UselessSoftware wrote on 2020-08-28, 17:34:

As you can see, I've completely given up on the concept of organization by now. I just have too much stuff. The other corner of the basement, not pictured, has even more stuff. I think I have a hoarding problem. It's amazing how much stuff can pile up over 20+ years.

Well, it's a workroom, not a hospital. But you can create more room for more stuff.
If I were you I would reorganize: get rid of the old wooden shelves, cabinets and most of the desks, install a metal shelving system to create more storage space, put one average size desk to the wall to hide wiring and free up the middle area.
But that's me, I like working on 1 project at a time so 1 desk is enough for me.

UselessSoftware wrote on 2020-08-28, 17:34:

As you can see, I've completely given up on the concept of organization by now. I just have too much stuff. The other corner of […]
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As you can see, I've completely given up on the concept of organization by now. I just have too much stuff. The other corner of the basement, not pictured, has even more stuff. I think I have a hoarding problem. It's amazing how much stuff can pile up over 20+ years.

Oh boy! What a playground!

johnny_cache wrote on 2020-08-10, 19:54:

I hope this is ok for a first post! […]
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I hope this is ok for a first post!

I will dive deeper into more pics of way more gear, especially more DOS/Win95 gaming stuff I have. Don't want to overload the server so I will post the rest with tiny pic of something.

Long time lurker (years!) It's great to finally have the courage to say hi to all of you.

Jess

PS I have way more photos and videos of the SUN and Gateway stuff I have stored in another closet. Is there an image hosting site you'd recommend where I can host the whole album??

Should I post the stuff in my non-working are in the Marvin section?

Again, sorry if I broke any rules!

Really nice collection! Are you doing any sort of work in there with that stuff or is it really just collecting? That server cabinet is crazy!

Thanks for the kind words everyone, your responses are way more cordial than I expected!

My collection was inspired mostly by you folks here. I have been a lurker for a long time, especially love the epics like Blakespot. I have been following his Flickr since like 2005.

I got really lucky with the Octanes. Print shop guy in Chelsea NYC didn't know what he had and was giving them away. I love Wintel stuff but like you guys, the alternative hardware (especially RISC stuff) has always turned my head.

I am planning on taking in-depth photos of repair. I may ask a few of you for tips on making sure I don't break plastic, etc. I love the dumpster dive thread and the retro activity thread. I will be hanging there for sure too! They are hard to see but I have like 25 SUN Sparcstations, some ULTRAs, and a bunch of SCSI gear. I am going to open those babies up too when I begin restoring the Octanes. (The Indigo and Indy are both clean now).

I will take a pic soon, but under the gray garbage bag in the back left corner is a Sony GDM-FW900. I am a huge Trinitron guy, I have a bunch too, you guys inspired great taste! I even found an NEC with a Diamondtron? in it that I will admit I am partial to as well.

solidus wrote on 2020-08-29, 15:18:

Really nice collection! Are you doing any sort of work in there with that stuff or is it really just collecting? That server cabinet is crazy!

Thanks! I used to be a video editor for lame corporate videos so we slowly assembled the XSAN over time at my job. The videos were produced terribly but needed to be rendered fast. Even when the thing was completely obsoleted in like 2006-7 I just had to take it home from work. Even if it's mostly for the blue light show 😀

The Intel XServes on the left run FreeBSD for cluster stuff. I am a total noob but am trying to use those + a Mac Pro 5,1 with ESXi on it to host a bunch of virtual cluster nodes. I am in the middle of trying to get a Dell PowerVault MD 1000i + Perc SAS 6/E card to work with the Mac Pro + ESXi or FreeBSD. Hopefully it will be fun.

UselessSoftware, such cool photos. Is the Gateway Desktop in the back a 4DX or a P5?

Jesse

UselessSoftware wrote on 2020-08-28, 17:34:

https://i.imgur.com/DaLZgH5.jpg […]
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The desk in the back next to the filing cabinate, I think that's the same model my family had through the 90s into the 2000s until it was given to me and eventually broke after being moved for the umpteenth time.

johnny_cache wrote on 2020-08-30, 22:14:

Thanks! I used to be a video editor for lame corporate videos so we slowly assembled the XSAN over time at my job. The videos we […]
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solidus wrote on 2020-08-29, 15:18:

Really nice collection! Are you doing any sort of work in there with that stuff or is it really just collecting? That server cabinet is crazy!

Thanks! I used to be a video editor for lame corporate videos so we slowly assembled the XSAN over time at my job. The videos were produced terribly but needed to be rendered fast. Even when the thing was completely obsoleted in like 2006-7 I just had to take it home from work. Even if it's mostly for the blue light show 😀

The Intel XServes on the left run FreeBSD for cluster stuff. I am a total noob but am trying to use those + a Mac Pro 5,1 with ESXi on it to host a bunch of virtual cluster nodes. I am in the middle of trying to get a Dell PowerVault MD 1000i + Perc SAS 6/E card to work with the Mac Pro + ESXi or FreeBSD. Hopefully it will be fun.

Jesse

Awesome! I ask because I really love old computer hardware. I grew up learning DOS, playing games, messing with the filesystem, etc and I love tinkering with PCs in general. But the truth is that when it comes to my actual day job (web development) and serious hobbies (electronic music production) I really need to use fairly modern computers. So I am always interested in what others are doing with these old machines.. hopefully picking up some fun ideas to do with my own besides just building them and taking up all of my space 😀

Awesome! I ask because I really love old computer hardware. I grew up learning DOS, playing games, messing with the filesystem, etc and I love tinkering with PCs in general. But the truth is that when it comes to my actual day job (web development) and serious hobbies (electronic music production) I really need to use fairly modern computers. So I am always interested in what others are doing with these old machines.. hopefully picking up some fun ideas to do with my own besides just building them and taking up all of my space 😀

Sounds like we have a lot in common! I have to admit I suck at gaming and have never been to into it (with exceptions like CS 1.6/ UT 2k4, cheap LAN party games). I am obsessed with hardware though!

Ever since I was a kid I used to sit in classes in school, obsessing over the differences between OptiPlex GN1s and GX1/110s, etc. I got sent to private school (because of my terrible grades) and they were an all Mac shop and I found the lovely world of Darwin and PPC heat.

I know the pain of having to use modern hardware and software for some of the networking work I do. I really loved Windows 2k and XP but things really fell off with 7 and my god 10 is terrible. Apple is no better at all. I used to be the biggest Mac fanboy but then Steve Jobs died and the brand really couldn't justify their insane price tags. It was pretty hard to stay with them when they switch to Intel, but now there is no reason to unless you are forced by your shop. Mac OS is abosulte garbage since Snow Leopard. Linux is starting to get scary bad too. Systemd is making it like Windows too quickly.

I smashed so many new laptops over frustration of Win 10 + Mac OS + RHEL that I decided to take 6 months and sit and learn how to use UNIX/FreeBSD. It's not easy but once you get the hang of it, using a fully modular system with no forced updates and robust networking is hard to get away from. The trick is to stay away from gnome and GTK. We are talking layers of garbage here. I have seen so many people download nonsense like Ubuntu + KDE or Gnome and that stuff isn't giving Linux a good name. I feel bad when people hate it so much that they don't really give linux a try. I try to explain that they hate a Window Manager and not the actual OS, but I start to get preachy so I lay off.

Do you do front-end web? Or you more like a full-stack guy? I wanted to get into backend/functional programming languages like Elixir but it's very hard for a hardware guy like me.

Sorry if I am typing too much. Let me know if we should be having this conversation elsewhere.

Jesse

PS I posted a few (of 6, ugh..) my computer cats.

My current computing area:

The Packard Bell is still undergoing surgery, the 486DLC got upgraded to 40MHz, including the FPU, and swapped cases for my modern tower to a smaller case since the big one I used was too heavy to move around and the side panel doors were not staying in place all the time.

The big AT tower needs a BIOS refresh on the 4SAW2 board, so that's still in surgery. Yes, I know 1280x1024 on a modern system isn't ideal, but it'll get the widescreen 22" again soon once I get a power cord for it.

Edit: used the wrong photo to share for embedding Google Photos for forum sites.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2020-09-03, 07:38:

The big AT tower needs a BIOS refresh on the 4SAW2 board, so that's still in surgery. Yes, I know 1280x1024 on a modern system isn't ideal, but it'll get the widescreen 22" again soon once I get a power cord for it.

I actually prefer 4:3 because browsing and editing are much better on it.
I don't do much gaming so a widescreen monitor isn't ideal for me.

Since everyone got sent home to work I've been using an old Dell 17" as a second screen.
Few programs I use are obviously not 4:3 optimised but vast majority is fine and for the most part still prefer it over widescreen.

Does someone have a wiring diagram or knows the size of the Tantalum capacitor marked on this picture?
Asking for a friend 👋

Power Macintosh G3 Minitower added.

Τhis is my office.

1) Cyrix Dos/Windows 98 PC 120mhz, 32mb ram, 20gb hard drive, cd rom drive, Diamond S3 Virge 4mb

2) Macintosh Performa 6116CD ppc 60 mhz with Sonnet NuBus G3 500 mhz installed, 136mb ram, 73gb hard drive, 4x apple cd rom, apple 8100 4mb video card

3) Roland Sound Canvas SC55, Yamaha MU50, Roland MT32, Roland CM64 connected with the Cyrix PC.

4) Roland Sound Canvas SC88, Roland MT32 connected with the Macintosh Performa.

Note: the Roland MT32 is connected with both computers via a midiburner switch which has two positions (A+B).

nice, though I'm not sure if I'd put all that weight on the plastic shell of the CM-64 ^^

Do they come alive at night and work on your computers?

Some Pics of my Setup.......it changes around a lot though......probably the most I've ever shown (I cleaned today)

Currently on the desk we have the NEC Versa M/75 in it's docking station (just upgraded to a DVD-ROM a couple days ago), Dell OptiPlex 7010 Linux Box (screen center, Linux Mint 20), and the 2015 iMac running Mac O/S Catalina (right), yes this is also where I do my soldering and building new systems and modding at, as well as consumer electronics. all the drawers around me have tools in them for that and guitar modding/repair as well (I build and modify guitars and pedals as well).

This is the closet gaming rig. It's still a tad messy as I'm working out the storage below. In there I have the Tandy 1000A and GEM 286 ready to be swapped between at a moment's notice for retro-gaming 80's style. The TV is a 1993 Magnavox 27" CML192C102 which only has COAX (soon to get a converter to hook my Roku into it) - I have a 1980 Sears Telegames Video Arcade (light sixer Atari 2600 rebadged for Sears), and an original NES-001 with the Lockout defeated plugged into it via RF - and the boxes have all my games in them.

This is the shelf above the TV - up here is where I store my laptops when I'm not using them. Up there now is the Macintosh SE FDHD (too tall to sit upright), Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (Linux Mint 20), Dell Inspiron 15 (Windows 10 1909), and NEC Versa 40EC

This is where the other PC's hang out when they're...umm..."resting". The big clear box up top is where my keybaords, mice, cables, and other stuff like that are stored. I have a large pinfeed printer box full of hardware spares on the shelf above where my game collection is stored at (well, all the big box PC games - which I'll show in that thread). On the bottom, the 486 DX4-100 in an XT Case (CN486) on top of - from left to right - NEC Ready 9522 Pentium 100, "Beige Beast" my Core 2 Duo "sleeper" running Linux Mint 20 of course, and a box that is home for all the Mac SE's Peripherals.

I'm in the process of moving into my new work/retro man-cave... This is just a quick and dirty setup of "console" area. I need to check the planned room setup and then get the carpenter to make the needed furniture by my wishes.

Room is pretty much empty at the moment. Just stacked two cabinets and put the 29" CRT TV on top. The height of the cabinets is 70cm and I think it's not too high. Connected Sega Megadrive with MegaCD via RGB-SCART to 3-way SCART switch and then to TV. Audio is also routed to Sony Equalizer to get the spectrum analyzer going 😉

Final console area should house Sega Megadrive, Atari 800XL and PlayStation 2. Amiga 1200 will probably get it's own space on the desk and a proper monitor. In time I might also add Dreamcast, SNES, Sega Saturn...

On the left side corner there will be a MAME arcade cabinet and some shelves on the top and right side with boxed components and games.

On the other side of the room there will be a desk (4-5m in lenght) in L or C shape. Should be space for my work desktop&laptop and monitors and also a retro PC corner and retro work/test space. I have many wishes but the room might not be large enough in the end 🤣 There will also be wall cabinets and shelves to have as much hardware as possible at hand...

Here is mine. On the left is a Compaq Presario 460 for DOS. On the right are P166/Voodoo2/Win98 (top left) , AthlonXP 1800+/Radeon 8500LE/WinXP (top right), and P3-667/Voodoo/WinME(bottom), all connected via active KVM and audio switches.

Great setup assasincz!
I've never seen that brand of speakers before, they are chonky boys I love them.

That's a proper retro PC setup. Not a TV in sight 🤣

Starts with the kids remote school stations, then my work stations, then my retro-pc area, and then the old micro fun.