First post, by rishooty
Not sure if this belongs here, but it is related to the old hardware, just more abstract than usual.
I've spent stupid amounts of money on build after setup after build, modern or vintage. Even stopped for a number of years because I was embarrassed at how much time and money I spent on it. Then I was told that I should reconnect with my interests and not be so afraid of the obsessiveness/impulsiveness that comes with it, if anything its an opportunity to learn to control it.
Ok I say, and I figured I wasn't happy with my past builds because I didn't build one around the focal point of my nostalgia: Win95. So I ask for SFF oem suggestions, pick up a compaq deskpro EN i815, upgrade the hell out of it, and now that everything is done aside from setting up games + source ports+ patches.... I've almost completely lost interest. I suddenly just can't bring myself to put in the labor of setting up all the games I want to since I rarely accept PC games as they are out of the box, knowing there's some way to improve it. I also suddenly regret the money and time I put into it, once again. Oddly enough, I was correct in that win95 gives me the strongest nostalgia however.
This is after:
Modern: multiple laptops, multiple ITX builds, then finally settling on a thinkpad t480 + razer core X + radeon vega 56 just to condense to one work computer.
Vintage: a winME/xp hybrid micro atx that was overkill, a few attempts at a win98 mini itx, a thinkpad T61 with xp, a thinkpad T42 with 98 and then 2000, a directx7 win2000 build made from leftover parts, and currently the compaq deskpro EN + voodoo 3 + ymf744 + tualatin 1400s running win95. Already, I'm considering just sticking to GoG on my modern laptop, or replacing it with either a miniITX XP build or with a modern sleeper build made to interface with old hardware.
I notice this is a common theme on this forum, but I'm wondering if I'm an extreme case and if there's any way I can possibly be satisfied. My interest comes back every once in a while, but knowing my history the deskpro is probably just going to sit on my shelf as an expensive paperweight at some point.
Any shared experiences or advice?