First post, by rarcher
Greetings all! So I return after some delay due to life to unveil my 'true' mid-life crisis retro pc build journey. As outlined in this topic My mid-life crisis 486 vintage DOS/Win 3.11 PC buy my old itch for a dos/win3.x era build for old time gaming and retro use is complete. But! Since finishing that a few weeks ago I got another 'itch' to build a slightly newer machine. This one focused on my true 'gaming life' when it took off. This happened around the Windows 98 era of the Pentium mmx through the K6-3 cpu eras. So Looking at things I figured a super socket 7 build was the obvious way to go!
So far on things collected/bought:
- FIC PA-2013 Rev 2.0 MVP3 Super7 Motherboard - Off ebay, lister wanted $150 talked him down to $125 - Main reason I jumped on this board was it was the 1mb version, one of my first true gaming pcs had this board but it was the 512k cache version
- Aureal Vortex SQ1500 Sound Card AU8810A1 Wavetable Synth - Off ebay again this lister wanted $36 but I offered $25 he countered with $29 which I accepted - I mainly went with this cause the price was good, and got some good reviews and suggestions by folks on an old post I read about the other week for this chip. I'm not an audiophile so the fact I was able to easily get drivers for this is fine for my needs vs say something beefier
- EVGA nVidia Riva e-TNT2 32MB AGP - Off ebay again, lister wanted $69.96 but got it for $60
Things I still need to buy/collect:
- ATX 1.0 compatible power supply - I cant recall if a atx 1.0 psu is different connection vs say a later atx psu have to look into this
- PCI/ISA Ethernet card - something 10/100 again doesnt need to be fancy or period correct long as it works in isa/pci and windows 9x, any suggestions are appreciated
- CD/DVD Drive (maybe burn capable least for cds)
- Memory - I've scoped out the easy source is from here https://www.memorystock.com/memory/FICPA2013.html getting 3x pc100 sticks for 768mb max ram the board supports ECC and Non-ECC not sure if there's a point for me to get the ECC ram or not given it will be for gaming, basic screwing around, and maybe some reliving of my early 3d model creations with Bryce/Poser - Thoughts anyone? Also to note I'll probably first install only 256/512mb and once Win98 is up and running with basic patches for stability put in the 2nd/3rd stick.
- Desktop style ATX case (beige/white colored ideally but i'm not picky) - I been looking to see if anyone makes remakes of old cases like this but everything i've come across are either people taking OLD cases for new hardware modding, or are tower model cases. I'm not against an ATX tower mainly due to my optional wish list below. Either way does anyone have any links to companies or contacts I could maybe connect with for this?
- Hard Drive - I'm thinking for this I may just buy a SATA - IDE adaptor and put in an SSD since I got a few 64gb and 250gb drives lying around, I could partition them up if needed and save some money Pretty sure I read somewhere someone did this and it works fine in Windows 9x?
Some optional stuff I might consider to do or add:
- IOMEGA Zip 100/250 drive - I got a few of the 100/250 disks around mostly unopened that I wouldn't mind using for funsies but its not a major requirement
- 5.25 1.2mb Floppy Drive - Same with these I got some old old unused/unopened floppy disks - Like mentioned below for the USB/Firewire I have an uncle who is a old time surveyor, he has a huge serial port connected landscaping printer and also has a ton of 720k and 1.2mb disks of old survey maps I wouldnt mind copying info from where I can to preserve such work for the local historical society same for the 1.44mb floppies below
- 3.5 1.44mb Floppy OR LS-120/1.44mb Drive - Again I got a bunch of old unused/unopened 1.44mb and 120LS disks i never used - AND/OR GOTEK USB floppy replacer
- PCI USB expansion port card AND/OR Firewire card - I got a few older usb/firewire stuff lying around I wouldnt mind seeing use for fun. One example is a VHS to pc convertor and a record player to pc audio feed convertor that would be nice to get setup for use in the off chance any of my old family wanted such converted
- Keyboard/Mouse - I got a nice old style mechanical keyboard that is usb ran from a remake company of these for my personal modern rig, I may consider getting another one that is ps/2 done for this, but again i'm not picky. As for mouse a basic solid 2/button/wheel mouse combo will do in the same vein
- 2.1 Stereo speakers/woofer - Again not an audiophile so I'll probably just go with a half decent such set like a logitech or something, not caring on period accuracy here
- Any other fun optional additions folks here might suggest again doesnt need to be period accurate just usable in Win9x without much hassle or price
Any thoughts or suggestions on this list and my journey as I get this going I'll post here for updates as they come and I get the time.