Intel486dx33 wrote:

brostenen wrote:

Intel486dx33 wrote:

What about the perfect retro gaming computer ? What hardware would you use ? […]
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What about the perfect retro gaming computer ?
What hardware would you use ?

What CPU
What Motherboard ?
What amount of ram ?
What Graphics cards ?
ISA/PCI or AGP or PCIe ?
What sound card ?

I would say that it depends on what type of era of games that you are interrested in, and what you personally consider as being retro. To me, the XP era will never be retro, as I have no nostagia for that era. Never had a machine that was able to game the newest games from around 2001 and onwards, and when I finally had the money, I was building computers for a living. Between 2003 and 2006 I was working with it, and during that time, I was fed up with computers so much, that I only used a Windows computer for home banking, searching for normal everyday living information and emailing. And it stayed like that untill 2013, when I went back to retro computing, and then it was all Win98 and MS Dos 6.22 gaming all over for me. To me, the time between 1987/88 to 1991, are all Amiga500 territory when finding the best machine. 1982 to 1985/87 are Commodore64 era. When dealing with pure Dos then we are talking 1990/91 to 1997 and Windows9x are 1995 to 1999/01. So all era's are overlapping each other, and sometimes a 386sx33 are better than a 486dx4-120 (Wing commander as an example).

To summarise.... What era of gaming are we talking about, when finding the ultimate computer? As one single machine is not the ultimate retro/vintage gaming machine.

I mean a DOS gaming computer ?

So you are talking about what is the best "Pure-MS-Dos-ONLY-Gaming-machine"? Am I right?

If so. Then you must take into account, that in some years, other type of machine's were a better choice.
Like in some cases, the Commodore64 were a better choice, and some times the Amiga was a better one.
Like from late 1987 to some 1991 (1992 in some cases), the Amiga500 was a better choice for games.

Depending on if you want to look away from a better gaming experience or take it in.
Then you can have pre-1992 into the pool of choices as well. Or not. Hope you understand what I am saying.
Let's pretend that we take the best of best into account, then you will end up with a list much like this:

1982-1987: Commodore64 (because games were usually better on C64 compared to x86)
1988-1991: Amiga500 (same reason as C64, and the year might stretch into 1992)
1992-1996: Some kind of MS-Dos-only compatible x86 machine. Windows games became better in 1997.

So if you are looking for the absolute best machine, and the rule is that you can only pick an x86 MS-Dos-Only machine.
Then you have to look at the years between 1992 and 1997, and only these years.
Sure we love MS-Dos hardware from 1988, 1989 and 1990 equally as much and sometimes more than Amiga's,
yet you asked about Dos-Only.

So what is the best machine.... To be honest. I do not know. All in all, it depends more on what games you want to play.
Because Dos games from 1986 tends not to run well on a 1997-x86 machine. You know... Incompatibility and speed issues.
I mean. Directly and without modifications or tricks or anything. Like playing IBM AlleyCat on a Pentium3.
And yet there are one platform, the SS7-Platform, that can do an awesome and nifty trick.....
One solution for the best, are something like the following... And yet, there are better hardware than this below.

- Gigabyte GA-5AX or other SS7 boards.
- K6-III+ 550mhz
- 16mb Ram
- S3-Trio64v+, S3-Virge325 or CL5446
- Voodoo1
- Sound-solution with as many standards as possible. (you may need 3 ISA-Slots)

I have used late-90's motherboard and CPU, yet it can be throtteled, so you can emulate the speed of 386's to Pentium1.
As I said.... There might be better solutions out there, and better hardware choices.
Yet I like to quote SquallStrife and others. There is no perfect computer. And you need multiple machines to span all years

The perfect computer is a computer where you can download RAM from the internet!

But in a sense, it would be - a fully software defined computer. No specific hardware at all, everything is defined in software and only specification you would have about hardware is count of integral switches/transistors or something.

Closest to the idea itself we have today are FPGA chips. But as a whole computer like that, we have a long long way to go, before it becomes a reality...

SquallStrife wrote:

The only correct answer is that the perfect computer doesn't exist. […]
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The only correct answer is that the perfect computer doesn't exist.

It can't exist.

The breadth of applications for what can loosely be called "a computer" is just so immensely gargantuan that it's impossible for one configuration to be good, even capable at all of them simultaneously.

Even if you whittled down the use cases to the top 90% or so, you'd still end up with a device that's "OK at most things"... not even "OK at everything".

As for OP's ideas around software... well we sorta already have that. In the scheme of things, the periodic refreshes of our favourite tools (email, word processing, spreadsheet, etc) are minor, and do indeed add functionality. With a little bit of initial effort, they can and do improve your workflow. The complaints raised about "change for the sake of change" are relatable, but misguided IMO. Changes to user interface don't happen in a vacuum. As much disdain as one may have for Microsoft and Apple as companies, they ultimately must respond to the market. One may feel as though the changes are arbitrary, and done on a whim, but the reality is that these changes are in the works for months if not years before they see the light of day. Internal product group testing, external focus groups, feedback/suggestion boxes, pilot/beta testing, etc etc etc are all stock-standard parts of development.

I think it's easy to be jaded about "the way things are", and the temptation is to assume that what you like, or are used to, is somehow objectively correct. Confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance are powerful things. You'll save yourself from an early grave and grey hairs if you stop being so bitter about change, and just do what works for you. The Internet is a big place, there's room for everybody's preferences.

^^ This ^^

The 'solution' depends on the 'problem'. The problem will always differ depending on what you want to achieve...

Also, I think the hardware aspect is a bit redundant... most peoples experience of a computer is via the software it runs... in many cases the hardware something is run on could be completely swapped for different hardware running the same software and the user would be none the wiser... the same couldn't be said for changing software with the same hardware... people would notice if the software changes!.... in 99% of cases computer hardware is designed to be somewhat 'General Purpose'... So the perfect computer is one that will run ALL software, past, present and future.... since we don't know what the future holds we can't design for it so it is designed to be 'General Purpose'.

There are sub-categories such as Sound cards and graphics cards which are designed for audio and visual respectively, but these are still 'General Purpose' within their own discipline.

GigAHerZ wrote:

The perfect computer is a computer where you can download RAM from the internet!

But in a sense, it would be - a fully software defined computer. No specific hardware at all, everything is defined in software and only specification you would have about hardware is count of integral switches/transistors or something.

Closest to the idea itself we have today are FPGA chips. But as a whole computer like that, we have a long long way to go, before it becomes a reality...

spiroyster wrote:

The 'solution' depends on the 'problem'. The problem will always differ depending on what you want to achieve...

Also, I think the hardware aspect is a bit redundant... most peoples experience of a computer is via the software it runs... in many cases the hardware something is run on could be completely swapped for different hardware running the same software and the user would be none the wiser... the same couldn't be said for changing software with the same hardware... people would notice if the software changes!.... in 99% of cases computer hardware is designed to be somewhat 'General Purpose'... So the perfect computer is one that will run ALL software, past, present and future.... since we don't know what the future holds we can't design for it so it is designed to be 'General Purpose'.

There are sub-categories such as Sound cards and graphics cards which are designed for audio and visual respectively, but these are still 'General Purpose' within their own discipline.

True that to both... Uhmmm... Well....
Does this mean that we are talking stuff that are not invented yet or do we only talk about stuff that has been invented and are on the market as of now?

brostenen wrote:

True that to both... Uhmmm... Well.... Does this mean that we are talking stuff that are not invented yet or do we only talk abo […]
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GigAHerZ wrote:

The perfect computer is a computer where you can download RAM from the internet!

But in a sense, it would be - a fully software defined computer. No specific hardware at all, everything is defined in software and only specification you would have about hardware is count of integral switches/transistors or something.

Closest to the idea itself we have today are FPGA chips. But as a whole computer like that, we have a long long way to go, before it becomes a reality...

spiroyster wrote:

The 'solution' depends on the 'problem'. The problem will always differ depending on what you want to achieve...

Also, I think the hardware aspect is a bit redundant... most peoples experience of a computer is via the software it runs... in many cases the hardware something is run on could be completely swapped for different hardware running the same software and the user would be none the wiser... the same couldn't be said for changing software with the same hardware... people would notice if the software changes!.... in 99% of cases computer hardware is designed to be somewhat 'General Purpose'... So the perfect computer is one that will run ALL software, past, present and future.... since we don't know what the future holds we can't design for it so it is designed to be 'General Purpose'.

There are sub-categories such as Sound cards and graphics cards which are designed for audio and visual respectively, but these are still 'General Purpose' within their own discipline.

True that to both... Uhmmm... Well....
Does this mean that we are talking stuff that are not invented yet or do we only talk about stuff that has been invented and are on the market as of now?

Whats perfect today, may not be perfect tomorrow... which by definition means it's not 'perfect'. Hence the whole problem with trying to define a 'perfect' computer.

So maybe the question could be posed... up to today... what is the most perfect computer... and the answer would be the fastest most bad-ass throughput of a CPU/system coupled with emulation layers (software) of every other bit of hardware that exists. Of course something like an amiga emulator would run faster than any original amiga hardware has ever run... but a playstation3/4 emulator would be dog slow on our general purpose system... if however the throughput increased there would come a point when we could run emulated playstation hardware faster than any playstation could run it.... vicious circle... but eventually as our hardware evolved, the 'general purpose' system coupled with the correct software would be able to run it as the original (if not better) did...

Every electrical components behaviour can be modelled and emulated... question is how much detail do you want to go into, and can this be done accurately and fast enough on the hardware you have... if it can't today... give it 10 years and it will be able to... the goal posts are constantly moving, so nothing can be 'perfect'…

The perfect computer is by definition completely changeable and adaptable to fit the users needs at any given moment. So, pretty much the T1000 without murderous intent (stay away from acid and molten metal).

Can we move on now?

The perfect computer would know when to stop us from spending too much time on discussions like this.

And move us on to meanings of the number 42.

iPad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IprmiOa2zH8&t=1s

Edit: iPad: the perfect computer for children.

Well, What about the Human DNA. What History can it tell us ?
It's not 99.9% junk.
There is a story there to tell.

It's the History of the RED blooded Humans.

Steve Jobs - "To know the future you have to connect the DOTS"

Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8qWc9X4f6k&t=185s

Microsoft " Where do you want to go today"
The real question is where have we been ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwf0EZ50KUY

Here is something else to think about.
Our universe is raging Havoc on our planet.
Plant warming, natural disasters, storms and catastrophes.
The Moon and planet alignments and solar flares, wage havoc on this planet.

The "iPad" is a mobile tablet with built in UPS and redundancies and iCloud backup and storage.
It's not Perfect yet but the idea is getting there.

You can use it standing up, sitting down, laying down, or flying in air.

Humans and animals are always on the move weather you like it or not.

I see many words here but absolutely no meaning. Are you trying to be "visionary".

No, I am just reiterating that the 'iPad" tablet is a small little mobile device you can take almost anywhere an it plays games great.
For the price of $330 you can't build a desktop computer today for that price with iPad specs.

A good 486 computer with multimedia capabilities back in 1993 cost $3,000

I think the "iPad" is the best value purchase for a mobile gaming computer in 2019.

Can Microsoft build a tablet to compete with iPad for $330 ?

I had a Surface-RT the base model Surface tablet that cost $500 and it could barely surf the internet.
The browser was always locking up.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I think the "iPad" is the best value purchase for a mobile gaming computer in 2019.

🤣, any random x86 compatible 100$ PC tablet can do a lot more, therefore will wipe floors with your ipad...

Microsoft office apps are FREE for the iPad. But you don't need them as the iWork apps work great.
It's really the best of both Worlds in one.

The iPad is kind of like the Mac computer where you can dual boot OSX / MS-Windows or even run Microsoft apps with-in OSX.
So you can have both on one computer or tablet.

That's why started using the Apple Mac.

But after a while you figure out you don't need the Microsoft stuff anymore unless your work or school requires it.

My man, your posting history suggests an inability to perform logical thinky think, with a very recent example being “The moon ... wage havoc on this planet”. You’re going to need to address that issue before anyone will take your iPad opinions seriously.

This AI has improved greatly in the last few months but it still fails the Turing test as far as I'm concerned..

badmojo wrote:

My man, your posting history suggests an inability to perform logical thinky think, with a very recent example being “The moon ... wage havoc on this planet”. You’re going to need to address that issue before anyone will take your iPad opinions seriously.

dude lay off, no need to bully him for liking ipads.
I prefer itampons myself

gdjacobs wrote:

The perfect computer is by definition completely changeable and adaptable to fit the users needs at any given moment. So, pretty much the T1000 without murderous intent (stay away from acid and molten metal)

The Tandy 1000 murders people?