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Reply 60 of 166, by BitWrangler

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Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-14, 17:11:

I can say with my hand on my heart I never ever yearned for a model M keyboard,

Me too, but only since I've bought every one I've seen for under $10 since the early 90s, so I have plenty to be going on with.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 61 of 166, by BitWrangler

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Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-14, 23:12:

At 61 I can still lift up my motorcycles 😀

Unlike my 19" Dell trinitron crt................

There's a trick, you have to squish the screen side into your gut to get the c of g as near your legs as possible, and sort of cradle/bearhug them. 🤣

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 62 of 166, by cyclone3d

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The only thing I am really worried about would be certain video cards and sound cards. The rest can be emulated pretty easily.

As for fixing old stuff, the only real barrier would be stuff like chipsets and other custom ICs that would not really be worth it to reproduce.

There will come a time when most of this old stuff is dead and will be extremely hard to get working copies.

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

Reply 63 of 166, by WDStudios

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what will you do when your last hardware fails?

Buy more.

Sure, LGA 2011 boards are ultra-scarce unless I want to buy from Jingsha and Huananzi (who are suspected of cannibalizing northbridges from discarded motherboards), but fresh LGA 1155 parts are still common. Even socket AM2/3 if I'm masochistic enough to want a Bulldozer CPU.

If I want Win98 compatibility, there are still plenty of Socket 478 parts on Newegg, though they're nearly all Prescotts because nobody likes Prescotts. AMD fans will have a harder time; Newegg offers Socket A, 940, and 939 motherboards but not CPUs, and offers socket 754 CPUs but not motherboards.

It would definitely be a good idea to stock up on these parts while I can, as soon as I have enough money.

Since people like posting system specs:

LGA 2011
Core i7 Sandy Bridge @ 3.6 ghz
4 GB of RAM in quad-channel
Geforce GTX 780
1600 x 1200 monitor
Dual-booting WinXP Integral Edition and Win7 Pro 64-bit
-----
XP compatibility is the hill that I will die on.

Reply 64 of 166, by cyclone3d

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WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-21, 20:49:
Buy more. […]
Show full quote

what will you do when your last hardware fails?

Buy more.

Sure, LGA 2011 boards are ultra-scarce unless I want to buy from Jingsha and Huananzi (who are suspected of cannibalizing northbridges from discarded motherboards), but fresh LGA 1155 parts are still common. Even socket AM2/3 if I'm masochistic enough to want a Bulldozer CPU.

If I want Win98 compatibility, there are still plenty of Socket 478 parts on Newegg, though they're nearly all Prescotts because nobody likes Prescotts. AMD fans will have a harder time; Newegg offers Socket A, 940, and 939 motherboards but not CPUs, and offers socket 754 CPUs but not motherboards.

It would definitely be a good idea to stock up on these parts while I can, as soon as I have enough money.

How are x79 / LGA2011 boards ultra-scarce? There are a ton of them listed on eBay. Maybe they are just scarce where you are.

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

Reply 65 of 166, by WDStudios

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cyclone3d wrote on 2021-06-21, 22:20:

How are x79 / LGA2011 boards ultra-scarce? There are a ton of them listed on eBay. Maybe they are just scarce where you are.

Well, they were scarce on Newegg the last time I bought one. Prices have dropped a bit since then; it looks like lots of people and companies in Hong Kong are replacing their equipment and using Newegg to dump their surplus. Good news for us, eh? 😀

Since people like posting system specs:

LGA 2011
Core i7 Sandy Bridge @ 3.6 ghz
4 GB of RAM in quad-channel
Geforce GTX 780
1600 x 1200 monitor
Dual-booting WinXP Integral Edition and Win7 Pro 64-bit
-----
XP compatibility is the hill that I will die on.

Reply 66 of 166, by canthearu

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darry wrote on 2021-06-14, 19:40:

I don't care for CRTs for anything VGA and higher (15KHz stuff is another matter, potentially), but people will need to pry my model M keyboards from my cold, dead, rigor-mortised hands .

And you bet they will!

Mint condition Model M keyboard -> Only been with corpse for 3 months -> $500 plz!

Reply 67 of 166, by BitWrangler

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Wait up, that site in the noughties about fixing up PCs from discarded junk, graverobber.com you know that reference was figurative, not literal right? 🤣

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 68 of 166, by darry

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canthearu wrote on 2021-06-22, 01:50:
darry wrote on 2021-06-14, 19:40:

I don't care for CRTs for anything VGA and higher (15KHz stuff is another matter, potentially), but people will need to pry my model M keyboards from my cold, dead, rigor-mortised hands .

And you bet they will!

Mint condition Model M keyboard -> Only been with corpse for 3 months -> $500 plz!

🤣
Hopefully, I will still have enough caring friends and family by then for them to miss me after less than 3 months. I would also prefer not to make into this list : https://www.mindblowing-facts.org/2013/11/7-p … of-their-death/

Reply 69 of 166, by cyclone3d

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Sad thing is that the Model M is just a clicky membrane keyboard. Yes, I have a few of them but real mechanical switches are even better.

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

Reply 70 of 166, by Shreddoc

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Yes I suppose the halcyon days of 10-15 years ago, when it was not uncommon to find Model M's* dirty and discarded at rubbish dumps, are passed. 🤣

*along with a wealth of 17"/19" CRTs + top branded workstations etc

Reply 71 of 166, by darry

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cyclone3d wrote on 2021-06-22, 02:36:

Sad thing is that the Model M is just a clicky membrane keyboard. Yes, I have a few of them but real mechanical switches are even better.

The sound/feel of a buckling spring/membrane combo works for me, what can I say ?

I also have 2 keyboards equipped with Outemu Blue switches .

I prefer the model M units .

Reply 72 of 166, by Shreddoc

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*looks at vast stacks of HP + Dell black boxes currently accumulating in, seemingly, every place in the entire world*

If those things are selling for $500ea in 10-15 years, that's going to be annoying. What a horrible world we'd have to be living in! 🤣

Reply 73 of 166, by newtmonkey

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Well, I got a step to closer to this happening 🙁

My CRT monitor AND S3 video card both failed today, which is pretty concerning. I luckily have a spare SiS video card, and an old Samsung SyncMaster 4:3 LCD, so I can confirm that everything else is working fine. Honestly, not using a CRT half defeats the purpose of using original hardware for me, so I'm pretty bummed out. On the other hand, I don't want to get another CRT monitor as they are a pain to store and (if they fail) dispose of here.

Reply 74 of 166, by RandomStranger

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I'm not worried about my last hardware failing. What I'm worried about is the process. Seeing my stockpile thinning. My favorite/most compatible/most valuable pieces failing and being replaced something good enough, then passable, then whatever still works, losing key components which renders a whole build unusable.

I am someone who likes period correct/adjacent builds over overpowered ones with modern hardware which presumably has more life left in them so it hurts losing a part of a matching set.

By the time I'd get to the last of my key component, I'd probably already move over to emulation/VMs from real hardware.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 75 of 166, by Azarien

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Original hardware will become more scarce and expensive as time goes by. There's nothing we can do about it.
Everything will eventually fail.

But emulation is getting better and better, partially due to emulator improvements and partially due to increasing performance of modern PCs.
Also we can expect more and more reproduction hardware (soundcards today, CPUs in the future), various kinds of "retro boxes" (modern hardware with an emulator) etc.

Reply 76 of 166, by zyzzle

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So much misplaced emphasis is placed on emulation, which always will remain an imperfect facsimile. It will never, ever replace the feel of having real period-correct hardware. As pointed out already, the main fear is having to settle for "good enough" or "what works" because of price and expense concerns, scalping, and, finally lack of real availability. Personally, I'm not about having the absolute best in retro hardware. I'm fine running DOS on a Core2Duo at 4 Ghz on a generic Socket 478 board. What I'm not fine with is not using a mechanical keyboard, or a non 4:3 AR monitor. A CRT with VGA output is what I want. The problem is non-CRT 4:3 monitors just aren't being made, even though they still *could* be. The ones available now are far, far too expensive and limited to substitute for a genuine CRT. If they were, I'd have no problem with using a period-incorrect LCD 4:3 screen for DOS graphics (provided it could do 70-hz and proper 320x200 and 320x240 graphics). A generic old PCI-based soundcard which give acceptable DOS compatibility and OPL3 sound is fine.

Emulation is a highly-unsatisfactory solution for DOS because of display problems, speed problems, and abstraction layers.

Reply 77 of 166, by Azarien

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zyzzle wrote on 2022-01-09, 06:05:

So much misplaced emphasis is placed on emulation, which always will remain an imperfect facsimile. It will never, ever replace the feel of having real period-correct hardware. As pointed out already, the main fear is having to settle for "good enough" or "what works" because of price and expense concerns, scalping, and, finally lack of real availability.

Emulation is a highly-unsatisfactory solution for DOS because of display problems, speed problems, and abstraction layers.

It's inevitable that we'll have to increasingly rely on emulation rather than on original hardware. Instead of living in fear that your precious retro hardware will fail, enjoy it while it lasts.

Reply 79 of 166, by bloodem

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I feel like you guys are overreacting. 😀
I for one am pretty confident that, at least during our lifetimes, most of the old hardware will continue to work just fine.
Furthermore, if most of the common faults (i.e. faulty caps, resistors, diodes, voltage regulators, damaged traces, etc) can be easily fixed even by a (junior) electronics hobbyist like me, imagine what a pro can do!
ICs are usually very sturdy and I am pretty sure the vast majority will last for more than a century. And even when an IC does fail (mostly due to external factors), you can usually find a NOS replacement for $5 or less.

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k