Mike_ wrote on 2026-04-05, 20:01:

Jo22 wrote on 2026-04-04, 03:49:

Anyway, what differs more is the architecture of the mainboard, the chipset, maybe. 286/386/486 are clean PC/AT platforms with I […]
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Anyway, what differs more is the architecture of the mainboard, the chipset, maybe.
286/386/486 are clean PC/AT platforms with ISA bus and no Plug&Play and no advanced features such as USB, PCI, AGP or ACPI, APIC (586+ CPU).
This means that there are no newfangled things in the 640KB-1MB area, no unwanted ROMs.
Without ACPI, the IRQ 2/9 remains unused and a vintage network card or an MPU-401 can use that IRQ.
Since it's an ISA or VLB system, likely, the installed graphics cards are old enough to be still truely VGA at the silicon level.
The models are being recognized by the games or applications directly.
Trident 8900, Tseng ET-4000, WDC 90C00, Cirrus Logic etc.

Just to nitpick, some 486 chipsets have PCI and support Plug&Play as well. 😀

Aye. The later VIP boards (VLB/ISA/PCI) come to my mind right now. I consider them being special! 😃

the Q700 is actually a decent machine

Ha - just a decent machine 😀 , even though you are the Mac person.

I agree with you about the 486 - although the real praise should go perhaps rather to the 486 - Dx33, because this is the upperclass machine at the time of introduction. And it is from about the same time as the Q700. I think the Q700 was an extremely worthy competitor to the early 486. I think SimCity 2000 was first released on the Mac ?

So - relating to your original question - I actually feel quite opposite to your statement and think the earlier machines have more charm. Even though the later Q800, centris and DX100 would run much faster - they always feel less "original". And as is common practice with many industrial products - companies first introduce the fruits of their real hard work and subsequently cut corners and look for ways to bring the prcice down. So despite being the PC-Guy - the Q700 is an awesome machine in my book.

I accept your argument about the Q700. Although, if you offered one to me, I'd pass it on to someone else -- because I have a IIci, and the IIci boots System 6. In color. 😀

The Q700 predates the Spindler Era and there's really not much to go wrong with it. That being said, I think the Motorola team did a great job with what limited resources they had compared to the juggernaught that was Intel and Co. Their 68K systems, while a bit on the late side, were quite competitive with x86 processors. But I consider the 486 to be a superior processor, overall -- it didn't have heating problems, it was relatively good in general, and overclocking a 486DX2-66 to 80MHz was a common modification back then. The same can't be exactly said of the 68040, which suffers from heat problems but does have some advantages over the 486, I firmly believe the 486 was the better deal.

Hindsight also tells us that the 486 had more legs, owing to the difference in infrastructure, budget and engineers Intel could throw at it. The same cannot be said of the 68060, which by that time -- it didn't matter, the Pentium was here. However, once again, the Amiga boys like to remind us that they have the cool stuff, like dual processor accelerators with a PowerPC processor AND a 68060 on board? AND they have additional memory on the accelerator? That's exciting stuff. But ultimately the 68K line was a dead end, even though I have positive feelings about the 68030.

I'm loaning some early PowerPC 601/603e computers at the moment, and they don't...well, okay one is pretty decent because it has a mostly steel chassis, don't impress me much. Spindler plastic galore, trashy build quality and design, and honestly if I could rewind to 1995/1996 right now I wouldn't pick a Power Macintosh unless I specifically needed it. The combination of a Pentium, choosing the right system and Windows 95 was just too good. Was it great? No, but it was good enough, and that was enough.

Don't think I can edit my posts but I do have to compliment your forum guys. Clean and simply laid out. Can't be said of some other newer forums in a different industry I've seen recently -- utterly awful.

I was going to edit that post to say, in the past 10-ish years, I have had 3 Q700s pass through my hands. Pass through being the key word. 😀 Along with: IIsi, IIfx, II, Quadra 610 with DOS card, Quadra 650, ... handful of others. No x86 -- however, I am interested in NetWare performance on 386 and 486 CPUs for some benchmark...

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-04-05, 15:41:

While the Pentium MMX does have a number of good throttling options, changing FSB and multiplier settings via jumper motherboards isn't that practical for daily use.

There are a few late (non-super) Socket 7 motherboards which allow multiplier adjustments from the BIOS. I own a QDI Titanium IB+ which can do that. Relevant screenshot. But those are uncommon and hard to find nowadays, so for practical purposes, your point is valid.

That said, you don't have to adjust the multiplier settings if all you need are 386 and 486 speeds. Disabling the caches and using the MMX specific test registers via SetMul does that job quite well. Also, L1 cache can be toggled on/off via SetMul, but L2 does need to be handled from the BIOS.

sunkindly wrote on 2026-04-04, 20:29:

My original plan was to only have one retro computer, a Pentium III, thinking that'd cover everything pretty well. While it does, it's all the little stipulations and variations similar to the ones you mentioned for Macs that inevitably pulled me into putting together more machines. If you want max hardware versatility while also keeping within a degree of authenticity, then yeah a 486 or also the classic Pentium (or AMD equivalents) is a pretty solid choice.

Yeah, I started this hobby with Celeron 300A@450, Abit BH6, 256MB, Asus TNT + Voodoo2, SB Live! + AWE64 thinking that it is a swiss army knife of retro computers. Which is of course true, it is very versatile from DOS era to late 90s. But as this hobby to me is at least as much (most likely more), about hardware itself, that is about builds, repairs, history etc as it is about using these systems, I pretty much started to expand immediately from there as I just immediately fell in love with this. And as DOS era is most dear to me, it was the 486 system that came next. By the way, when I got that beautiful Celly build, I thought that now that I have Amstrad CPC 6128, Sega Mega Drive and this, I have all the retro systems that I ever want and need. Oh boy, was I wrong!

If you want one retro computer and you feel that you want to play games and fiddle with software from 90s, then something like 440BX or Pentium MMX is absolutely recommended over something like even a fast 486: they just generally offer more versatility. Unless you know that you want to replicate something specific and you know that you will be satisfied with it.

So I think the OPs question exposes us to the different flavours of the hobby. Some of us can't have bunch of different old computers for space constraints and whatnot, so you without a doubt need to think your retro system or systems differently. Some of us see the hardware more just as a tool and just secondary if at all what it actually is, so they may not be that interested in making all those different builds when you can mostly achieve the same with one system you already have and you can really optimize that build, because you most likely aren't that interested in period correctness either.

Aside from the whole emotional/nostalgia thing (which is inherently irrational, but the main reason we mess around with this old stuff 😉 ) a significant difference between Mac and PC is that Mac had things like APIs and a certain degree of hardware abstraction right from the start. That in turn made differences in hardware mainly quantitative, not qualitative: that G3 could run all the software a Quadra 800 could and apart from it being potentially faster, the experience would be exactly the same. DOS had very little hardware abstraction so games (and other software) talked directly to the hardware and that led to different hardware giving a different experience - as anyone who's listened to FM synth music on OPL vs CQM vs abominations like Ensoniq's sample-based emulation can attest. Even if my Pentium 3 CPU can run exactly the same code as my 486 CPU in the same way, games I play on the systems will sound different. Potentially they would look different too, depending on the video hardware. So there is value in having both systems (and an XT and two more dual P3s and... OK, here any sheen of rationality breaks down 😉 ).

Then again, if I look at my Macs (not my main focus, but I have an SE/30 and an iMac G4) I have to admit it's mainly aesthetics driving me in both cases.

dionb wrote on 2026-04-06, 10:32:

DOS had very little hardware abstraction so games (and other software) talked directly to the hardware and that led to different hardware giving a different experience - as anyone who's listened to FM synth music on OPL vs CQM vs abominations like Ensoniq's sample-based emulation can attest. Even if my Pentium 3 CPU can run exactly the same code as my 486 CPU in the same way, games I play on the systems will sound different. Potentially they would look different too, depending on the video hardware. So there is value in having both systems (and an XT and two more dual P3s and... OK, here any sheen of rationality breaks down 😉 ).

This is actually a pretty bad example. Different FM synth chips would still have the same differences in sound even if proper hardware abstraction had been used at the time. Not to mention that you can use an old Sound Blaster with OPL3 chip in a P3 just fine.

Mike_ wrote on 2026-04-06, 13:08:

This is actually a pretty bad example. Different FM synth chips would still have the same differences in sound even if proper hardware abstraction had been used at the time. Not to mention that you can use an old Sound Blaster with OPL3 chip in a P3 just fine.

Agreed, FM synthesis is entirely a factor of the chip and/or emulation used, not a factor of system age.

I've got a sound card with a genuine OPL3 chip in a 2006 era Pentium 4 machine. It sounds great. 😀

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-04-06, 06:13:

There are a few late (non-super) Socket 7 motherboards which allow multiplier adjustments from the BIOS. I own a QDI Titanium IB+ which can do that. Relevant screenshot. But those are uncommon and hard to find nowadays, so for practical purposes, your point is valid.

That’s good to know, I wasn’t aware there were Socket 7 boards with those options in BIOS. In those cases, switching multipliers and FSB would be more convenient than switching jumpers.

That said, even changing BIOS settings is a bit of a pain in my view. Mainly the fact it requires a reboot, plus having to change the settings back after the fact.

It’s funny to me that something like a Pentium 4 and beyond is more convenient to throttle than older 486 or Pentium systems.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-04-06, 15:25:

That’s good to know, I wasn’t aware there were Socket 7 boards with those options in BIOS. In those cases, switching multipliers and FSB would be more convenient than switching jumpers.

That said, even changing BIOS settings is a bit of a pain in my view. Mainly the fact it requires a reboot, plus having to change the settings back after the fact.

It’s funny to me that something like a Pentium 4 and beyond is more convenient to throttle than older 486 or Pentium systems.

Another option is K62+/K63+. Those can have their multiplier changed on the fly with setmul.

I have considered CPU throttling but it doesn't matter as much to me.

My view is that the hardware only has value if there is software to execute, so the whole software stack is critically important. I start from end user software. My approach is to execute a DX6 game (e.g. Unreal) on DX6 runtime on DX6 drivers on DX6 graphics card (e.g. TNT2) - and doing that sets constraints.

DX6 runtime implies Win95 or Win98. The OS restricts motherboard chipset drivers, which restricts choices of motherboard and CPU.

Win95 restricts me to an i440BX chipset (or older).
Win98 constrains me to my i845PERL chipset (or older).

It does mean that I can be running the same period correct software stack on a range of CPUs spanning Pentium to Pentium 4, but that DX6 game is being bound by what its developers could actually test (e.g. DX6 graphics card).

That is arguably period authentic because although the P4 didn't exist, what did exist were lab machines with multiple CPUs that could saturate the graphics card. In other words, my P4 is emulating retro super computers constrained by inescapable period correct architectural bottlenecks.

So it boils down to the DX6 graphics card defining the FPS ceiling for the DX6 game, and who can argue that is wrong? What changes is that I can now view Unreal as seen in a typical home, and I can view Unreal as possibly seen on a national meteorological super computer. Odd, but it's nice to see what the weather girl got up to late at night 😉

In contrast, when someone loads a DX6 game on DX9 runtime and DX9 GPU there is a compatibility pathway but.. that is not the same software contract the game was validated on, and throttling the CPU is compensating for having a broken software contract.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2026-04-06, 06:57:

Some of us can't have bunch of different old computers for space constraints and whatnot, so you without a doubt need to think your retro system or systems differently. Some of us see the hardware more just as a tool and just secondary if at all what it actually is, so they may not be that interested in making all those different builds when you can mostly achieve the same with one system you already have and you can really optimize that build, because you most likely aren't that interested in period correctness either.

I can kind of agree with this. The less I have, the less I have to worry about. It also means when something goes down, it's more difficult to deal with it because I can't just pull a different system out and shelve the first one for later. Some things are just IMO too bulky: I'm not going to get a Full Tower PC aka Quadra 950 or Power Macintosh G3 tower because they're too big for what they do. While it would be period correct for me to use a Apple 13" RGB display (which, imo, is a respectably decent Trinitron CRT) with my IIci, I don't because it's too bulky and heavy to lug around.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-06, 22:53:

So it boils down to the DX6 graphics card defining the FPS ceiling for the DX6 game, and who can argue that is wrong? What changes is that I can now view Unreal as seen in a typical home, and I can view Unreal as possibly seen on a national meteorological super computer.

Yes, that is kind of my opinion too. My builds are based on the DirectX or Glide versions. I try to go with the fastest graphics card that natively uses that API. I then pair it with a CPU that's slightly newer than the GPU. Usually within a year. So not too far from a authentic combo, but hopefully enough to get the best out of the GPU. I also try to do a mix of audio APIs.

The exception to that is my early builds. I haven't got a 386 or 486 or an XT.

For my "486", I have a Pentium MMX @ 200-300mhz that I can slow down to slow 486 speeds, and that has a very DOS compatible graphics card that's also good for early 3D games (nVidia Riva 128) and a DOS compatible Soundblaster 16. Voodoo 1 also for early Glide.

My "386" is a Pentium MMX @ 100Mhz with ISA Video card, 8Mb EDO RAM and Soundblaster Pro 2.0. Motherboard cache disabled, and SETMUL used to slow it down where necessary. It also has 1.2Mb 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drives.

My "XT", which I haven't actually built yet, is a NuXT. It has an AMD 8086 that I can run at 4.77Mhz, 7.2Mhz or 9.54Mhz. It has VGA Graphics, so it will not play games that do weird CGA hacks.but, it should be fine for games that stick to documented usage. Anyhow, I mostly bought to learn x86 assembly on that after enjoying doing so in my Pocket 8088 laptop.

I've come to the point where my Cx5x86-120 and Dual P3-1000 PCs are the only two retro computers I actually really need.. An entire storage full of PCs and parts is just staring me in the face wondering what I'll do with them eventually..

appiah4 wrote on 2026-04-07, 06:25:

I've come to the point where my Cx5x86-120 and Dual P3-1000 PCs are the only two retro computers I actually really need.. An entire storage full of PCs and parts is just staring me in the face wondering what I'll do with them eventually..

What GPUs and sound cards are in those builds?

I can certainly see how you can get by with only two PCs to cover the DOS/Win9x period. There will be some games that won't work, but probably not that many.

appiah4 wrote on 2026-04-07, 06:25:

I've come to the point where my Cx5x86-120 and Dual P3-1000 PCs are the only two retro computers I actually really need.. An entire storage full of PCs and parts is just staring me in the face wondering what I'll do with them eventually..

Sell them on eBay when prices have gone up even more? 😀

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-04, 22:39:

My PC story continued with the next real Cat 1 being an Athlon64 associated with real memories, whereas the real Cat 3 repair provided by the AthlonXP is sadder and quieter and more personal.

that's more or less my case

Back in July 1999, my dad had to sell my very 1st computer (an AMD 486 DX-4 100) to pay the rent. I found out when i was back from high school. I loved that computer and is what got me in this and my IT job.

I went without a computer for 6 months until i built a Pentium MMX 166Mhz from used parts of an upgrade for a client, that very same pc evolved to the actual Ryzen 5800XT

Luckily, we had a very good relationship with that client and when he passed away in 2009, i got a call from his wife asking if i wanted that computer (it was almost the same computer i had parted ways with 10 years before). Picked the damn thing and i had a moment of silence in my car while in disbelief of what was happening. Pic of that day:

That computer sat as is for a year until i decided to adress some problems from age and upgraded the parts to a k6-2 + voodoo 3, task that took another 10 years as i was constantly thinkering with that pc and was a passive project, changing parts as they came in from upgrades or discarded pcs. In a sense that is the most personal computer i have, the one that upgraded to my dream pc from back in the day and likely will stay that way forever. Its a time capsule of the golden age of pc gaming and a sad reminder of the economic limitations we had to overcome.

As for other retro parts, they come and go, i get them more for curiosity, not to do something meaningful with them

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-04-07, 06:55:

appiah4 wrote on 2026-04-07, 06:25:

I've come to the point where my Cx5x86-120 and Dual P3-1000 PCs are the only two retro computers I actually really need.. An entire storage full of PCs and parts is just staring me in the face wondering what I'll do with them eventually..

What GPUs and sound cards are in those builds?

I can certainly see how you can get by with only two PCs to cover the DOS/Win9x period. There will be some games that won't work, but probably not that many.

The Cx5x86 runs DOS and has a PCI Riva128, LABS MK8330+PCMIDI MPC010 with a Serdaco WP32 McCake on top as well as a PicoGUS, so it basically covers everything DOS related.
The Dual P3-1000 runs Win 98SE and 2000Pro and has a Abit Ti-4200 AGP, a Diamond MX300 for Win98 SE and a Terratec DMX XFire 1024 for Win2000Pro, and I am considering adding a Voodoo 2 to it for early Glide games (Because Voodoo 1s don't work too well at 500+ MHz speeds).

Mike_ wrote on 2026-04-07, 06:58:

appiah4 wrote on 2026-04-07, 06:25:

I've come to the point where my Cx5x86-120 and Dual P3-1000 PCs are the only two retro computers I actually really need.. An entire storage full of PCs and parts is just staring me in the face wondering what I'll do with them eventually..

Sell them on eBay when prices have gone up even more? 😀

Q. Has the price of 1980s computers increased or decreased this year?