Ha yes very much the same story here. I got back into retro computers in ~2010, thought I was doing it for the games, but quickly learnt that messing around with old hardware was a better game. For at least 10 years I found endless projects to keep me busy, but my perfected retro setup has just sat in the corner looking cool for the last few years. I do still play games but like you it's on my modern PC, with its lovely clear display and 'just works'. I can sit back comfortably and play most things with my wireless Xbox controller - ease and comfort is the name of the game these days.

It's not just enthusiasm for my retro PC that's dropped off as I approach 50 though, it's pretty much everything. If you google "peak unhappiness age" it's generally considered to be 47.2 - I'm bang on 😢. But I'll be hanging on to my small retro stash in the hope the spark comes back.

badmojo wrote on 2025-08-25, 07:02:

I can sit back comfortably and play most things with my wireless Xbox controller - ease and comfort is the name of the game these days.

Same thing here. While I was younger, sitting at a computer for several hours was second nature to me. But now in my 40s, I just prefer to chill out on a comfy couch with a controller in hand. At my present age, gaming is much more enjoyable that way.

As for the retro stuff, I've chased the mythical "perfect retro experience" for a few years, before realizing that sometimes, "good enough" is just fine. I still enjoy my retro builds for things like hardware EAX and such, but I'll also take a more comfortable experience when I can. It's a balancing act.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-08-25, 07:11:

realizing that sometimes, "good enough" is just fine

Agreed. In the same spirit, I find myself increasingly enjoying the simplicity of DOSBox for playing my old games without having to deal with too much hassle.

I have slowly focussed less on hardware over the years. With dosbox, patches, workarounds and gog all that's really needed is a modest win 7 era computer and just about everything up to recent games is playable. I have some 32bit machines I don't use that much now. I occasionally troubleshoot or change something, sometimes more.

As for gaming I still like all sorts but don't spend as much time playing as I used to, and I can leave a game unfinished more readily than I used to

I still have my old gear, but I seem to be collecting hardware that's around 10 years old lately mostly PCIE gaming cards and motherboards. The older VLB, Amiga, Mac 68k, etc. just got too hard to find or too expensive.

You also get to the point where what you have is good enough, and the last few things are nice to want but won't kill you if you don't have them.

chinny22 wrote on 2025-08-25, 06:08:

building computers I dreamed about when younger.

This describes me to a T. I get a kick out of buying a $999 (at launch) CPU for $17.99 on ebay.

However, like others, I am quickly reaching the point of diminishing returns. My Z77/I7-3770K/R9 280X rig is actually currently outperforming my X79/I7-4930K/GTX 980 Ti if 3DMark06 is to be believed. I think the default settings are causing a CPU bottleneck, so I'm currently re-running the tests at a higher resolution and high AA/AF settings. Regardless, I doubt I'll notice any real-time performance gains when playing Windows XP-era games at 1920x1200 or 1600x1200.

I was never much of a gamer, even back in my C64 days. I think I always enjoyed building and tinkering with the hardware more. I enjoyed hacking software and hardware. Then there were my Virtual Reality days. The advent of social media and super-fast internet mostly ruined computers for me much in the same way that streaming services ruined the enjoyment of watching TV and movies. There is just too much out there when back then everything was more intentional and purposeful. I got online and did what I needed to do and got off to free up the phone and keep my costs down. For TV and movies, I simply turned on the TV and was forced to watch whatever was offered which allowed me to discover great movies that I may not have chosen otherwise. Now I spend longer choosing a movie than an entire length of a movie.

I think the move towards a more instant gratification destroyed our patience. I was just messing around with a Windows 95 system yesterday and caught myself getting really annoyed at how long it took to do things. I don't remember that bothering me at all back then and even thought those speeds were fast.

So, I think it is parts overstimulation and a reduction in patience along with people having less free time. But, wait, weren't cell phones supposed to help us have MORE free time? Yeah, well work found ways to just create more work. We will filled in that free time.

I also was die-hard Commodore up until around 1995 when Commodore went out of business and I moved on to a 486 PC. So I missed out on many early PC technology that I get excited discovering today.

But mainly my interests lately have drifted to programming on the bare metal and wanting to design and build hardware that make these old PCs do things that were nearly impossible back in the day.

Old man rant over.

I have noticed my retro focus has shifted over the decades.

Back in the 2000's, I was mostly into arcade emulation and building custom arcade controllers. And retro gaming via console emulation.

During the 2010's, I started getting more into retro PC gaming via DOSBox and collecting retro sound modules (MT-32, SC-55, etc). It wasn't until the 2020's that I started getting heavily into retro PC hardware and started collecting and building various retro systems.

This past year I've taken a hiatus from retro hardware mainly due to long COVID. But I find myself still having the itch to continue to build systems and tinker with retro hardware.

As my posting history probably shows, I had a shift from nostalgia to deeper technical issues I never understood or considered too abstracted away by higher layers at the time. Like circuits/electronics (in youthful times I never got past 555 timers in the Radio Shack electronics kits), BIOS debugging/analysis, OS and driver development, and so on. And I find it all easier to grasp in a vintage environment than to try to understand modern boards.

Hobbies most definitely change, or at least evolve.

While I've never stopped building computers, I don't keep up on all the current trends anymore. Right now, I spend far more time on the older hardware and modern DIY projects.

I also used to repair just about anything electronic, for anyone who asked. After a while I just got burned out on it and I put down my soldering iron for several years. Then, about 6 years ago I felt the call to pick it up again, but this time, I really only do it for myself, and focus mainly on the aforementioned DIY projects or repairing my own PC hardware. Doing that sort of work is very relaxing to me, and I don't want to ruin it a second time. 🤣

For me, the older I become, the more I get sucked into the retro world, though I still play a lot of modern games too. But I do have some sort of arc: went from just playing games on emulators to game preservation and eventually research and writing. Hardware wise, from RPi, to FPGA, to collecting OG HW, thought this latest phase is pretty much over (the market prices became impossible).

Good to know I shouldn't feel so guilty ignoring my retro setup. It does feel wrong sometimes just having it sit months on end not been used. but definitely no plans to get rid of it, it's nice to know I have that option for when I am in the mood. It's just that's far less often then in the past.

Not sure about been unhappiest at 47 though! I've still got another year on the downward spiral! Seriously though I fully acknowledge this hobby is part of my midlife crisis and pretending to myself I'm younger then I really am.

I am not into DOSBox and emulators and like to deal with real hardware. So i am in the dream machine team. Back in the days as teenager and young man i simply hadn't any money and need to deal with what i got in the cheaper backyards and gifts, and nowadays i can get around this and buy what i like.

I can identify with a lot of what you say.

It took me a long time to find out that any average Socket 7 or Slot 1 system is pretty much all you need for retro purposes. The journey has been interesting.

As the old adage goes "Perfect is the enemy of good".

Today with the current state of emulation (Proton, DXVK, etc) and virtual machines (86Box) I've been focusing more on a newish Ryzen machine with GNU/Linux that can run everything (old and new games). It's quite fun!

Definitely. Despite most of my interest still remaining in the same area (technology, retro computers and videogames), it changed a lot throughout the years.
At first, I wanted to collect everything and build a huge library of physical games and hardware, not just PCs but game consoles as well, and have them for display in some kind of game room. Over time I realized that requires a lot of space, and not just that, but a lot of time to take care of those things properly (cleaning, maintaining, repairing if needed, etc.). So a few years ago I sold more than half of my collection to a game store and kept games for one specific console. Big collections are for people who really have the skills and genuine interest in taking good care of it, or youtubers who use it for a living (I still love watching retro computing related videos on youtube, those people not just help with preservation by documenting all those relics working, but also help satisfying the curiosity of people who can't/don't want to buy such equipment).
I also used to despise emulation and abandonware in general, but as I got older, I started to understand it's importance and how it helps to preserve classic games far more than any hardware collection or game company ever will, not to mention emulation quality is always increasing, making little sense to keep old stuff around just to have access to old games.
I still enjoy messing with old hardware (have two working PCs, a socket 7 and a Slot A one and recently purchased a CRT monitor for them), but I try to make the hobby one of the many parts of myself rather than my only identity. And yes, playing games, old or new, on a modern computer or a modern game console is far more convenient and most of the time a better experience than in the original hardware, and probably as we get older we tend to value time more and more (as technically we are having less and less of it 🙁).

I want to play games, but I haven't got around to finishing my retro PC builds in order to so. I am gradually putting together my Pseudo 386 PC from a slowed down Pentium MMX and ISA graphics card. I am looking forward to playing some Lucasarts and Sierra adventures on it. Plus some Wing Commander!

I have enjoyed the process of putting it together. Several challenges along the way:

- Needed to make PS/2 mouse socket to attach to motherboard header, as it didn't come with one.
- tried various graphics cards (PCI and ISA) and did a load of benchmarking to compare.
- Tried different speakers for PC sound, and also tried the PC speaker input on Soundblaster Pro 2.0 (I am thinking of adding a switch to allow me to choose between internal speaker and external soundcard speakers)
- fixing 5.25" floppy drive that wasn't reading disks

Still to do:
- modify micro ATX case to house the AT motherboard.
- modify case switch to be latching switch instead of momentary (for AT motherboard)
- modify case to have speaker mount

I am not that interested in modern games. Especially not multiplayer stuff. But I do enjoying playing on my flight simulator. Though its currently not even set up to use.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on Today, 16:09:

I am looking forward to playing some Lucasarts and Sierra adventures on it.

Same genre of games for me. I found the system that I tend to use the most for those games is my Gateway Profile 3 all-in-one system (with Windows 98se installed). Those type of games don't require high specs and the profile is something I can just grab and set up very quickly and then put back in the corner again when the mood changes. While a laptop would serve this purpose as well, the Profile at least kind of feels like I am playing on my old desktop system with a 15" CRT monitor, so it doesn't break the nostalgia factor much and doesn't take up the room that my old desktop system did.

Retroplayer wrote on Today, 16:44:

I found the system that I tend to use the most for those games is my Gateway Profile 3 all-in-one system (with Windows 98se installed). Those type of games don't require high specs and the profile is something I can just grab and set up very quickly and then put back in the corner again when the mood changes. While a laptop would serve this purpose as well, the Profile at least kind of feels like I am playing on my old desktop system with a 15" CRT monitor, so it doesn't break the nostalgia factor much and doesn't take up the room that my old desktop system did.

Thats a cool machine. Just looked it up. Is the soundcard supported in DOS? I am guessing not, and that it relies on SB emulation in DOS window from Windows?

I have found greater fulfillment and enjoyment of my retro hardware through disciplining myself to write programs for them rather than just consooming them through games or other software.