Nice cable management. Would love to see a photo of the rear side (or the back) to get a better view on the management of the power cables. 😀

I've finally got my DOS gaming PC 99.9999% where I want it. There's always something you can upgrade or add, but I will likely keep this as is until the day it stops working (or I do!). It's a Frankenstein's Monster of a machine, but I love it. 😀

I was VERY pressed for space for this build. It's sitting in a corner of my office on what used to be a printer stand. It's really the only way I could fit this thing in my office without just plopping a desk on the middle of the floor or something. I've grown to enjoy having it in it's own little corner like this, a great way to concentrate on gaming without any distractions.

Case:
Some monstrous Cooler Master case. I don't love it, but it's the only horizontal case I could find.

Processor:
It's a P133 that can be reduced to roughly low/mid 486 or mid/high 386 speed by enabling/disabling caches, for playing speed-sensitive games. It works just fine with Wing Commander with both caches disabled, for instance.

Storage:
I'm using an IDE compactflash adapter with an "industrial" compactflash card that has been absolutely solid so far.

Audio:
- ESS Audiodrive for digital sound and FM/OPL synth music. I am very pleased with this card! Low noise, no popping, bug-free gameport for MIDI, and the synth sounds very close to genuine FM but pleasantly different.
- PCMIDI card (awesome card!).
- SC-55mkii and MP32L for external synths. I'm also very pleased with the MP32L, and it has replaced my genuine MT32 (new rom) and partially working CM500. I have the SC55 connected to PCMIDI, and the MP32L connected to THRU on the SC55.
- CVx4 covox clone connected to parallel port. Very cool little device, I mainly use it to play Tandy music on the early Sierra games.
- Tiny mixer to get all this stuff plugged in!
- For speakers I'm using an Altec Lansing ACS33 2.1 system I picked up on Yahoo Auctions. Great little sound system! This has replaced my Roland MA-8 speakers, which I like but are way too large for my setup. The great thing about the ACS33 is that I have just barely enough room to the rear of the monitor on each side to store the speakers when not in use.

Input:
- FILCO mechanical keyboard. It's a modern keyboard with Windows keys and all, but feels great when typing or playing games.
- Cheap serial mouse on a little tray that swings out to the side of the stand.
- FCS Mark I joystick. It feels a little light/cheap, but plays great. I got this real cheap & untested on Yahoo Auctions, but was pleased to find that it works perfectly.

---

All in all, it's a fun machine and I've had many enjoyable sessions playing games late into the night, like back in the old days.

What could I change/add? Here are some possibilities I'm considering:

• I need to do some real cable management because the space behind the external synthesizers is a mess of wires.
• I'm tempted to get one of those serial wireless modem thingies so I can telnet to some BBSs. I've got Fujinet for my Atari 800XL, and "dialing" BBSs with that is a blast.
• I could conceivably move the whole system into the closet to the left. This would require some drilling, and I'd be a bit concerned about heat buildup during the summer, so I'm not sure how realistic it would be.

newtmonkey wrote on 2021-12-07, 05:21:

I've finally got my DOS gaming PC 99.9999% where I want it. There's always something you can upgrade or add, but I will likely […]
Show full quote

I've finally got my DOS gaming PC 99.9999% where I want it. There's always something you can upgrade or add, but I will likely keep this as is until the day it stops working (or I do!). It's a Frankenstein's Monster of a machine, but I love it. 😀

I was VERY pressed for space for this build. It's sitting in a corner of my office on what used to be a printer stand. It's really the only way I could fit this thing in my office without just plopping a desk on the middle of the floor or something. I've grown to enjoy having it in it's own little corner like this, a great way to concentrate on gaming without any distractions.

Case:
Some monstrous Cooler Master case. I don't love it, but it's the only horizontal case I could find.

Processor:
It's a P133 that can be reduced to roughly low/mid 486 or mid/high 386 speed by enabling/disabling caches, for playing speed-sensitive games. It works just fine with Wing Commander with both caches disabled, for instance.

Storage:
I'm using an IDE compactflash adapter with an "industrial" compactflash card that has been absolutely solid so far.

Audio:
- ESS Audiodrive for digital sound and FM/OPL synth music. I am very pleased with this card! Low noise, no popping, bug-free gameport for MIDI, and the synth sounds very close to genuine FM but pleasantly different.
- PCMIDI card (awesome card!).
- SC-55mkii and MP32L for external synths. I'm also very pleased with the MP32L, and it has replaced my genuine MT32 (new rom) and partially working CM500. I have the SC55 connected to PCMIDI, and the MP32L connected to THRU on the SC55.
- CVx4 covox clone connected to parallel port. Very cool little device, I mainly use it to play Tandy music on the early Sierra games.
- Tiny mixer to get all this stuff plugged in!
- For speakers I'm using an Altec Lansing ACS33 2.1 system I picked up on Yahoo Auctions. Great little sound system! This has replaced my Roland MA-8 speakers, which I like but are way too large for my setup. The great thing about the ACS33 is that I have just barely enough room to the rear of the monitor on each side to store the speakers when not in use.

Input:
- FILCO mechanical keyboard. It's a modern keyboard with Windows keys and all, but feels great when typing or playing games.
- Cheap serial mouse on a little tray that swings out to the side of the stand.
- FCS Mark I joystick. It feels a little light/cheap, but plays great. I got this real cheap & untested on Yahoo Auctions, but was pleased to find that it works perfectly.

---

All in all, it's a fun machine and I've had many enjoyable sessions playing games late into the night, like back in the old days.

What could I change/add? Here are some possibilities I'm considering:

• I need to do some real cable management because the space behind the external synthesizers is a mess of wires.
• I'm tempted to get one of those serial wireless modem thingies so I can telnet to some BBSs. I've got Fujinet for my Atari 800XL, and "dialing" BBSs with that is a blast.
• I could conceivably move the whole system into the closet to the left. This would require some drilling, and I'd be a bit concerned about heat buildup during the summer, so I'm not sure how realistic it would be.

That's a great little retro-corner there! I have a Filco keyboard as well (black version w/ MX blues) - great build quality and feels great to type on. Are these more affordable in Japan? I've been looking for a beige version but as they're no longer manufactured they seem quite hard to find.

newtmonkey wrote on 2021-12-07, 05:21:

I've finally got my DOS gaming PC 99.9999% where I want it. There's always something you can upgrade or add, but I will likely […]
Show full quote

I've finally got my DOS gaming PC 99.9999% where I want it. There's always something you can upgrade or add, but I will likely keep this as is until the day it stops working (or I do!). It's a Frankenstein's Monster of a machine, but I love it. 😀

I was VERY pressed for space for this build. It's sitting in a corner of my office on what used to be a printer stand. It's really the only way I could fit this thing in my office without just plopping a desk on the middle of the floor or something. I've grown to enjoy having it in it's own little corner like this, a great way to concentrate on gaming without any distractions.

Case:
Some monstrous Cooler Master case. I don't love it, but it's the only horizontal case I could find.

Processor:
It's a P133 that can be reduced to roughly low/mid 486 or mid/high 386 speed by enabling/disabling caches, for playing speed-sensitive games. It works just fine with Wing Commander with both caches disabled, for instance.

Storage:
I'm using an IDE compactflash adapter with an "industrial" compactflash card that has been absolutely solid so far.

Audio:
- ESS Audiodrive for digital sound and FM/OPL synth music. I am very pleased with this card! Low noise, no popping, bug-free gameport for MIDI, and the synth sounds very close to genuine FM but pleasantly different.
- PCMIDI card (awesome card!).
- SC-55mkii and MP32L for external synths. I'm also very pleased with the MP32L, and it has replaced my genuine MT32 (new rom) and partially working CM500. I have the SC55 connected to PCMIDI, and the MP32L connected to THRU on the SC55.
- CVx4 covox clone connected to parallel port. Very cool little device, I mainly use it to play Tandy music on the early Sierra games.
- Tiny mixer to get all this stuff plugged in!
- For speakers I'm using an Altec Lansing ACS33 2.1 system I picked up on Yahoo Auctions. Great little sound system! This has replaced my Roland MA-8 speakers, which I like but are way too large for my setup. The great thing about the ACS33 is that I have just barely enough room to the rear of the monitor on each side to store the speakers when not in use.

Input:
- FILCO mechanical keyboard. It's a modern keyboard with Windows keys and all, but feels great when typing or playing games.
- Cheap serial mouse on a little tray that swings out to the side of the stand.
- FCS Mark I joystick. It feels a little light/cheap, but plays great. I got this real cheap & untested on Yahoo Auctions, but was pleased to find that it works perfectly.

---

All in all, it's a fun machine and I've had many enjoyable sessions playing games late into the night, like back in the old days.

What could I change/add? Here are some possibilities I'm considering:

• I need to do some real cable management because the space behind the external synthesizers is a mess of wires.
• I'm tempted to get one of those serial wireless modem thingies so I can telnet to some BBSs. I've got Fujinet for my Atari 800XL, and "dialing" BBSs with that is a blast.
• I could conceivably move the whole system into the closet to the left. This would require some drilling, and I'd be a bit concerned about heat buildup during the summer, so I'm not sure how realistic it would be.

That's basically my P133 system for 1993-1995 gaming. The differences in my build (in case you would consider adding any of this to yours) are:

AWE32 with OPL3 and 32MB RAM
S3 Scenic/MX2 MPEG Decoder
3dfx Voodoo 1
100Mbit 3Com PCI Ethernet with Wireless Ethernet Bridge

Cheers.

MMaximus wrote on 2021-12-07, 09:54:

That's a great little retro-corner there! I have a Filco keyboard as well (black version w/ MX blues) - great build quality and feels great to type on. Are these more affordable in Japan? I've been looking for a beige version but as they're no longer manufactured they seem quite hard to find.

Thanks! I think I paid 16,000 yen (around 140 USD?) for that keyboard straight from Diatec. Dunno if that is any cheaper than what they cost elsewhere.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-07, 10:58:

That's basically my P133 system for 1993-1995 gaming. The differences in my build (in case you would consider adding any of thi […]
Show full quote

That's basically my P133 system for 1993-1995 gaming. The differences in my build (in case you would consider adding any of this to yours) are:

AWE32 with OPL3 and 32MB RAM
S3 Scenic/MX2 MPEG Decoder
3dfx Voodoo 1
100Mbit 3Com PCI Ethernet with Wireless Ethernet Bridge

Cheers.

Interesting! There are times when I'm tempted to pick up another CF card and put Windows 95 on it for use on the same PC, but there's only a handful of games from the Win 95 era I'm interested in. If I ever do the P133 Windows 95 build, I'd probably track down a Voodoo 1 😀

newtmonkey wrote on 2021-12-07, 11:22:

Interesting! There are times when I'm tempted to pick up another CF card and put Windows 95 on it for use on the same PC, but there's only a handful of games from the Win 95 era I'm interested in. If I ever do the P133 Windows 95 build, I'd probably track down a Voodoo 1 😀

It's still not completely useless for DOS; Tomb Raider and Screamer 2 for example really benefit from the Voodoo 1. That said, its use is limited..

pan069 wrote on 2021-12-06, 20:23:

Nice cable management. Would love to see a photo of the rear side (or the back) to get a better view on the management of the power cables. 😀

It will remain a mistery for you 😀

Until I see otherwise, I'm going to assume it's one of these situations....

luckybob wrote on 2021-12-08, 03:53:

Until I see otherwise, I'm going to assume it's one of these situations....

Funny picture 😀

New to the forum here ! This is my first post. During covid lock down I really took a big interest into retro pc building. This was the first vintage rig I built early in 2020.

Pentium 2 450
Asus p2b-s
256MB ram
13.6 gb seagate medalist
Diamond viper v550
STB voodoo2 12mb
turtle beach aureal vortex
d-link ISA nic

X86 wrote on 2021-12-15, 03:01:

New to the forum here ! This is my first post. During covid lock down I really took a big interest into retro pc building. This […]
Show full quote

New to the forum here ! This is my first post. During covid lock down I really took a big interest into retro pc building. This was the first vintage rig I built early in 2020.

Pentium 2 450
Asus p2b-s
256MB ram
13.6 gb seagate medalist
Diamond viper v550
STB voodoo2 12mb
turtle beach aureal vortex
d-link ISA nic

p2_voodoo2.jpg
p2_inside.jpg

Hey, really nice setup! Wellcome!

Hi everyone!

I'm new to the forum, bumped into it while I was looking into USB options for my pentium 120 rig.
What I found was lots of great info and nice comments, so why not join the fun.

The adventure for me started some 25 years ago, when my dad came home with IBM XT parts and monitors for us to play with.
Since then, I've always enjoyed fiddling with hardware, drivers and what not.
Not much is left from that time, however I still have some. Pictures of that will follow later.

For now, I'm working on a Pentium 120. It's an Escom, and last week a friend from work even found me matching speakers!
So what's inside:
- FIC PA-2005 mainboard with a VIA chipset.
- Diamond Edge 3d video card with 2 Sega Saturn ports
- Yamaha a301-g50 sound card
- 16MB of RAM
- 128 GB HDD
- Mitsumi 8x CDROM drive
- Regular disk drive

octopus wrote on 2021-12-20, 09:29:

Hi everyone! […]
Show full quote

Hi everyone!

I'm new to the forum, bumped into it while I was looking into USB options for my pentium 120 rig.
What I found was lots of great info and nice comments, so I why not join the fun.

The adventure for me started some 25 years ago, when my dad came home with IBM XT parts and monitors for us to play with.
Since then, I've always enjoyed fiddling with hardware, drivers and what not.
Not much is left from that time, however I still have some. Pictures of that will follow later.

For now, I'm working on a Pentium 120. It's an Escom, and last week a friend from work even found me matching speakers!
So what's inside:
- FIC PA-2005 mainboard with a VIA chipset.
- Diamond Edge 3d video card with 2 Sega Saturn ports
- Yamaha a301-g50 sound card
- 16MB of RAM
- 128 GB HDD
- Mitsumi 8x CDROM drive
- Regular disk drive

Welcome and nice rig! Those are serious speakers!

X86 wrote on 2021-12-15, 03:01:

New to the forum here ! This is my first post. During covid lock down I really took a big interest into retro pc building. This […]
Show full quote

New to the forum here ! This is my first post. During covid lock down I really took a big interest into retro pc building. This was the first vintage rig I built early in 2020.

Pentium 2 450
Asus p2b-s
256MB ram
13.6 gb seagate medalist
Diamond viper v550
STB voodoo2 12mb
turtle beach aureal vortex
d-link ISA nic

p2_voodoo2.jpg
p2_inside.jpg

Welcome to you too!
Nice cable management. 😀

...

octopus wrote on 2021-12-20, 09:29:

Hi everyone! […]
Show full quote

Hi everyone!

I'm new to the forum, bumped into it while I was looking into USB options for my pentium 120 rig.
What I found was lots of great info and nice comments, so why not join the fun.

The adventure for me started some 25 years ago, when my dad came home with IBM XT parts and monitors for us to play with.
Since then, I've always enjoyed fiddling with hardware, drivers and what not.
Not much is left from that time, however I still have some. Pictures of that will follow later.

For now, I'm working on a Pentium 120. It's an Escom, and last week a friend from work even found me matching speakers!
So what's inside:
- FIC PA-2005 mainboard with a VIA chipset.
- Diamond Edge 3d video card with 2 Sega Saturn ports
- Yamaha a301-g50 sound card
- 16MB of RAM
- 128 GB HDD
- Mitsumi 8x CDROM drive
- Regular disk drive

I had those speakers back in the day! Those were good quality speakers, better than your average computer speakers of the day. That case is really cute too.

My latest achievement:
Highscreen InduS Tower DX 2-66VL:
Intel 486DX2 66Mhz
ECS UC4915-A AIO Mainboard with UMC491 Chipset and 256KB cache
ECS VI-711A VLB Graphic card with Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 chip and 1MB RAM
20MB FPM RAM
250MB HDD
CT1350B Sound Blaster 2.0 (include CMS/Dream Blaster Chips)
CD-ROM was broken and currently only a temporary solution is installed.
Accu damage fixed
Runs on 6.22 and Win3.11
Bought 2 days ago, price: 25€ 😁

...

Quite the beast. And a fantastic deal indeed.
Good job fixing that battery leakage!
I never really understood the concept of big towers though. Hardly anyone ever used all these 5.25" bays, so it's a complete waste of space... That's also the reason I don't own a single one of these huge towers, only midi, some mini and some desktop machines. I mean, they are impressive and all, but just too huge.