram probably is the maximum cachable and I'd keep this.

Computer 4: it had AGP. Look for a Geforce 4 Ti4200 and 1GB ram. It'll become a beast with still good Dos compatibility.

First of all thanks for the replies. The CPUs that I have listed next to each computer are the ones I have available, I have a suitcase full of them and I can install them just to see how that game works with a specific CPU, by default I would definitely keep the Pentium60 because it is the only one that can be installed on that system, while the 486 I would test all the cpu out of curiosity as the computer is equipped with a reducer from 5 to 3.3v, but by default I would keep the DX4 also to maintain the originality written on the case. The Pentium1 (which is shown on the case at 100Mhz) I would keep at 200 because it was the most powerful and expensive Pentium1 that few could afford. The pentium4 I would leave hanging for now.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-12-18, 03:35:

Wow, that's a really nice collection! I think I would make #3 my main machine as it covers everything up to that point. The mor […]
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Wow, that's a really nice collection!
I think I would make #3 my main machine as it covers everything up to that point.
The more computers you have the more work it is to administrate them all so I would try to stick to few ones for actual usage. With a decent 3D VGA card and a P200 you can also play some earlier Win98 3D games. #2 can't do anything that #3 can't do better.
#4 with a matching 3D card and a good sound card would then cover the later Win98 era
An original 486 is really nice to have but I don't see why I would use it instead of #3 except for emotional reasons of course 😀

Yes indeed my plan was to have the 486 for emotional reasons and the P200 for everything else, the other 2 I bought because I found them by accident. But I want to keep them all, in the end I have almost the complete collection of the most important machines in computer history that "counts". Actually I also have a socket5 but I really consider that a duplicate of socket7 plus the case is identical to that of the 486 and the P60 so I really think I'll sell it. On the contrary, if someone wants it .... or wants to exchange it for something, I am available.

RAM

With your help from the forum I increased the ram to the maximum available for each platform, I read that some games may have problems, in that case I reduce it, but by default I would like to keep it to the maximum.

The only thing I'm sorry about is that I couldn't find IBM branded ram but only generic ram, I would have liked to have the original ram as well.

If you have no other suggestions, I'd leave it at that.

CASE AND OUTSIDE

I care a lot about the "visual" side of my computer and in fact I looked for them to be original in everything and the most aesthetically beautiful I could find.

As you can see, since they are all the same format, they have only one 3.5 and one 5.25 slot available.

All have the Original IBM 3.5" Floppy and I would leave that unless you have suggestions.

For the 5.25 slot some were empty and I bought some CD-ROMs which seemed to me both aesthetically pleasing and period correct (from what I recall as I lived through that period). Do you have any suggestions for swapping or looking for any specific drive?

486: I really like the CD-ROM aesthetically and I find it very appropriate for the historical period, I remember it as a precious piece for the time and it is immediately recognizable precisely because of its particular and not anonymous shape. I have the only doubt whether to keep it because a 5.25 floppy drive is arriving but I don't know whether to put that or not, it's just an aesthetic question, I will hardly use these CD-ROMs. This 4x CD is branded original IBM and corresponds to the year 1995 which is the same as the computer.

P-60
This CD-ROM is the legendary Panasonic (I had the 2x scsi version but the aesthetics remained unchanged up to the fastest ones) the computer is even older than the DX4 being marked 1994. I installed this CD-ROM even if it is marked 1998 and 52x because I find it aesthetically beautiful, even in terms of color compared to the rest of the computer. what are you saying? even if 52x does it make sense to keep it in this computer?

P200
I find this CD-ROM very ugly, I installed it only to cover the hole, this computer arrived with the panasonic slot-in that I installed in the P4 because it seemed too modern for the aesthetics of the computer, in this case I really need some advice from you on what to do.

Pentium4
I haven't dedicated myself to this computer yet. If you have any suggestions, please tell them.

If you have enough space for all the machines, as well as a nostalgic connection to them, I'd say keep them all.

In a more practical sense, you could cover DOS gaming from 1990 to 1997 with a single Pentium MMX 200. It can be slowed down to 386 and 486 speeds as needed by disabling L1 and L2 caches. This can be even more fine tuned by using SetMul to toggle the test registers. Put something like an S3 Trio64V+ in there and you have perfect DOS game compatibility.

In terms of sound cards, you can put both a SBPro 2.0 and a SB16 in that machine, as long as they are configured to use different resources. Older games can use the SBPro, while the newer ones (which benefit from 16-bit sound) can be configured to use the SB16. If you don't plan on connecting an external MIDI device or using a wavetable daughterboard, that's pretty much it.

The Pentium 4 paired with something like a GeForce 4 Ti4200 can handle 3D accelerated games from 1997 up to early 2002. If you also want to play Glide games on it, add a Voodoo 2 card and you've got all the bases covered. The latter is quite expensive nowadays, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you have one already or can get a really good deal. In terms of sound, put something like a SBLive or an Audigy in there, and you can enjoy EAX games too. Such a sound card would also provide some basic backward compatibility with DOS games, in case that's needed.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-12-18, 09:03:

If you have enough space for all the machines, as well as a nostalgic connection to them, I'd say keep them all. […]
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If you have enough space for all the machines, as well as a nostalgic connection to them, I'd say keep them all.

In a more practical sense, you could cover DOS gaming from 1990 to 1997 with a single Pentium MMX 200. It can be slowed down to 386 and 486 speeds as needed by disabling L1 and L2 caches. This can be even more fine tuned by using SetMul to toggle the test registers. Put something like an S3 Trio64V+ in there and you have perfect DOS game compatibility.

In terms of sound cards, you can put both a SBPro 2.0 and a SB16 in that machine, as long as they are configured to use different resources. Older games can use the SBPro, while the newer ones (which benefit from 16-bit sound) can be configured to use the SB16. If you don't plan on connecting an external MIDI device or using a wavetable daughterboard, that's pretty much it.

The Pentium 4 paired with something like a GeForce 4 Ti4200 can handle 3D accelerated games from 1997 up to early 2002. If you also want to play Glide games on it, add a Voodoo 2 card and you've got all the bases covered. The latter is quite expensive nowadays, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you have one already or can get a really good deal. In terms of sound, put something like a SBLive or an Audigy in there, and you can enjoy EAX games too. Such a sound card would also provide some basic backward compatibility with DOS games, in case that's needed.

as you can see I keep them on the shelf and take out only what I want to use, I was thinking of using a kvm and keep them all connected to the workstation with monitor, keyboard and mouse, since everyone being ibm they have ps/2 and vga...

I know the advantages of the mmx well but I didn't want to give up the 486 and the Pentium200 intrigues me much more than the 233MMX.

But now I would like to focus on the external side as posted above and get advice on that before moving on to the internal components.

AlessandroB wrote on 2022-12-18, 08:52:

CASE AND OUTSIDE […]
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CASE AND OUTSIDE

I care a lot about the "visual" side of my computer and in fact I looked for them to be original in everything and the most aesthetically beautiful I could find.

As you can see, since they are all the same format, they have only one 3.5 and one 5.25 slot available.

All have the Original IBM 3.5" Floppy and I would leave that unless you have suggestions.

For the 5.25 slot some were empty and I bought some CD-ROMs which seemed to me both aesthetically pleasing and period correct (from what I recall as I lived through that period). Do you have any suggestions for swapping or looking for any specific drive?

486: I really like the CD-ROM aesthetically and I find it very appropriate for the historical period, I remember it as a precious piece for the time and it is immediately recognizable precisely because of its particular and not anonymous shape. I have the only doubt whether to keep it because a 5.25 floppy drive is arriving but I don't know whether to put that or not, it's just an aesthetic question, I will hardly use these CD-ROMs. This 4x CD is branded original IBM and corresponds to the year 1995 which is the same as the computer.

P-60
This CD-ROM is the legendary Panasonic (I had the 2x scsi version but the aesthetics remained unchanged up to the fastest ones) the computer is even older than the DX4 being marked 1994. I installed this CD-ROM even if it is marked 1998 and 52x because I find it aesthetically beautiful, even in terms of color compared to the rest of the computer. what are you saying? even if 52x does it make sense to keep it in this computer?

P200
I find this CD-ROM very ugly, I installed it only to cover the hole, this computer arrived with the panasonic slot-in that I installed in the P4 because it seemed too modern for the aesthetics of the computer, in this case I really need some advice from you on what to do.

Pentium4
I haven't dedicated myself to this computer yet. If you have any suggestions, please tell them.

Unless you want to use the 5.25 floppy a lot I would leave the CD-ROM in there. For a 486 it's more appropriate than this old disk format.
I can't give you any advise on aesthetics because that's a very subjective thing. For example I'd prefer a simple rectangular tray front in the 486 (like the 16x DVD in the P4) since that looks 'older' to me. And I personally don't think the one in the P200 is ugly. (Nor would I call it beautiful 😀 )
For the P4 you could get a Soundblaster Audigy or Live and the matching breakout box.

Today the 5.25 drive arrived, although it is IBM branded and beautifully made, it has a different color. Do you think I keep the cd-rom or the floppy drive? I don't think they are really useful on a 486, cd-rom games I think require a better cpu than DX4 and 5.25 floppies were already out of date. It is also an aesthetic choice.

Like I just wrote before even having seen the picture I would keep the CD-ROM. It's more useful, it's period correct and it looks better (in general and colorwise). Pretty much all games at that era came on CDs

AlessandroB wrote on 2022-12-19, 21:54:

Today the 5.25 drive arrived, although it is IBM branded and beautifully made, it has a different color. Do you think I keep the cd-rom or the floppy drive? I don't think they are really useful on a 486, cd-rom games I think require a better cpu than DX4 and 5.25 floppies were already out of date. It is also an aesthetic choice.

In terms of aesthetics vs IBM authenticity, you've got a problem here.

IBM abandoned the 5.25" FDD years before in the PS/2 series, so you won't find a nice matching IBM branded thing for this. That drive belongs in an AT. And as these IBM systems aren't regular beige, you won't find 3rd party drives that colour either, I fear.

Maybe go for an external 5.25" drive to keep the functionality but not break the looks of the case...

As for the 486 - does it have a Turbo function? If so, it's of greatly added value.

Much as I'm nostalgic for So4 myself (my first own PC was a P60 I used from early 1995 to late 1999), I see that adding least to this lineup. It's the least flexible in terms of speeds and adds very little over the 486. Maybe use it for a different OS/shell? Keep 486 and P200 pure DOS, put Win3.11 on the P60 and Win98SE on the P4.

Very nice IBM collection. I agree with dionb ! The Pentium P60/66 is not one worthy to keep based on the other three, unless you do something different like OS2 on it and keep DOS/Windows on the others....

HanSolo wrote on 2022-12-19, 22:19:

Like I just wrote before even having seen the picture I would keep the CD-ROM. It's more useful, it's period correct and it looks better (in general and colorwise). Pretty much all games at that era came on CDs

I will do so thanks for the exchange of ideas

Horun wrote on 2022-12-20, 04:02:

Very nice IBM collection. I agree with dionb ! The Pentium P60/66 is not one worthy to keep based on the other three, unless you do something different like OS2 on it and keep DOS/Windows on the others....

The Pentium 60 wasn't in my plans, I just found it at an instant price and honestly even if it doesn't add much to the DX4 it's still a very nice piece to have in a collection. Socket4 is really an intriguing socket.

dionb wrote on 2022-12-19, 23:46:

In terms of aesthetics vs IBM authenticity, you've got a problem here. […]
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AlessandroB wrote on 2022-12-19, 21:54:

Today the 5.25 drive arrived, although it is IBM branded and beautifully made, it has a different color. Do you think I keep the cd-rom or the floppy drive? I don't think they are really useful on a 486, cd-rom games I think require a better cpu than DX4 and 5.25 floppies were already out of date. It is also an aesthetic choice.

In terms of aesthetics vs IBM authenticity, you've got a problem here.

IBM abandoned the 5.25" FDD years before in the PS/2 series, so you won't find a nice matching IBM branded thing for this. That drive belongs in an AT. And as these IBM systems aren't regular beige, you won't find 3rd party drives that colour either, I fear.

Maybe go for an external 5.25" drive to keep the functionality but not break the looks of the case...

As for the 486 - does it have a Turbo function? If so, it's of greatly added value.

Much as I'm nostalgic for So4 myself (my first own PC was a P60 I used from early 1995 to late 1999), I see that adding least to this lineup. It's the least flexible in terms of speeds and adds very little over the 486. Maybe use it for a different OS/shell? Keep 486 and P200 pure DOS, put Win3.11 on the P60 and Win98SE on the P4.

I looked now on Google pictures of the IBM AT, you're right! it's exactly that drive, but I notice that also that computer has the double case/drive color... maybe if I could find a 3.5" Flopy in the same color it wouldn't look bad aesthetically. But now I'll keep the CD-ROM anyway Do you also agree that in terms of aesthetics/time period that 4x model is suitable? Immediately for the 486 I bought what you see in the photo of the P60 (Panasonic) but then once I tried it in the P60 I fell in love with it, it's very well with the slightly more yellowish case colors of the 486.

I remember seeing the word "Turbo" silk-screened in a row of jumpers on the 486 motherboard but I tried to close the two contacts but nothing happened, then maybe later when I dedicate myself to the internals of these computers we'll try together. However, it seems to me that the bus can go down to 20Mhz and on the shelf next to it I also have a 5150 so I shouldn't have too many speed problems...

As for your last sentence, as I said, I bought the P60 there because I found it at a good price and it was in excellent condition, all original. I didn't buy it because it had some utility, but because I find socket4 extremely fascinating from a collector's point of view and then, since my focus is "around" DX2, it's still interesting to try the same games on a futuristic platform that few could afford which is almost contemporary with the last 486.

What do you think instead of the P200's CD player? I don't like it very much with that 32x writing it seems too modern, instead putting another reader like the one on the P60 (Panasonic) seems too old to me. The Pioneer slot-in I put on the P4 seems too modern to me, what do you think?

FWIW, my first 486 DX2/66 didn't have a 5.25" floppy. It was 3.5" only. I later upgraded with a CD-ROM x4 drive. I had it from sometime in 1994 or 95, added the CD-ROM in 96.

OP: I kinda get your fascination of the P200, it was like "the" powerhouse at it's time (except for the PPro, of course) both in terms of computing power as well as electrical power, being the last socket 5/7 to run single voltage.

I'm not the right person to ask all these questions on aesthetics. If it's roughly the same colour and it works, I'm generally happy. If it matters to you, get a different one.