SiBurning wrote on 2026-04-02, 02:29:

Yesterday & today, I busted 3 knuckles trying to restore 3 old computers. The dual athlon and p3 didn't work so they're dismantl […]
Show full quote

Yesterday & today, I busted 3 knuckles trying to restore 3 old computers.
The dual athlon and p3 didn't work so they're dismantled.
Luckily, the good son lives.

- Soyo SY-6BA+ III Slot-A motherboard, with 2 16-bit ISA slots, 5 32-bit PCI, and 1 3.3V AGP slot.
- Celeron 300A clocked to 450.
- Windows 98 SE build 4.10.2222
- 512 MB RAM
- 3 hard drive partitions: 2 GB, 1.5 GB, 17 GB, and another drive not connected. There's not even a slave connector on the cable.
- The Sony disc drive failed, but a Panasonic from another box worked. Panasonics always were reliable.
- The CMOS battery is a 2032 which I have on hand. Very unexpected!
- Sound Blaster AWE-32, full length (I measured 13")
- Diamond Voodoo graphics card
- Elsa Gladiac 511 TV-out (NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX NV11B, AGP 4x, 64MB RAM)
- Network card: 100Mb ???!!! I'll be replacing this

What a sweet gaming box it was. But now what?

All of my Windows 98 era games are working perfectly on an HP/Compaq 8710w laptop.
Not portable, of course, since there's no way to get a battery.
Not without hacking one myself.
The other games are easily run in an emulator.

Looking back, I note my only posts here were in two threads back in 2011.
Perhaps I should hibernate again for another 15 years.
We'll see if the old Celery 300A still works.
Or if I do.

seems like a good all rounder, DOS and 9x games - so many run on newer systems but a good old celeron feels very 90's.

Amazing 15 year gap btw! had you been a visitor in meantime, otherwise well remembered! i wonder what things will be like 15 years hence, vogons must be one of the longest active forums

SiBurning wrote on 2026-04-02, 02:29:

Yesterday & today, I busted 3 knuckles trying to restore 3 old computers. The dual athlon and p3 didn't work so they're dismantl […]
Show full quote

Yesterday & today, I busted 3 knuckles trying to restore 3 old computers.
The dual athlon and p3 didn't work so they're dismantled.
Luckily, the good son lives.

- Soyo SY-6BA+ III Slot-A motherboard, with 2 16-bit ISA slots, 5 32-bit PCI, and 1 3.3V AGP slot.
- Celeron 300A clocked to 450.
- Windows 98 SE build 4.10.2222
- 512 MB RAM
- 3 hard drive partitions: 2 GB, 1.5 GB, 17 GB, and another drive not connected. There's not even a slave connector on the cable.
- The Sony disc drive failed, but a Panasonic from another box worked. Panasonics always were reliable.
- The CMOS battery is a 2032 which I have on hand. Very unexpected!
- Sound Blaster AWE-32, full length (I measured 13")
- Diamond Voodoo graphics card
- Elsa Gladiac 511 TV-out (NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX NV11B, AGP 4x, 64MB RAM)
- Network card: 100Mb ???!!! I'll be replacing this

What a sweet gaming box it was. But now what?

All of my Windows 98 era games are working perfectly on an HP/Compaq 8710w laptop.
Not portable, of course, since there's no way to get a battery.
Not without hacking one myself.
The other games are easily run in an emulator.

Looking back, I note my only posts here were in two threads back in 2011.
Perhaps I should hibernate again for another 15 years.
We'll see if the old Celery 300A still works.
Or if I do.

The way I see it, the hardware-software system creates a different experience - different memories.

Some of those memories are good, some bad, but they are interconnected.

You can emulate the hardware (and even the software) but that creates a different experience - like emulating life, it's just wouldn't be the same.

Maybe the emulated is better, or maybe worse - how would you describe the differences?

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-04-02, 04:12:

I bought a high-end Radeon AGP card.

Unrelated question, but does anybody know the best way to paint a computer case and have it last?

You sand the previous paint down, use good primer, then automative grade paint on top in several thin layers. It's usually not worth the effort. What are you going to paint?

appiah4 wrote on 2026-04-02, 10:12:

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-04-02, 04:12:

I bought a high-end Radeon AGP card.

Unrelated question, but does anybody know the best way to paint a computer case and have it last?

You sand the previous paint down, use good primer, then automative grade paint on top in several thin layers. It's usually not worth the effort. What are you going to paint?

I'm thinking about partially repainting a pc case.

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-04-02, 12:40:

appiah4 wrote on 2026-04-02, 10:12:

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-04-02, 04:12:

I bought a high-end Radeon AGP card.

Unrelated question, but does anybody know the best way to paint a computer case and have it last?

You sand the previous paint down, use good primer, then automative grade paint on top in several thin layers. It's usually not worth the effort. What are you going to paint?

I'm thinking about partially repainting a pc case.

Solvent can wipe off an outer later of discoloured paints/plastics. Automotive touch-up paint can mask scratched metal. Your needs might be different.

gerry wrote on 2026-04-02, 09:51:

SiBurning wrote on 2026-04-02, 02:29:

Yesterday & today, I busted 3 knuckles trying to restore 3 old computers. The dual athlon and p3 didn't work so they're dismantl […]
Show full quote

Yesterday & today, I busted 3 knuckles trying to restore 3 old computers.
The dual athlon and p3 didn't work so they're dismantled.
Luckily, the good son lives.

- Soyo SY-6BA+ III Slot-A motherboard, with 2 16-bit ISA slots, 5 32-bit PCI, and 1 3.3V AGP slot.
- Celeron 300A clocked to 450.
- Windows 98 SE build 4.10.2222
- 512 MB RAM
- 3 hard drive partitions: 2 GB, 1.5 GB, 17 GB, and another drive not connected. There's not even a slave connector on the cable.
- The Sony disc drive failed, but a Panasonic from another box worked. Panasonics always were reliable.
- The CMOS battery is a 2032 which I have on hand. Very unexpected!
- Sound Blaster AWE-32, full length (I measured 13")
- Diamond Voodoo graphics card
- Elsa Gladiac 511 TV-out (NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX NV11B, AGP 4x, 64MB RAM)
- Network card: 100Mb ???!!! I'll be replacing this

What a sweet gaming box it was. But now what?

All of my Windows 98 era games are working perfectly on an HP/Compaq 8710w laptop.
Not portable, of course, since there's no way to get a battery.
Not without hacking one myself.
The other games are easily run in an emulator.

Looking back, I note my only posts here were in two threads back in 2011.
Perhaps I should hibernate again for another 15 years.
We'll see if the old Celery 300A still works.
Or if I do.

seems like a good all rounder, DOS and 9x games - so many run on newer systems but a good old celeron feels very 90's.

Amazing 15 year gap btw! had you been a visitor in meantime, otherwise well remembered! i wonder what things will be like 15 years hence, vogons must be one of the longest active forums

I've lurked on and off over the years, sometimes to solve an issue with an emulator or the laptop, other times just for fun or to see the wonderful Vogon poetry coming to life here.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-02, 09:59:

The way I see it, the hardware-software system creates a different experience - different memories. […]
Show full quote

The way I see it, the hardware-software system creates a different experience - different memories.

Some of those memories are good, some bad, but they are interconnected.

You can emulate the hardware (and even the software) but that creates a different experience - like emulating life, it's just wouldn't be the same.

Maybe the emulated is better, or maybe worse - how would you describe the differences?

The emulators are fine for some games, but others kind of suck. Ultima 7 was ported, but the original dos game plays fine on dosbox. For years, that Ultima 7 was my benchmark for when I'd get rid of the DOS boxes. Oddly, the SSI Dungeons & Dragons games suck on an emulator, and aren't nearly as much fun on the laptop. That laptop's been where I did most of my gaming for the past few years. It's a good 2005 era workhorse, meant as a graphics business laptop, with graphics just good enough to run a lot of Win 98 era games. I've kept it on 32-bit Windows 7 for compatibility. The biggest problem with emulation or modern PCs seems to be that joysticks are way too complicated, and most won't work at all with old games. There's probably lots of scripts somewhere to get them to do the right thing, but it's still more fun on the trusty ol' celery.

Speaking of which, I think I need to rethink the video card on that box. I'll hunt around here for info, and dig through the cabinet to see what I have. I bet it's like RIVA TNTs and older down to an 8-bit Hercules.

Been playing around with my T620 thin client, I bought it to test my own thin client distribution but I know it can run XP.
I have a CRT monitor that doesn't fit on my desk and never got to use it much as a result, so it was a perfect opportunity to toy around with both of them as it fits perfectly next to it.
Tried a bit of UT2004 and had fantastic performance despite having the slowest model. So early impressions its a capable early era XP machine, it has no Windows 98 support whatsoever though its way to modern for that.

If you want the drivers for it I uploaded XP drivers here : https://archive.org/details/t620-xp
Unlike my T5710 pack for Windows 98 this one is snappy driver installer based and automatic, just launch the exe and enjoy all the drivers work. If after the first reboot your GPU driver is failing run the setup again so it can reinstall the driver again correctly. I think its because that particular driver is very new and unsigned so after the chipset driver kicks in it can't reinstall itself on its own.

Aside from the usual USB installation of XP that you need to be familiar with its an extremely easy setup process as a result. Just make sure the harddrive is in IDE mode prior to installation and use a USB2.0 port. USB3.0 will work after the drivers are installed. If you can also buy these for $20, are nostalgic for XP and want a system where you want to see if this retro hobby is for you I can recommend it as an entry level PC. I did the exact same thing with the T5710 for a while before I committed to the hobby fully.

Took and benchmarked 10 of my systems that have 98SE/ME/XP on them with the Quake III benchmark. Changed the resolution to 1024x768 and left everything else to default only to realize at the end that I needed to change to 32-bit colour and max quality. Oh well, will have to redo, but anyways these are my results! *Interesting the results of my 2 Athlon XP systems. One has less than half the ram, slower CPU, slower/older video card and they are basically getting the same score. It would be interesting to see this run on my Dell XPS 630, but it is running Vista.

Gateway PII 400MHz/384MB SD-RAM/98SE/Rage 128GL 16MB -> 18.2 FPS
Gateway K6-2 550MHz/128MB SD-RAM/98SE/Rage Pro Turbo 8MB -> 6.9 FPS
Dell T700R PIII 700MHz/384MB SD-RAM/ME/Rage 128 Pro 16MB -> 30.7 FPS
Dell B866 PIII 1GHz/384MB RD-RAM/98SE/Geforce 3 64MB -> 95.3 FPS
Gateway Duron 1.4GHz/512MB SD-RAM/ME/Radeon 7200 64MB -> 68.2 FPS
Mind P4 1.8GHz/512MB SD-RAM/XP/MX400 Pro 32MB -> 34.8 FPS
Mind P4 3GHz HT/2GB DDR-RAM/XP/All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB -> 237.3 FPS
*
Custom Athlon XP 2100+/768MB SD-RAM/XP/Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB -> 153.5 FPS
Custom Athlon XP 2500+/2GB DDR-RAM/XP/Radeon X800 XL 256MB -> 155.6 FPS (163.5 @ 1280x1024)
*
Compaq Atom 1.6GHz/1GB DDR-RAM/XP/Intel 82945G 8-128MB -> 50.8 FPS

Accidentally deleted my entire games folder while trying to import them into LaunchBox for DOS 2.0

Was trying to delete a broken warez copy of Alone In The Dark, didnt realize the CD command failed and ended up nuking the entire games folder.

Thankfully the games folder is a copy from another machine. Unfortunately its still about 3 hours of lost work as I already had about half my games imported with all details filled out.

I'm trying to create my own portable "quick start" package that lets me copy all my standard software, games, and dos drivers from one machine to another in basically one click (as a .zip that extracts to C:).

johnvosh wrote on 2026-04-03, 20:52:

Took and benchmarked 10 of my systems that have 98SE/ME/XP on them with the Quake III benchmark. Changed the resolution to 1024x […]
Show full quote

Took and benchmarked 10 of my systems that have 98SE/ME/XP on them with the Quake III benchmark. Changed the resolution to 1024x768 and left everything else to default only to realize at the end that I needed to change to 32-bit colour and max quality. Oh well, will have to redo, but anyways these are my results! *Interesting the results of my 2 Athlon XP systems. One has less than half the ram, slower CPU, slower/older video card and they are basically getting the same score. It would be interesting to see this run on my Dell XPS 630, but it is running Vista.

Gateway PII 400MHz/384MB SD-RAM/98SE/Rage 128GL 16MB -> 18.2 FPS
Gateway K6-2 550MHz/128MB SD-RAM/98SE/Rage Pro Turbo 8MB -> 6.9 FPS
Dell T700R PIII 700MHz/384MB SD-RAM/ME/Rage 128 Pro 16MB -> 30.7 FPS
Dell B866 PIII 1GHz/384MB RD-RAM/98SE/Geforce 3 64MB -> 95.3 FPS
Gateway Duron 1.4GHz/512MB SD-RAM/ME/Radeon 7200 64MB -> 68.2 FPS
Mind P4 1.8GHz/512MB SD-RAM/XP/MX400 Pro 32MB -> 34.8 FPS
Mind P4 3GHz HT/2GB DDR-RAM/XP/All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB -> 237.3 FPS
*
Custom Athlon XP 2100+/768MB SD-RAM/XP/Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB -> 153.5 FPS
Custom Athlon XP 2500+/2GB DDR-RAM/XP/Radeon X800 XL 256MB -> 155.6 FPS (163.5 @ 1280x1024)
*
Compaq Atom 1.6GHz/1GB DDR-RAM/XP/Intel 82945G 8-128MB -> 50.8 FPS

Something is wrong. Athlon XP should outpace the P4. X800 should outpace 9800Pro. XP+X800 should definitely outpace P4+9800Pro.

For critique, pairing a Rage to a K6-2 is sacrilege 😉

Today?
I replaced a broken HD15 SVGA Header on a Compaq Presario 5000.

Luckily only 2 pins\pads became a PITA.
🤣

Found a Cx486DX4-100GP with green heatsink 😀

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-03, 21:38:

Something is wrong. Athlon XP should outpace the P4. X800 should outpace 9800Pro. XP+X800 should definitely outpace P4+9800Pro.

For critique, pairing a Rage to a K6-2 is sacrilege 😉

The Rage is integrated into the motherboard so couldn't change it 🙁 I hope to get a PCI Radeon card eventually.
I'm not sure what was wrong with the Athlon XP systems, will have to retry them and see if I maybe have a bad driver or something. They are both running stock speeds.
The 2500+ & X800 in 3DMark03 got 8801; while the P4 & 9800Pro got 6833 and the 2100+ & 9600Pro got 2,663
The 2500+ & X800 in 3DMark01SE got 13,795; while the P4 & 9800Pro got 16,116; the 2100+ & 9600Pro got 8,941
The 2500+ & X800 in 3DMark00 got 11,324; while the P4 & 9800Pro got 11,333; the 2100+ & 9600Pro got 10,741

The AMD X800 XL system is using driver version 6.14.10.6925 & Catalyst version 2010.0210.2339.42455
The Intel 9600Pro system is using driver version 6.14.10.6764 & Catalyst version 2008.0122.1519.27310

Edit* I took and installed the X800 XL into the P4 system, using the exact same drive and my Quake score didn't change. I put it to 1280x1024, 32-bit on the two options that allow, high on the other two options and got 237.6. So I wonder if this is a driver holding back the card or the CPU? I also took and ran 3DMark2001SE and got a score of 17,615 up from 16,116 and 3DMark03 got a score of 10,040 up from 6,833.
The Athlon XP system got a Q3 score of 163.5, which wasn't much if any change. 3DMark2001SE score of 12,563 down from 13,795. 3DMark03 score of 5,477 down from 8,801

johnvosh wrote on 2026-04-03, 23:43:

The Rage is integrated into the motherboard so couldn't change it :( I hope to get a PCI Radeon card eventually. I'm not sure wh […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-03, 21:38:

Something is wrong. Athlon XP should outpace the P4. X800 should outpace 9800Pro. XP+X800 should definitely outpace P4+9800Pro.

For critique, pairing a Rage to a K6-2 is sacrilege 😉

The Rage is integrated into the motherboard so couldn't change it 🙁 I hope to get a PCI Radeon card eventually.
I'm not sure what was wrong with the Athlon XP systems, will have to retry them and see if I maybe have a bad driver or something. They are both running stock speeds.
The 2500+ & X800 in 3DMark03 got 8801; while the P4 & 9800Pro got 6833 and the 2100+ & 9600Pro got 2,663
The 2500+ & X800 in 3DMark01SE got 13,795; while the P4 & 9800Pro got 16,116; the 2100+ & 9600Pro got 8,941
The 2500+ & X800 in 3DMark00 got 11,324; while the P4 & 9800Pro got 11,333; the 2100+ & 9600Pro got 10,741

The AMD X800 XL system is using driver version 6.14.10.6925 & Catalyst version 2010.0210.2339.42455
The Intel 9600Pro system is using driver version 6.14.10.6764 & Catalyst version 2008.0122.1519.27310

Edit* I took and installed the X800 XL into the P4 system, using the exact same drive and my Quake score didn't change. I put it to 1280x1024, 32-bit on the two options that allow, high on the other two options and got 237.6. So I wonder if this is a driver holding back the card or the CPU? I also took and ran 3DMark2001SE and got a score of 17,615 up from 16,116 and 3DMark03 got a score of 10,040 up from 6,833.
The Athlon XP system got a Q3 score of 163.5, which wasn't much if any change. 3DMark2001SE score of 12,563 down from 13,795. 3DMark03 score of 5,477 down from 8,801

Drivers distributed in 2010 will promote GPUs sold in 2010, and the legacy 2004 devices will be relegated to KTLO (keep the lights on, no drama, quietly encourage upgrades).

X1000 launched October 2005, and a possible optimal X800 driver will be the preceding release. Maybe Catalyst 5.6 - that's a guess, not a personal experience.

Somewhat speculative but using much later drivers might even remove old GPU-specific workarounds that are expensive to maintain because maintenance requires specialised engineers with deep product knowledge, and replace those pathways with generic software that works universally but hits the CPU.

Software heavy drivers might exercise tonnes of repeated instructions in the CPU cache and that is precisely what P4 Netburst was optimised for.

Yesterday evening and today morning went getting this Wyse 286 back up and running well again:
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

It all looked pretty good at first, but I had to take the whole system apart yesterday evening to recap the PSU which is integrated with the backplane. After that things started to sort out and the system is now running 100% stable.

This is a fascinating little system, I will probably make thread about it in the system specs.

That's a very cool desktop.

Today I flicked through old magazine CDs looking for Savage 2000 drivers that activate its fabled T&L and I found in the readme.txt of version 4.12.01.9007-9.51.03, "This driver enables Transformation and Lighting. Using this feature may result in visual anomalies."

I am preparing to record actual A/B test of S3 vs Nvidia: Texture compression vs texture compression, T&L vs T&L ... but I don't have any T&L games and my GeForce 256 doesn't work.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on Yesterday, 18:27:

Yesterday evening and today morning went getting this Wyse 286 back up and running well again: Re: Bought these (retro) hardware […]
Show full quote

Yesterday evening and today morning went getting this Wyse 286 back up and running well again:
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

It all looked pretty good at first, but I had to take the whole system apart yesterday evening to recap the PSU which is integrated with the backplane. After that things started to sort out and the system is now running 100% stable.

The attachment case.jpg is no longer available

This is a fascinating little system, I will probably make thread about it in the system specs.

At some point I had a bunch of those got really cheap from an auction... didn't see much value in them at that point.. I think there was other things in the lot.. this would have been late 486/early pentium era.. so at the time they seemed pretty useless/slow... To bad didn't keep them... were neat with the LCD at the time...

Angus.Young wrote on Yesterday, 19:43:

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on Yesterday, 18:27:

Yesterday evening and today morning went getting this Wyse 286 back up and running well again: Re: Bought these (retro) hardware […]
Show full quote

Yesterday evening and today morning went getting this Wyse 286 back up and running well again:
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

It all looked pretty good at first, but I had to take the whole system apart yesterday evening to recap the PSU which is integrated with the backplane. After that things started to sort out and the system is now running 100% stable.

The attachment case.jpg is no longer available

This is a fascinating little system, I will probably make thread about it in the system specs.

At some point I had a bunch of those got really cheap from an auction... didn't see much value in them at that point.. I think there was other things in the lot.. this would have been late 486/early pentium era.. so at the time they seemed pretty useless/slow... To bad didn't keep them... were neat with the LCD at the time...

Story of retro computing: Get back the hardware you once got rid of. And then some!

But yeah, by the mid 90s 286 was really obsolete and besides some basic DOS office stuff, it really couldn’t do much else so I really can’t blame you. But these Wyse PCs are indeed unique systems, although many proprietary design choices might make some people look away.

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 19:00:

That's a very cool desktop.

Today I flicked through old magazine CDs looking for Savage 2000 drivers that activate its fabled T&L and I found in the readme.txt of version 4.12.01.9007-9.51.03, "This driver enables Transformation and Lighting. Using this feature may result in visual anomalies."

I am preparing to record actual A/B test of S3 vs Nvidia: Texture compression vs texture compression, T&L vs T&L ... but I don't have any T&L games and my GeForce 256 doesn't work.

I still remember walking into the computer store to purchase my Savage 2000 in December 1999. Couldn’t wait to get home to install it on my Abit BP6. I thought I had built a beast of a machine. I soon realised I had made a mistake. Only CPU 1 was being used in Windows 98 and the Savage 2000 couldn’t keep up with the GeForce 256. Back then information wasn’t readily available like it is today on hardware. You had to rely on magazines being honest. Things improved slightly when Windows 2000 was released 2 months later but only with Quake 3 🤣

Kicking myself for not keep the Savage and BP6, doh!

The Savage 2000 box looked similar to this Savage 4 box.