Shader_BiH wrote on Yesterday, 09:59:

Ozzuneoj wrote on Yesterday, 00:27:

Bleh. […]
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BitWrangler wrote on 2026-04-16, 17:12:

It happened... went on thrift patrol in the neighbouring town because I was over there for other stuff...

Some months ago one of the volunteer thrifts put up a new glass cabinet, intended solely for digital and personal electronics, and one or two computer items made it in there, now, it has fallen to the old ladies, and is full of "pretty plates". ... despite 4 more cabinets and a couple of display shelves in the store also being full of "pretty plates". Gah.

Bleh.

I have some relatives that have been selling antiques for a few decades and they are mostly focused on glassware. They told me recently that the market for such things has basically vanished. Younger generations have absolutely zero interest in glass and the people who care(d) are trying to downsize and no longer want it. So, it doesn't surprise me that thrift stores would have more and more of it to sell. As people from the baby-boom generation die off and their used-to-be-super-valuable glassware is no longer worth trying to sell and ship on ebay, the stuff will go to thrift stores.

I wonder when that will happen with computer stuff... 😮

It's becoming a bit of concern... Most 90s computer stuff of collectors are nostalgia driven, and these generations will be on their way out in about 20-30 years. It's difficult to see how new generations are relating to this era, but it's safe to say they do not share our exact enthusiasm. Meanwhile my collection is getting bigger by the day, and some of these cards were very expensive... hundreds of dollars. It's not that I'm regreting it, it's just when I think long-term I can't see it getting more expensive, because that requires interest and I'd say we are at the peak just about now. If someone was to inherit my collection later, God knows what would he think of, or do with it, so.... I think our own satifaction with our hobby and interest in old hardware should be the only consideration regarding it's worth or "fate".

I think it will happen sooner than we think

my 16yo son has ZERO interest in computers even modern ones, all he cares are stupid free "tower defence" mobile phone games
When I was 16 I was devouring assembler , programming and hardware books.

Our generation is the last (and first) to be fascinated with mechanical clunky machines accessing data stored on magnetic materials

That said and if we look at our previous generations interests like a phonograph a typewriter, comics, coin collections those were much more "static" items you just collected and looked at them
A computer is something different, more interactive, more interesting, with many things to discover, its like an old car so I believe there will still be a significant interest in younger generations in vintage hardware but not to the level we are seing today with our generation

AaronS wrote on 2026-04-15, 14:03:

Absolute bargain for this PCI 6200 (£16.95) https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/336535191948

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/evga-ge … ci-256-mb.b2273

What is your plan for it?

I also have a later era architecture in PCI format. Mine is a PCI Radeon 9200 twin GPU, which is an oddity that I don’t have an obvious use case for.

It’s too new for Win98 drivers - maybe WinME can be coerced into accepting later previously extracted drivers?

In Win11 and PCIe era systems it’s possible to have WinXP in an emulator and PCI pass through with supported drivers.

In WinXP and AGP era systems the PCI can drive extra monitors. Maybe there is some kind of A/B testing that can demo differences between GPUs in realtime but when I looked into that for Quake 3 it seemed I would need to change the code?

Not sure. Need a plan.

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 12:37:

What is your plan for it? […]
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What is your plan for it?

I also have a later era architecture in PCI format. Mine is a PCI Radeon 9200 twin GPU, which is an oddity that I don’t have an obvious use case for.

It’s too new for Win98 drivers - maybe WinME can be coerced into accepting later previously extracted drivers?

In Win11 and PCIe era systems it’s possible to have WinXP in an emulator and PCI pass through with supported drivers.

In WinXP and AGP era systems the PCI can drive extra monitors. Maybe there is some kind of A/B testing that can demo differences between GPUs in realtime but when I looked into that for Quake 3 it seemed I would need to change the code?

Not sure. Need a plan.

I have PCI Quadro FX600 which I'm curious which one will be faster, although I think looking at other peoples benchmarks the Quadro will have the slight edge (in addition to being able to use earlier drivers under 98 for better compatibility).

9200 should run fine under 98 with Catalyst 6.2 I believe? I would actually like to get a PCI Radeon at some point too, the 9100 is supposed to be the fastest ATI PCI card but are super rare.

My "retro machine" is a AM3+ board with 2 PCI slots, works great for 98, XP and Vista/7.

Nunoalex wrote on Yesterday, 12:34:

I think it will happen sooner than we think […]
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Shader_BiH wrote on Yesterday, 09:59:

Ozzuneoj wrote on Yesterday, 00:27:

Bleh.

I have some relatives that have been selling antiques for a few decades and they are mostly focused on glassware. They told me recently that the market for such things has basically vanished. Younger generations have absolutely zero interest in glass and the people who care(d) are trying to downsize and no longer want it. So, it doesn't surprise me that thrift stores would have more and more of it to sell. As people from the baby-boom generation die off and their used-to-be-super-valuable glassware is no longer worth trying to sell and ship on ebay, the stuff will go to thrift stores.

I wonder when that will happen with computer stuff... 😮

It's becoming a bit of concern... Most 90s computer stuff of collectors are nostalgia driven, and these generations will be on their way out in about 20-30 years. It's difficult to see how new generations are relating to this era, but it's safe to say they do not share our exact enthusiasm. Meanwhile my collection is getting bigger by the day, and some of these cards were very expensive... hundreds of dollars. It's not that I'm regreting it, it's just when I think long-term I can't see it getting more expensive, because that requires interest and I'd say we are at the peak just about now. If someone was to inherit my collection later, God knows what would he think of, or do with it, so.... I think our own satifaction with our hobby and interest in old hardware should be the only consideration regarding it's worth or "fate".

I think it will happen sooner than we think

my 16yo son has ZERO interest in computers even modern ones, all he cares are stupid free "tower defence" mobile phone games
When I was 16 I was devouring assembler , programming and hardware books.

Our generation is the last (and first) to be fascinated with mechanical clunky machines accessing data stored on magnetic materials

That said and if we look at our previous generations interests like a phonograph a typewriter, comics, coin collections those were much more "static" items you just collected and looked at them
A computer is something different, more interactive, more interesting, with many things to discover, its like an old car so I believe there will still be a significant interest in younger generations in vintage hardware but not to the level we are seing today with our generation

I wouldn't judge all future generations based on your son's preferences. It's not like everyone who is 40-50 years old now loves old computers. People just have different interests.

My daughter isn't even in middle school yet and she's into programming, making her own games, pixel art, animation, and lately she's been building and animating her own mobs for Minecraft and putting them into modpacks. She doesn't mind my old computer stuff and sometimes likes older games. Actually... in a few more years retro gaming will be the most popular form of gaming on earth if Minecraft continues to top the charts as it approaches 20 years old.

I have another relative who is in his early 20s who has been repairing and restoring typewriters for several years now. He has recently started working on phonographs too. His teenage brother is into '90s stuff, VHS tapes, cassettes, '90s cars, '90s music...

Whow knows, maybe glassware could even make a comeback if a bunch of popular people start ticking-and-tocking, X-tweeting, pint-arresting or you-shortsing about it... or whatever the kids do these days.

Interesting news at least for my retroHW collection, yesterday I ordered a motherboard of an HP 386/25 (Vectra), and the power supply with non-standard AT connector, will arrive next week, I don't know if they will be on time in the delivery 📦, because there will be some days of strike (due to skyrocketing fuel cost ⭐️).
Even the format of the card is not the usual AT, but it has some interesting new features for a 386, the PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors, the 72 PIN RAM, all things that are usually found in newer PCs!
The motherboard should be from 1991, and it was sold to me with Intel 386DX25 CPU, Intel 387 FPU, and RAM, of the latter I don't know the total installed, however if it doesn't use particular modules, I can eventually expand it, but I think this won't be necessary.
The power supply is 150W, and it should be a Delta, so I would expect it to still be ⚓️ working, but just in case I will check it and try it, before using it.
If anyone has the same PC, I would like to know what VGA video card ISA had, just to be safe, and to possibly look for something similar, or even the same.

Unusual, and nice, to have the 387 installed..

NeilKnows wrote on Today, 09:36:

Unusual, and nice, to have the 387 installed..

Thank you very much, it was probably a very expensive PC at the time and was used in offices where it was important to have the 387, to speed up the calculations.