It's normal for tastes and priorities change over time. I almost completely stopped messing with the hardware side and also getting new hardware. Sometimes I pick up this and that for free or unfairly cheap, but mostly I have everything I'd ever need. I have projects in my head, but not as motivated to go through with them as I was 3-5 years ago.

I could sell most of what I have, but I know I go through phases and there is a good chance at some point I'll regain my interest and by then most of what I have, including the now cheap and common stuff, will be unobtanium.

I have noticed my interest declining in general. I think much of this just has to do with time. Nearly all of my free time is spent with kids or family time in general. I just have less personal time and what free time I do have I try and make count. If I do have a few minutes it's usually spent with on my guitar hobby. I did recently pick up a ROG Ally thinking that the late night video game sessions before bed might translate. I used to play my Switch a fair bit, but game releases haven't kept my interest.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-08-27, 17:13:

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 couldn't remember since most of the games I was playing with it were Windows based, so I found the backup of my drivers. It appears that it is a Soundmax chipset and WDM_AC97, so yeah it wouldn't work from DOS unless SBEmu could do it.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-08-27, 17:29:

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.

Absolutely.

The most satisfying kind of programming is the kind you do on a computer you have known for decades.

I have written most of my database and HTTP POST / JSON response API backend of the point of sale system I have embarked to program this week, on that RH8.0-running P120 I compiled MariaDB on recently.

It is multi user, uses sessions, looks up and adds scanned barcodes, searches for products by barcode, vendor, partial name match all in one thing.

It generates an invoice in one atomic transaction from the scanned list, as well as generating the actual pdf of the invoice the frontend application would just need to fetch and print out. This is the most complex API call, with >10 SQL queries, of which 4 are in a commit/rollback style transaction. That and the pdf generation takes less than a second 😀

Still need to write the refund API and some management/reporting features.

I am even tempted to put this thing into production... (but I have something more than 10x faster and 15 years newer waiting for it to be deployed, so no.)

I even believe would not have been able to start working on this thing without the aid of the pentium1. Programming on modern stuff is a lot like eating mcdonalds to me: you bring it to your face, but when it reaches it, your head has in the mean while automatically turned away 😀

I'm also more interested in the hardware than just gaming. Writing software is painful to me, and everything else works on my modern computer that's already turned on and ready. Unfortunately, that means that the hardware just collects dust after I'm done, and I don't even mess around with hardware anymore because of current prices and a lack of storage space.

Also, working with popular hardware is boring to me. It feels like everything has already been done. I want to see the stuff that nobody wanted and try to get acceptable performance from it.

I've found the hobby to be a bit of a journey, is that because I'm getting older? Maybe.

I used to game a bunch, jump online Friday night and play Command & Conquer 3 with friends. Then over the years that all subsided, gaming now is more of a special occasion. Retro game nights, LAN parties, etc.

Finding the time to commit to gaming has become challenging I also get that feeling with the free time I have that gaming is "a waste", totally a mentality thing. Ironically I'll happily spend hours setting up machines or watching YouTube.

Recently set up some thin clients as mini XP gaming machines to be used for LAN parities has been the most fun I've had with retro computing in recent times, a nice balance between old and new. I've become to realise that less is more, not needing to have the perfect hardware, all the games installed on some mega system. Makes projects more achievable and less likely to stall at 90% which has been a common problem with many of my projects over the years.

Looking back hardware always interested me more than the software, there was always the thrill of pushing devices to their limits or finding hardware additions that gave you an edge or some special feature. That's probably why game console modding always fascinated me, making the device better than it was before.

Dan9550 wrote on 2025-08-31, 01:28:

Recently set up some thin clients as mini XP gaming machines to be used for LAN parties

I'd love to hear more about how you do this! What makes the machines "thin client," how you do you set up the LAN, and what games you play? Maybe not appropriate for this thread, but can I respectfully ask you to start a new thread with this info? I have the pieces for about 6 retro machines and would eventually love to do something like this!

Thanks in advance, and if you can't do this, no worries!

Never have any change in taste at all, exactly same i liked and do when 16 years old i do now 30 years later

What change is free time, and need to pick priorities

I wish my taste changed when it comes to CRT because I just got my 30th monitor and it's e-waste season so probably more to come. Getting harder to keep my promise to the wife to keep it exclusively in the workshop...

I haven't seen a CRT in e-waste in almost 15 years. Whenever something desirable shows up in e-waste, it's destroyed beyond repair, and I'm pretty sure that it arrived at the facility that way instead of being tossed around by their employees.

lti wrote on 2025-09-06, 17:12:

I haven't seen a CRT in e-waste in almost 15 years. Whenever something desirable shows up in e-waste, it's destroyed beyond repair, and I'm pretty sure that it arrived at the facility that way instead of being tossed around by their employees.

It's a small local e-waste collection site organized twice a year by the city council so it's almost exclusively visited by locals who finally decide to clean out their attic after 15 years of hoarding trash. Some pretty good stuff out there. We also have a ton of old factories that slowly upgrade their systems and most of that ends up here. People don't usually throw monitors around unless they want to pick glass shards for 2 hours.
We also have a municipal waste collection site but the guy there drives a hard bargain and it's usually not worth it, never seen anything older than a P4 there.
It's all luck.

After getting to know 86Box, I have unintentionally shifted my hobby to the emulation realm. Mainly, because I can experiment with even more hardware that 86Box emulates, right down to the BIOS level, and using real drivers to install and run the "hardware".

Another main reason is I don't need to deal with wires, space constraints and power issues. And I can run them anytime, anywhere in my laptop.

My current laptop which is running on AMD 8845HS CPU with Debian, can run up to a Pentium MMX 233MHz smoothly without speed drops, and have even installed Windows 95 and Win98SE running in their own configuration "machines".

Using floppy disk images and CD images to run the software and feels like the real thing. (Even have been collecting drivers in their original floppy disk forms and games in floppy images to have the authentic installation feeling.)

Currently I have more "machines" in my laptop than what I can build using real hardware, right from IBM PC XT, Tandy, 286, 386SX and DX, 486DX2-66 and Pentium and Pentium Pro "machines".

Though it is a grey area, software preservationists who strive to preserve original floppy disk images and CD images help in keeping the hobby running authentically in the emulation space.

And out of curiosity, I also have installed and trying out OS/2 Warp 4.0 and Windows NT 3.51 in their own "machines". Something I never had the chance to experience before.

Saying that, I still have my 486DX2-66, Pentium 133 and Pentium II real systems.

Mandrew wrote on 2025-09-06, 19:05:

People don't usually throw monitors around unless they want to pick glass shards for 2 hours.

Or if they work for UPS

jakethompson1 wrote on 2025-09-06, 23:12:

Or if they work for UPS

Amen. (or any parcel service anywhere I might add)

Malik wrote on 2025-09-06, 21:24:

After getting to know 86Box, I have unintentionally shifted my hobby to the emulation realm. Mainly, because I can experiment with even more hardware that 86Box emulates, right down to the BIOS level, and using real drivers to install and run the "hardware".

Another main reason is I don't need to deal with wires, space constraints and power issues. And I can run them anytime, anywhere in my laptop.

My current laptop which is running on AMD 8845HS CPU with Debian, can run up to a Pentium MMX 233MHz smoothly without speed drops, and have even installed Windows 95 and Win98SE running in their own configuration "machines".

I like the sound of that, though i don't have a PC as powerful. Is that about the modernity/speed needed for have smooth p2-233mhz performance in an emulated machine?

I've tried a few in PCEM, my machines - nothing newer than a budget mid 2010's - only manage a 486 or thereabouts

I also need to take a closer look to 86box, I've never player with OS/2 warp and I feel i need to give it a try.

My hobby is at a bit of a low. Over the last 10 years I've built a collection of machines (386~pentium III) to revisit the games I used to play. It's been a blast, but now that I've gone through everything and experienced some titles I missed out on, I feel kind of done.

I didn't do anything retro for a while until I recently found a Trinitron 17" for a steal. I took it home and connected it to my most 'modern' system (with a gtx1060 :-p) to play HL2 at 120fps (fastest the screen would go). And it was... alright, I guess? My main emotion was a sense of embarrassment by how much this massive thing cluttered up my desk. I sold the monitor afterwards, and have been debating the future of my collection. For now I'm keeping it, in case the nostalgia bug creeps back up.