liqmat wrote:

imi wrote:

quite on the contrary, I'm getting sick of new operating systems, software and what people consider good web design nowadays, everything is becoming so cumbersome and unintuitive for power users, not to forget the downfall of most of the gaming industry with microtransactions... I am looking forward to be doing more with old computers and the OS actually doing what I want it to and play games that work without an internet connection and don't bug me to get new DLC all the time.

This right here.

THIS. +1, I agree here

Also, on the subject, 1/3 of my life I spent doing go karting championships. This year I got bored and quit. Eventually I will return, this is more like a sabbatical for me. But that’s the thing with hobbies: sometimes you have to stop for a while to enjoy it again later. Actually I am enjoying more doing retro computing things than going out with my go karting friends to race. One day I will eventually do both.

Hey King_C, I think the writing was on the wall for a while man - Bored of vintage computing? 😀 and when I saw your ebay listings for games a while back it confirmed my suspicions you were following through!
I feel there's a tipping point for this hobby where you can slip from being an enthusiast, to a hoarder. I'm beyond that point and the collection is a burden to look at most days, though more stuff gets added to the pile. Due to renting I move every 12 months on average so that is another nightmare. Recently I've resolved to stop buying, and try to get some use out of what I have before it slips into disrepair. A friend of mine with a mega collection of cool gear recently did the same, offloading some really sweet systems - think Apple Lisa and Amiga 3000, etc - even he said that he needs to bring the hoard under control and focus on a small subset of his retro interests. So good on you for cleaning house!

@jidaiGeki Thanks! 😁 Yeah I think I'll feel a lot better when I basically own only what I want to use. Tbh I'm even considering getting rid of my remaining couple Packard Bell machines and all my boxed software. I may just reduce the boxed software, or maybe flatten the boxes so they can be stored easier but like I said if I'm not going to use it then why keep it. I'm currently having lots of fun fixing 8 tracks and players. Just got this quadraphonic Hitachi machine working and cleaned up today. A LOT easier than sorting out a computer and maybe even more fun cause it takes up less space and looks a hell of a lot nicer than your garden variety yellowed PC. 🤣

It's interesting; the two camps we have at vogons - hardware focussed versus game/software focussed. Lots of people in both too.

I always found hardware finicky and was happy to upgrade and leave the old stuff behind. Much of my enjoyment comes from configuring the OS, maximizing performance, and curating an enjoyable set of games, utilities, and applications. So it's no wonder my DOS world is entirely emulated with DOSBox on a Raspberry Pi with a 128GB card.

King Corduroy, looking at your well-organized 8-track setup, you no doubt enjoy the hardware side (building, restoring, operating). When it came to your DOS and Commodore PCs, Were there specific games or applications you used as 'vehicles' to let you interact with the hardware? Does the operating aspect bring you as much enjoyment as the building and restoring portion of the effort?

Just asking, because I also have found my interest waning when I've achieved what I think is a job well done.. at that point, I fire up the odd game but it doesn't bring the same enjoyment as the configuration and curating aspects. Thankfully the Raspberry Pi 4 will open up new challenges and performance avenues, so I have that to look forward to.

Yeah you are right, I'm definitely more in the hardware camp, it started for me as a desire to play some old games I used to love but once I'd finish fixing a computer I was basically done using it. I would use the games to test different things, especially games like Earth 2140 which is finnicky with certain sound cards and processor speeds but once it was setup I was immediately bored and wanted to fix something else. Also once I'd pretty much figured everything out and the challenge of fixing them wasn't there anymore I was bored of that too. Not to mention there was really no point in fixing them since the cool looking ones were too old to do anything I wanted and the 90's and up machines were all very cookie cutter PC's and as I said before I quickly realized I had no interest in playing games anymore. I think if you're not a gamer this hobby kind of gets dull after a while, especially when you don't have a good way to sell the fixed machines to anyone so you just have to give them away or throw them out.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Yeah you are right, I'm definitely more in the hardware camp, it started for me as a desire to play some old games I used to love but once I'd finish fixing a computer I was basically done using it. I would use the games to test different things, especially games like Earth 2140 which is finnicky with certain sound cards and processor speeds but once it was setup I was immediately bored and wanted to fix something else. Also once I'd pretty much figured everything out and the challenge of fixing them wasn't there anymore I was bored of that too. Not to mention there was really no point in fixing them since the cool looking ones were too old to do anything I wanted and the 90's and up machines were all very cookie cutter PC's and as I said before I quickly realized I had no interest in playing games anymore. I think if you're not a gamer this hobby kind of gets dull after a while, especially when you don't have a good way to sell the fixed machines to anyone so you just have to give them away or throw them out.

I'm half way there.. I'm hoping to get over that 'what now' feeling by creating some kind of content with what I learned, though..

I have to admit haven't been into the retro computing hobby as much past few years, actually this is my first post in over a year but mainly cause i got busy with life. The lesser supply of parts combined with higher prices has also made me shy away from the hobby some, although i still acquire parts locally from time to time and even after 12+ years of collecting i still find uncommon hardware that I've never used before.

Usually I like the adventure to find and build the components I have in mind for a specific type of machine like the "fastest" 386 pc or similar, but at the end the adventure is better than the using or collecting itself, same thing for old game consoles.
Lately I don't have any old pc built beside the "old" mini-itx Atom based main-only computer but I keep some components (mostly vga even quite rare and some mainboards/psu) as respect for their past. But I know that sooner or later I will get back to rebuild some new old build machine, just not the right moment for this hobby.
Lately I was more into collecting old 8bit / 16bit game consoles and got some great original consoles/games (Mega Drive and Master System).
Also I came back to the old feature phones repairing/using/collecting hobby.

JidaiGeki wrote:

Hey King_C, I think the writing was on the wall for a while man - Bored of vintage computing? 😀 and when I saw your ebay listings for games a while back it confirmed my suspicions you were following through!
I feel there's a tipping point for this hobby where you can slip from being an enthusiast, to a hoarder. I'm beyond that point and the collection is a burden to look at most days, though more stuff gets added to the pile. Due to renting I move every 12 months on average so that is another nightmare. Recently I've resolved to stop buying, and try to get some use out of what I have before it slips into disrepair. A friend of mine with a mega collection of cool gear recently did the same, offloading some really sweet systems - think Apple Lisa and Amiga 3000, etc - even he said that he needs to bring the hoard under control and focus on a small subset of his retro interests. So good on you for cleaning house!

This amongst other replies did make me rethink stuff like this which I have been finding myself confronted with for years now.
And everybody seemed to have some opinion about it with some people calling it a burden. But they also called it this way while I was enjoying it to the fullest, so I knew they weren't actually talking with me and about me, but busy talking to me while basically projecting a part of themselves.

In the end, I'm glad I never really listened to people like those and stuck with what I felt was what I wanted.

And for the last couple years, I barely touched the stuff in my attic anymore and often I don't even go there for like half a year or so.

But! ... every time that I entered my now almost forgotten mancave filled with most of my gear, it's all almost half-new to me (as if it is fresh and unknown to me again) and even though I don't end up actually restarting this hobby again, I think it's frigging cool to have been able to gather something reminiscent to an old-school computer store! And it's all mine and I can do whatever I want with it! 😁
It's in a way a testimony of what I used to be very passionate about and this part I see again.
To me it's not just a pile of old computer parts but it also tells a story of the adventures I had learning about all this stuff and all the people I met because of it.

It's kinda hard to explain 🤣

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

What I have given up on is the computer/video game industries as they are at present. Nothing but a sea of greed, arrogance, grandstanding - and a bunch of underwhelming products/services (all IMHO of course).

Same here. I own a PlayStation 4 and a few older consoles - the PS4 is the one that gets turned on only twice a year to play a new game I am interested in. Playing titles today is not as much fun as it was 10 years ago - when we didn't have microtransactions and various ways to let the player spend real world money instead of enjoying games as they are.
New games are mostly not fun for me - but that's why I'm here! Because there are so many classics I can still enjoy on my retro hardware - still a lot of old games I haven't touched yet.

JidaiGeki wrote:

I feel there's a tipping point for this hobby where you can slip from being an enthusiast, to a hoarder.

This is very true! I had to restrain myself from buying ALL the things I'd like to have, otherwise I wouldn't be able to walk in my room anymore.
Instead, approximately 2 years ago, I set myself the goal to build only one overkill Windows 98 PC.

With the addition of a good keyboard a few weeks ago, I have now finished this project. Everything still fits on my desk and I will absolutely not build more machines. I can only play on one anyways! 😀

Edit: I just turned 30, btw. There is no end in sight. Although I have a few other hobbies and I am not retrogaming every day, it feels good to get a part of my childhood back.

schmatzler wrote:

Same here. I own a PlayStation 4 and a few older consoles - the PS4 is the one that gets turned on only twice a year to play a n […]
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JayCeeBee64 wrote:

What I have given up on is the computer/video game industries as they are at present. Nothing but a sea of greed, arrogance, grandstanding - and a bunch of underwhelming products/services (all IMHO of course).

Same here. I own a PlayStation 4 and a few older consoles - the PS4 is the one that gets turned on only twice a year to play a new game I am interested in. Playing titles today is not as much fun as it was 10 years ago - when we didn't have microtransactions and various ways to let the player spend real world money instead of enjoying games as they are.
New games are mostly not fun for me - but that's why I'm here! Because there are so many classics I can still enjoy on my retro hardware - still a lot of old games I haven't touched yet.

JidaiGeki wrote:

I feel there's a tipping point for this hobby where you can slip from being an enthusiast, to a hoarder.

This is very true! I had to restrain myself from buying ALL the things I'd like to have, otherwise I wouldn't be able to walk in my room anymore.
Instead, approximately 2 years ago, I set myself the goal to build only one overkill Windows 98 PC.

With the addition of a good keyboard a few weeks ago, I have now finished this project. Everything still fits on my desk and I will absolutely not build more machines. I can only play on one anyways! 😀

Edit: I just turned 30, btw. There is no end in sight. Although I have a few other hobbies and I am not retrogaming every day, it feels good to get a part of my childhood back.

I kinda know what you mean, I felt very proud of my collection when it was at it's fullest but I couldn't help but think I was wasting my time since I didn't use it or really care to use any of it. I was just hoarding it like a dragon, I would just basically just go ogle my hoard of goodies and think IT'S ALL MINE! After a while even that feeling faded as I realized it wasn't mine, I was it's. I couldn't do anything else, I had all this junk taking up my house that I wasn't going to use and I didn't actually really care about but I was still unwilling to part with. So finally I just decided enough was enough, and got rid of it all. Turns out less is more sometimes, cause I can't tell you how nice it is not to have to think about a room and an attic full of junk and what will happen to it, or how I'll have to move it all when I move etc. I just don't have to think about it at all anymore. 🤣

I had to purge a LOT of my collection when I moved into a smaller apartment earlier this year. I kept a few key systems and parts, but most of it went.

I work full time, and now stream regularly on Twitch, so I don't have a lot of time for "messing with computers" for its own sake. There's still satisfaction in the hobby for me, I'm working to get my "retro streaming PCs" down to two boxes, one for DOS, and one for Win9x/Glide. Accepting compromises on detail-perfect-authenticity for the sake of convenience and space-saving has been an enlightening and refreshing experience. I'm enjoying it now that it's all about playing the games and sharing that experience, than when it was about obsessively building more and more systems for endlessly more specific compatibility niches.

VOGONS is still near and dear to my heart, even though I'm around a lot less frequently. I don't foresee a time when I stop visiting completely.

PCem makes my boxes dusty, though i've 'given up' probably around 10 years ago. I don't have complete dedicated desks to the machines anymore and I haven't seeked out old parts for a long time (and most of my old parts were obtained when they were new)

Have you had good results with PCem? I couldn't seem to get anything to emulate a Pentium era PC good enough to make me give up the hardware completely. I would honestly kind of love to know I don't HAVE to have an old computer for those games. 🤣

Depends. v15's new dynarec is really nice for a lot of the mid-90s' stuff that struggled before (eradicator is smooth now!) but there's some sound issues that crop up for some games that will make you hang onto v14 for.

Also some 92-95 packard boards are emulated 😀 only tried hillary though. it's nice seeing that ripply pentium trainwreck alive in software form. that's a common computer mame should be adding

SquallStrife wrote:

I had to purge a LOT of my collection when I moved into a smaller apartment earlier this year. I kept a few key systems and parts, but most of it went.

I work full time, and now stream regularly on Twitch, so I don't have a lot of time for "messing with computers" for its own sake. There's still satisfaction in the hobby for me, I'm working to get my "retro streaming PCs" down to two boxes, one for DOS, and one for Win9x/Glide. Accepting compromises on detail-perfect-authenticity for the sake of convenience and space-saving has been an enlightening and refreshing experience. I'm enjoying it now that it's all about playing the games and sharing that experience, than when it was about obsessively building more and more systems for endlessly more specific compatibility niches.

VOGONS is still near and dear to my heart, even though I'm around a lot less frequently. I don't foresee a time when I stop visiting completely.

How has that (the bolded part) been working for you? What system specs did you settle for, if you don't mind sharing?

PCem, 86Box, and VMs have taken care of most of my retro needs.

I am whittling down the fleet to eventually just 3 machines: main desktop, laptop, backup desktop/retro gaming rig. The retro gaming rig is an i7 2600 with 16GB RAM but it has XP + Windows 7, a slew of VMs and 86Box/PCem configs, some classic Macintosh emulators as well.

Right now I'm selling the Optiplex GXM 5133 which I bought to fix up and sell anyways. That's probably one of the nicer 95 boxes I've owned but I don't really see a point to keep it around when I can run 95 in PCem and VMware.

oeuvre wrote:

PCem, 86Box, and VMs have taken care of most of my retro needs.

I am whittling down the fleet to eventually just 3 machines: main desktop, laptop, backup desktop/retro gaming rig. The retro gaming rig is an i7 2600 with 16GB RAM but it has XP + Windows 7, a slew of VMs and 86Box/PCem configs, some classic Macintosh emulators as well.

Right now I'm selling the Optiplex GXM 5133 which I bought to fix up and sell anyways. That's probably one of the nicer 95 boxes I've owned but I don't really see a point to keep it around when I can run 95 in PCem and VMware.

I am more on the software part than hardware. That said, I have only these:

A 2013 MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM & 1TB SSD running latest macOS, I'll bootcamp it with Windows 10 when I have time (probably with an external SSD). The macOS runs DOSBox-X with Windows For Workgroups 3.11, which has settings that still needs to be tweaked for an accurate representation of my old 90's machine. Although I had the 3.1 version without internet, I thought it would be fun to have so that's why I went for the WFWG version. The Windows 10 VM (future bootcamp) has some software emulators to run old games like SimTower and Flight Simulator, so I don't need to emulate older Windows versions there.

I also have Basilisk II on my mac with two retro Macintoshes running System 7.5.1 (or 7.5.3?) and macOS 9; Virtual ][ emulating an Apple IIe, so me and my dad can have some fun reminiscing his first computer; OpenEmu to emulate most of the video gaming consoles I had (Nintendo, Master System, Atari...) and lots of game ROMs.

My iPad Pro runs DOSPad/iDOS2 (I don't know the right name) with the same WFWG 3.11 configuration above and it's where I spend most of my time. For connectivity, I have a rPi3 running some scripts on my local network so the DOSPad can connect to the internet. the rPi3 has XFCE desktop themed to look like Windows 95.

I think I have a pretty good setup for retro gaming and stuff without having to deal with lots of hardware.

appiah4 wrote:

How has that (the bolded part) been working for you? What system specs did you settle for, if you don't mind sharing?

It's been working out well so far.

For DOS I have a Pentium 133 with an SB Pro2, nothing spectacular, and for Win9x I have a P3 1.4GHz with a GeForce FX and SLI Voodoo2's.

I've kept my Tandy 1000 and Sega TeraDrive as curiosities, but only the 2 above machines are actively being used.