VOGONS


Worst retrogaming regret

Topic actions

First post, by madrobby

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Mine was when I got rid of my collection of big box DOS games in about 1998 when I moved out of my parents place. And by get rid I mean throw in the trash.

I’m sort of slowly trying to acquire copies again, but some like Elder Scrolls: Arena or DOOM2 are quite $$$ now. 😵

What’s your worst retrogaming regret?

Reply 1 of 29, by the-beast

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Losing my 5x86 setup. Had a decient sound and video card in it too.

Reply 2 of 29, by PcBytes

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Letting my dad give away my childhood's Pentium II 350MHz machine. If I could turn time back, I'd definitely save it and stash it away somewhere he'd be unable to find it, then come back in the present and find it there to make up a nice retro machine out of it.

God, I hate him a lot for that. Doesn't help it's likely going to rot in that dude's place as the owner of that machine (the one after me) is now dead.

Even more as I couldn't find the case available for sale anywhere anymore. (it's a KME/K-Mex CX-6459)

I hope I can find the case one day. Found out it's easier to find the electric parts (Pentium II, i440BX mobo, RAM, GPU and such) than the case.

This is the only photo I've been able to find on the internet of the said ATX case.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 3 of 29, by sf78

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

My mom tried to sell my big box collection at a flea market for pennies, but luckily it was early '00's when nobody cared for them and I only ended up loosing Space Quest IV EGA version. 🤣 I'd be mighty pissed if it happened now. I do regret selling Thief II and Toonstruck around 8 years ago as I found them for just a few euros and didn't make more than 10e a piece when I sold them thinking I don't have room for more PC games. Now I'm getting rid of all the useless console stuff to make more room for PC... 😵

Reply 4 of 29, by 133MHz

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
  • Not picking up some stuff I didn't know I'd never see again (way back when this stuff was considered junk and worth almost nothing) because whoever was selling it wanted way too much and wouldn't budge. Back when thrifting netted you so much awesome hauls for so little money I tended to ignore those outliers who wanted more than the usual going rate at the time even if they had something I really desired - my philosophy was something like "never ever overpay, if a seller won't negotiate just walk away, surely I'll find it for dirt cheap later", well some of those things I never saw again in the wild (and others I never saw again ever) and with how crazy things have gotten those 'outrageous' prices of yesteryear would be considered pretty good deals today 😒. I do regret not recognizing some of these 'once in a lifetime' moments, if I had known I would've gladly paid asking price for these.
  • Not picking up duplicates when I had the opportunity to get them cheap to use them now as trade fodder because "why would I want more than one of each? I'm not a mindless hoarder". When I realized it it was already too late and I did start to look like a mindless hoarder 🤣.
  • Not getting earlier into buying on eBay what I was missing in my collection but wasn't finding in the wild. I saw friends do it but I didn't have easy access to PayPal so I kept the thrifting attitude, and when I did get the means I kept putting it off for later, thinking that prices would rise but not so much that it couldn't wait a bit. Boy was I wrong!

I guess in my case it boils down to the fact that I wasn't thinking like a hardcore collector or in the speculative mindset of buying cheap to flip for profits later - I was just having a blast thrifting and picking up stuff that I like to tinker around with. When the things you desire are niche but plentiful, cheap and considered junk by the mainstream you take a relaxed attitude where patience is everything and you don't see the big changes coming (or you downplay them in your mind), but then you become emotionally invested, everything goes apeshit and then Captain Hindsight starts haunting you.

http://133FSB.wordpress.com

Reply 5 of 29, by Errius

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Having to buy back for $$$ stuff I threw out years ago is a continual irritation.

Eta: Also: throwing out faulty things that I now know how to repair. I used to have a sweet RDRAM P4 board that got tossed because of a single bad capacitor...

Last edited by Errius on 2018-08-11, 19:11. Edited 1 time in total.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 6 of 29, by Gered

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Errius wrote:

Having to buy back for $$$ stuff I threw out years ago is a continual irritation.

This. Also having to buy back stuff that other people in my family threw out for me years ago thinking that I didn't want it anymore. *grumble grumble*.

486DX2-66/16MB/S3 Trio32 VLB/SBPro2/GUS
P233 MMX/64MB/Voodoo2/Matrox/YMF719/GUS CD3
Duron 800/256MB/Savage4 Pro/SBLive (IN PROGRESS)
Toshiba 430CDT

Reply 7 of 29, by cyclone3d

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Giving away multiple AWE32 cards.
Giving away my old CPU collection... Even had a 5x86-133 upgrade module, an Intel Overdrive.. probably 83Mhz, and a bunch of other stuff I will probably never find again. IT was all stuff I had gotten for free and just kept.
Giving away a bunch of other old computer stuff including a Voodoo 3 3500.
Giving away some Pentium 1 SBC cards.
Throwing out an ARPA PC Stereo board... have one now, but 20+ years ago I couldn't find any information or drivers for the thing so after having it for a few years I finally got rid of it.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 8 of 29, by badmojo

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I go through cycles of collect and purge so I’m still generating new regrets as we speak 😀

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 9 of 29, by Malik

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

When I first upgraded from my XT, I was looking for the 286. But at that time my dad and the computer seller suggested me to wait a bit longer since the 386 was just released and I could get it in a few weeks. But as an impatient boy that I was that time, especially when it came to computers, couldn't wait and was adamant to get the 286 right then and there.

And hence I got the 286 and missed the 386 system. That's the only regret I have when it comes to a classic system.

I'm not sure if this adheres to this thread title, but I guess, I was using my systems mainly for gaming. (Though, at that time, it WAS gaming and not "retro"gaming.)

It was a 20MHz 286 system, but I enjoyed many, many classic games with it later on, anyway.

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 10 of 29, by Weebob

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Binning various hardware like...

3dfx / STB Velocity 100
Savage 2000
XGI Volari v3 and v5
Matrox G400Max
Abit VP6
Celery 300A

The list is endless

Also binning all my big box games when moving house, then taking ISO and binning the media when moving again...

bjxhae-6.png

Reply 11 of 29, by shamino

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I threw away a Sega-CD front loader because of what was probably just a blown fuse (didn't know that at the time). I replaced it with a used top loader which has been totally reliable, but the front loader was way more cool.

I purged some game boxes to make space, but not all of them. Instead of throwing them out, maybe I could have flattened them. At least I kept the Ultima boxes.

I'm on pins and needles about some Sound Blaster cards that would now be very expensive to replace. I especially wish I'd bought a duplicate of the OPL2 SBPro, which was my first Sound Blaster card. I'm fond of how it sounds in DOS games, because that's what I had back then. I wish I'd bought duplicates of it back when that stuff was cheap.
There was a time that I remember these cards were so cheap people considered them as donors for OPL2 chips.

Future regret? I have 3 CRT TVs for use with game consoles, one of which I especially like, the other 2 are okay. Depending how they hold up, I *might* start to regret not buying 1 or 2 more that I passed on. But they're bulky, so hoarding them is difficult. Yet it can be argued they are the most deserving case to hoard. The tubes wear with age, they will start dying, and nobody outside of niche interest wants to store them so healthy examples will thin out quickly.

But then there's some non-regrets. I've kept records of old eBay purchases, and there are some jaw droppers in there. Prices have changed a lot over the years. And while I cringe at what I sold some things for, I can't keep everything.

Reply 12 of 29, by dionb

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

My big retro regrets are how much I sold/gave/threw away when moving house from a place with cellar and shed to a small apartment. Most of it wasn't gaming-related (I mean, how many games were there even for a NextStation? Or an Origin 2000), but just in the subset of stuff you could use for gaming there were enough gems...

- pretty much every mass-market Voodoo from the original to the V5-5500. PCI.
- pretty much every PCI VGA chipset out there, from aforementioned VSA-100 to S3 805P, with everything from Imagine128 and Artist Graphics to nV1 (both 2k and 3k) in between.
- my trusty old GUS Max

Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk. Back then I was never into 486, now all the more so. Just a lot harder (and more expensive) to get hold of.

Reply 13 of 29, by liqmat

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Back in the late 90s a company in Orlando, FL came across a hoard of brand new Amiga 2000 HD models sitting in a warehouse if memory serves me right. They started selling off the NIB systems for just a few hundred bucks at the time and would even customize them. I bought one, played with it for six months or so and, like an idiot, sold it off on Ebay. If I had known that a retro tsunami was coming I probably would have purchased a bunch of those machines, not to sell, but to have for that great price. I even had that machine hooked up to the Internet with a 100Mbps NIC. Oh well... At least I still find great old machines in the wild for cheap like the 286-12 I am currently restoring. All these systems are used for gaming and demos of course.

Last edited by liqmat on 2018-08-19, 17:15. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 14 of 29, by buckeye

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Not getting into the retro scene before 2015!!!

Asus P5N-E Intel Core 2 Duo 3.33ghz. 4GB DDR2 Geforce 470 1GB SB X-Fi Titanium 650W XP SP3
Intel SE440BX P3 450 256MB 80GB SSD Asus V7700 GF2 64mb SB 32pnp 350W 98SE
MSI x570 Gaming Pro Carbon Ryzen 3700x 32GB DDR4 Zotac RTX 3070 8GB WD Black 1TB 850W

Reply 15 of 29, by KCompRoom2000

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Not knowing how important Glide was for 9x gaming, then by the time I find out, Voodoo cards become collectible to the point where they're hard to find at "reasonable" prices. 😵

Reply 16 of 29, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Throwing out some 386 and 486 boards. One was a 386/486 combo board. I did keep all the cache chips and some odd stuff like BIOS chips.
Not getting an NV1 when I had the chance. Could've gotten it for peanuts too 🤣
Back when I was dumpsterdiving and the pickings were ripe, I found a 486 AT system with SIPP memory and a VLB Ati Mach64. Yep I left all of it there 😒

Now that I think of it, if there even is a SIPP board with VLB slots, I might actually find out which board it was 🤣, probably not many of them made.

I don't have many regrets though. Very few. At most I had a couple poor purchase decisions but as I hardly tossed anything out (even when broken, cuz maybe I can fix it later right? 😊 ) I have few regrets.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 17 of 29, by shamino

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Just got a new regret.
There was a seller on eBay who was selling edge connectors that were a perfect match for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive - including the screw mount flanges which are usually missing from these type of connectors. I wanted to buy a bunch of them for refurbishing of those consoles.
The seller showed a huge quantity available so I didn't feel any rush. I waited until I was more comfortable spending the money and had a more immediate need. Checked back recently and discovered that they ended the listing as "no longer available". I sent a message and they confirmed that they are out of them. Apparently, the huge quantity that had been listed wasn't accurate.
I need to learn that lesson. If you really want something, don't wait too long trusting what the quantity available says. I had the same thing happen with a different item 1-2 years ago.

Reply 18 of 29, by liqmat

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

This used to happen to me all the time. ^^^^

Also applies to garage sales and thrift stores. If you kinda like what you see, just get it. Buyer's remorse is better than hindsight regret. At least if you regret buying it you can sell it.

Reply 19 of 29, by schmatzler

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

About 10 years ago my parents took me on a trip to Berlin to visit my sister.
I explored the city and found a little computer store, with an overweight, but cool Turkish store owner.

He had boxes full of retro hardware and sold them for absolutely nothing since he considered them junk.
One big box was full of 3Dfx cards and he sold me a Voodoo Banshee for 10 bucks.

The thing is...I could've gotten the whole box full of 3Dfx cards for 50 bucks, there were easily 20-30 cards in there.
Nope. Only took the Banshee. God dammit. There was a Voodoo 3 in there and I took the Banshee, because I didn't know anything about 3Dfx. 😵

Edit: I visited the store a few years later, when I was much wiser. He had sold everything and only had modern hardware.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"