High-end peripherals?

CRT: go with a Trinitron/Diamondtron with max 0.25 dot pitch and at least 92kHz horizontal refresh.

Keyboard... that iConcepts thing is a shitty low-end rubber dome. Look out for a Cherry G80 with MX blue or brown switches (or black if you really can't find those). Anything with Topre is also high-end, and if you're more into typing than gaming, IBM/Lexmark/Unicomp Model M was still being made and beat the hell out of anything else for writing.

Speakers... sort of OK, although high-end would be to use your HiFi-stereo set.

Talking about 'peripherals' I'd also look at a ZIP250, some early optical mouse and maybe some crappy early 3D glasses (they were hyped several times...)

dionb wrote:

High-end peripherals? […]
Show full quote

High-end peripherals?

CRT: go with a Trinitron/Diamondtron with max 0.25 dot pitch and at least 92kHz horizontal refresh.

Keyboard... that iConcepts thing is a shitty low-end rubber dome. Look out for a Cherry G80 with MX blue or brown switches (or black if you really can't find those). Anything with Topre is also high-end, and if you're more into typing than gaming, IBM/Lexmark/Unicomp Model M was still being made and beat the hell out of anything else for writing.

Speakers... sort of OK, although high-end would be to use your HiFi-stereo set.

Talking about 'peripherals' I'd also look at a ZIP250, some early optical mouse and maybe some crappy early 3D glasses (they were hyped several times...)

Thank you, this helped a lot!

dionb wrote:

High-end peripherals? […]
Show full quote

High-end peripherals?

CRT: go with a Trinitron/Diamondtron with max 0.25 dot pitch and at least 92kHz horizontal refresh.

Keyboard... that iConcepts thing is a shitty low-end rubber dome. Look out for a Cherry G80 with MX blue or brown switches (or black if you really can't find those). Anything with Topre is also high-end, and if you're more into typing than gaming, IBM/Lexmark/Unicomp Model M was still being made and beat the hell out of anything else for writing.

Speakers... sort of OK, although high-end would be to use your HiFi-stereo set.

Talking about 'peripherals' I'd also look at a ZIP250, some early optical mouse and maybe some crappy early 3D glasses (they were hyped several times...)

ALPS also made good switches. Probably on the higher end would be the IBM/Lexmark M15 split keyboard. They're rare and prices are extremely steep. Also check out the Safetype vertical split keyboards.

Higher end PC speakers would be Altec Lansing ACS495 and ADA880... and cambridge soundworks

oeuvre wrote:

Higher end PC speakers would be Altec Lansing ACS495 and ADA880... and cambridge soundworks

Wasn't this also the time when DVDs and 4.1/ 5.1 surround took off, and Logitech surround speakers started hitting the market?

oeuvre wrote:

Higher end PC speakers would be Altec Lansing ACS495 and ADA880... and cambridge soundworks

Those were all choices I was actually gonna get, but that large subwoofer that comes with all jacks the shipping price way up 😢

Also are they good with an A3D Vortex?

Yep, the ACS495 I have came with my dad's Dell Dimension XPS T550 that came with a Turtle Beach Montego II with AU8830.

The ADA880 I got locally from a thrift store.

Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback, as for sound I know at least one guy who in 1997 was routing his audio from his sound card into a head unit using either 6 or 8 gague wire to output to the 200W speakers in his living room 🤣

Force feedback was just starting out, so MS or Logitech devices were the ones of choice
I think I got my DVD-Rom in 99? so had the PC connected to the stereo, although still just 2 speakers.
Microsoft intellimouse 1.1's they were sort after for years
USB scanner and laser printer if you want to go full out

1997: Iomega Jazz drive (1GB) with disks being over $100/ea. Pioneer's famous first release of their DVD-R drive with discs costing up $10/each, even in multipacks. Early adoption of digital cameras (roughly 0.5 to 1 megapixel)- typically made by HP although Sony had some models too. Large compact flash cards were almost as much as the cameras, 96mb and then 128mb were $500+ and were actually micro-spinning hard drives (microdrive), most people like myself had 8 or 12MB cards and were like "digital" film in that they could hold 15 to 30 photos depending on quality. Some of the first commercial color laser printers hit the shelves costing many thousands, where as color bubblejet was gaining traction. High resolution large flatbed SCSI scanners still cost thousands.

1998: a college friend had the first portable mp3 player, an mpman he brought back to Canada from Korea. The mpman wasn't even available in North America yet and would have cost $500+. Mp3s were available on early web pages, ftp sites, trading on IRC, and the gold mine on alt.binaries.sounds.mp3 (back when it was standard for high speed cable ISPs to carry their own newsgroup servers with full coverage of alt.binaries).

also an interesting thing to have is the IBM Spaceball

First webcams were around '99, those sphere-like Logitech ones for example..

Would the Thrustmaster FCS Mark II and WCS and pedals be considered late 90s?

I had gone full DVD at that point. Creative PC-DVD kit with the Panasonic DVD drive, MPEG2 decoder PCI card, Matrox video card. Video out to the TV, audio out to the stereo. That was my DVD player until I bought a PS2 -- which was only around the point where they were about to release the PS2 Slim.

cyclone3d wrote:

Would the Thrustmaster FCS Mark II and WCS and pedals be considered late 90s?

I think the Thrustmaster FLCS stick and TQS throttle were the hot setup by the late 90's - probably with TM or CH pedals.

dionb wrote:

High-end peripherals? […]
Show full quote

High-end peripherals?

CRT: go with a Trinitron/Diamondtron with max 0.25 dot pitch and at least 92kHz horizontal refresh.

Keyboard... that iConcepts thing is a shitty low-end rubber dome. Look out for a Cherry G80 with MX blue or brown switches (or black if you really can't find those). Anything with Topre is also high-end, and if you're more into typing than gaming, IBM/Lexmark/Unicomp Model M was still being made and beat the hell out of anything else for writing.

Speakers... sort of OK, although high-end would be to use your HiFi-stereo set.

Talking about 'peripherals' I'd also look at a ZIP250, some early optical mouse and maybe some crappy early 3D glasses (they were hyped several times...)

Are you sure Topre keyboards are late 90s? All I see are new ones that are meant to look old.

Also, the only old Cherry G80s I'm seeing are the ones with the touchpad on the bottom right, are those good?

For me in the 90s Belinea CRT monitors was like "High-End". That was very expensive and good quality stuff!

https://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerChroniclesYT/videos