First post, by Mike 01Hawk
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And it was sitting up in my attic the whole time!!! DOH! 🤣
My first foray back in '06 to my retro goodness was a Packard Bell P200mmx that had this funky proprietary layout.
It worked well, but I wanted something that would be slow enough to run Wing Commander 1. I did some more sleuthing and found the Dell Optiplex GXpro that I currently have (I posted multiple times about both setups IIRC on here, so search if you would like more info).
WELLLLL... even w/ the GXpro's speed slowdown, it was still to fast. Oh well, one day I'll either get the Kilrathi Saga (that was re-coded to run on faster machines), or a flat out 386 😀
My retro gaming madness subsided for a good year or so, but like everything else I do, I'm back into it.
As I alluded to in another thread, well, I'll just copy/paste it:
Swaaye's setup has inspired me to think some more. I have but two lonely ISA slots available on my Dell GXpro. I'm thinking that […]
Swaaye's setup has inspired me to think some more. I have but two lonely ISA slots available on my Dell GXpro. I'm thinking that this following set up would be killer for my needs!!!
ISA Slot 1: Soundscape (for digital effects for those games that support it natively)
ISA Slot 2: SB16 w/ DB50xg (for digital effects and the few games that the DB50xg is king, ie, FF7 and Descent are the only two I can think of off the top of my head)
ISA Slot 3: MPU-401AT w/ SCB-55 (for Sound Canvas music, and also have my MT-32 connected for games that sound lovely on the MT-32, i.e. the first Dune)It's looking like a majority of the time I'd be rocking a SB16 for effects, and SCB-55 for music, unless of course I could 'upgrade' to the Soundscape
PCI Slot 1: Ethernet Card (if mobo doesn't support it)
PCI Slot 2: Video CardI'd also like to get a tower configuration cause I believe that'd give me more flexibility. I'd love to get a known name brand such as Dell... but what would be a good MOBO that would fit my needs? I guess it should really start out at the MOBO, and then get a Case to fit that layout, then I could piece meal everything around that... hmmmmm
But then I started thinking to myself... self.. what about the friggen mini-tower you had in college... DOH!!!! Sure enough, I go up into the attic and there it is, all cold and lonely... but it's a Socket 7 😀
Here's a pic of it from another website:
http://www.geocities.com/hackedmobo/ga586hx/pboards.jpg
FOUR ISA and FOUR PCI!!! Joy oh joy!!!!
The only thing I'm bummed about is it has that old style com ports for the Mouse/Keyboard, not the new PS/2 style... so.. gonna have to research into that a bit.
BUUUT it'll give me something to play around with. IIRC I'll now have P1 166, P1 200, and P1 200mmx chipsets to mess around with... hmmm maybe P1 166 may be slow enough for Wing Commander 1, HA! Or maybe I could find the slowest Socket 7 CPU to throw in there and then try WC1.
I'm gonna have a busy weekend geeking out 😀
Dell Optiplex Gxpro: Built solely so I could re-live my SB16 days properly with newly acquired sound pieces: MT-32, SCB-55, and DB50xg 😀