I insisted again with BasiliskII and System 7.5.5, and this time managed to install and run, as well as get it connect to the internet. Had to use iCab instead of Netscape (couldn’t install, errors). Success for me.

Then when I got home I played with my dosbox on iPad running WFWG3.11. Installed Ski Free, Sokoban, winPlay3 for a test with mp3 later.

Later tonight I will have some fun on mIRC. 😉

bfcastello wrote:

I insisted again with BasiliskII and System 7.5.5, and this time managed to install and run, as well as get it connect to the internet. Had to use iCab instead of Netscape (couldn’t install, errors). Success for me.

In the past I have ran Mac OS 8 on Basilisk II, though not sure about 8.1 which you tried and seemed to have trouble with. 8 ran fine for me and was very useable, but Basilisk II can be extremely flaky in general.

I've taken a couple of weeks off of my playthrough of Realms of Arkania: Star Trail because I got sidetracked with recording game music to compare FM, MT-32, and General MIDI in games that support all three. What started off as a few games to compare the differences turned into a bit of an obsession. I'm up to 14 games and 72 songs. 🤣. I've got a few games left that I own and support all three, then hopefully I'll be done and go back to spending my free time gaming. I have to say, it's been a pretty fun side quest. 😀 I may end up filling up all my free SoundCloud minutes...

Retrieved a replacement monitor from my doorstep and hooked it up to my Athlon 64 X2. The monitor is a Dell 2007FP, which I already had one of. In the past I could not figure out the right settings to get a bright picture with DVI input. But one of my other monitors started acting up recently so I had to use the Dell, at least temporarily, and I fiddled with the settings some more. I switched to "Mac mode" and suddenly it was much brighter. Too bright then (overly saturated) for VGA, but at least I can use either input if I go in and change the settings each time. I considered getting a 17" to replace the failed monitor, but ended up getting another 2007FP, mainly because I know it has a stand which allows it to rotate to portrait orientation which many monitors do not have. I also knew that the Dell has quicker response time than the monitor that failed. One day I had the urge to play Alex Kidd in Miracle World on my SMS, and seeing the smooth 60hz motion on a CRT was shocking after having used a blurry LCD for too long.

Posted a new version of my retro-oriented compiler on my blog, which can now generate 8086 code just for the fun of it. http://www.hyakushiki.net/anachro.htm

PTherapist wrote:

bfcastello wrote:

I insisted again with BasiliskII and System 7.5.5, and this time managed to install and run, as well as get it connect to the internet. Had to use iCab instead of Netscape (couldn’t install, errors). Success for me.

In the past I have ran Mac OS 8 on Basilisk II, though not sure about 8.1 which you tried and seemed to have trouble with. 8 ran fine for me and was very useable, but Basilisk II can be extremely flaky in general.

Might try to update to 8.0. But the only ROM I managed to get to work was a Quadra 650. I wanted to try a Macintosh Classic, II or Plus. But in the end, there is not much difference.

Been playing some newly released games on my ZX Spectrum +2A. Just using TAP/TZX files converted to WAV and output into the Cassette Adapter.

Also performed a quick & dirty DIY cable splice job, splicing an Internal PC 3.5" Floppy Power connector to a USB cable to power a Floppy Drive externally. This will come in handy when I receive the Floppy cable I ordered to connect a regular internal PC Floppy drive to my ZX Spectrum. Then I'll finally be able to play disk based games on it, without needing the obscure 3" disk format.

Been testing out some ISA network cards.

Included was an:
* NE2000T Plus
* Racal NI6510C-10BT
* SMC Ethercard Plus Elite 16
* Racal NI5210/S-UTP

They all worked except the NI5210. The NI5210 does all the right things, but doesn't see data coming in off the line, even on my XT class machine. A shame, as it is my only proper 8-bit network card I have.

Since the 8-bit NI5210 doesn't work, I ended up putting a Realtek 8019 card in it. This card can be fully configured with jumpers and is known to work on the XT, so is perfect apart from being a normally 16-bit card.

Got my Asus GeForce4 Ti 4600 in today.. running it through a little benchmarking and it works great!

edit: Went to install my Thermaltake G4-VGA cooler and it is a no go.. one of the previous owners (or the seller) epoxied the existing cooler on. Not worth the risk damaging it. Idiots.. 😵

I built some corner shelves and mounted them above my 386, making a kind of shrine.I populated it with my boxed software collection and some of my diskette boxes:

Now if I get some better lighting, I might start filming from this cozy 90s corner 😉

wiretap wrote:

Got my Asus GeForce4 Ti 4600 in today.. running it through a little benchmarking and it works great! […]
Show full quote

Got my Asus GeForce4 Ti 4600 in today.. running it through a little benchmarking and it works great!

edit: Went to install my Thermaltake G4-VGA cooler and it is a no go.. one of the previous owners (or the seller) epoxied the existing cooler on. Not worth the risk damaging it. Idiots.. 😵

Jed118 wrote:

I built some corner shelves and mounted them above my 386, making a kind of shrine.I populated it with my boxed software collect […]
Show full quote

I built some corner shelves and mounted them above my 386, making a kind of shrine.I populated it with my boxed software collection and some of my diskette boxes:

Now if I get some better lighting, I might start filming from this cozy 90s corner 😉

Ok, just NOT cool! Both you guys have WAY cooler computer digs than I do. Super jelly!!!

BTW @Jed118 is your place in a tall building or on a hillside? The view out that window looks like you are high up.

Thanks! 16th floor condo. From the other corner, you can see the local Chrysler assembly plant.

There's a few more PCs under the desk, and I have another room full of 'em too, some projects on the go as well. This is my "have a glass of wine on a Sunday evening and 90s game" setup - that Armada 1750 just saw me finish the whole Settlers 2 Gold Roman and World Campaigns. That was a blast. Pretty easy game once you get the hang of it.

That’s some really cool vintage desktop environment! Congrats

I just finished Space Quest III again, first time in ScummVM .

Jed118 wrote:

I built some corner shelves and mounted them above my 386, making a kind of shrine.I populated it with my boxed software collect […]
Show full quote

I built some corner shelves and mounted them above my 386, making a kind of shrine.I populated it with my boxed software collection and some of my diskette boxes:

Now if I get some better lighting, I might start filming from this cozy 90s corner 😉

Are those Altec Lansing 221s next to your 386?

Nice setup btw!

Replaced Mac OS 9.2.2 on my Power Mac G4 (933 MHz / 1 GB RAM) with OS X 10.1.5. Runs extremely well as I have almost no additional software installed. Even managed to bring it online over a network bridge but as expected there is no browser anymore that is capable of displaying modern websites. Thinking about keeping this OS version as I heard later versions may offer a lot more but are also slower than Puma.

blurks wrote:

Replaced Mac OS 9.2.2 on my Power Mac G4 (933 MHz / 1 GB RAM) with OS X 10.1.5. Runs extremely well as I have almost no additional software installed. Even managed to bring it online over a network bridge but as expected there is no browser anymore that is capable of displaying modern websites. Thinking about keeping this OS version as I heard later versions may offer a lot more but are also slower than Puma.

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I've often heard that the later versions are actually a bit faster, as well as clearly being more useful due to being more popular and having larger application support. I started out with 10.2 Jaguar on a Beige G3 Desktop (with probably 256MB RAM or less) and later upgraded to 10.3 Panther, which felt a lot snappier than Jaguar.

My go-to OS X install for my G3 or G4 Macs is always either 10.3 Panther or 10.4 Tiger, depending upon installed RAM. With your specs, you'll have no trouble running Tiger and it would make the system so much more usable. You could then also use TenFourFox if you fancied some modern web browsing.

Ultrax wrote:

Are those Altec Lansing 221s next to your 386?

Nice setup btw!

Thanks! I'm actually going to be moving the setup into the much larger living room once I remodel my place (new floors, mostly) and I can use it more there, as my wife complains about the noise the computer makes, and she's not too far off as the hard disk does generate a fair bit of noise - an old WD Caviar 280.

The speakers are actually 251s, you can see the centre speaker in the middle of the top shelf. The rear left and right are out of frame but hooked up. Because it's all connected to a Radlib, it's all mono anyhow. I was selling these on Craigslist, and decided to keep them because of ridiculous lowball offers. I'm glad I did, Monkey Island sounds awesome coming out of them.

Man, this is the first time that i got one retro gift, these were in my godfather storage, the external part is pretty dirty but the internals are cleaner than my main PC, idk if they are working but ill give it a try.
The summary of this score: 2AT cases needing a little bit of attention, 2 3.5" floppy drives, 2 AT power supplies(will check them before powering it on) but they should be working) , two at/atx motherboard socket 7(one with an intel chipset i guess a 430VX, and the other an SiS chipset), two pentium mmx, two simms (i dont know the amount of ram in those) and one dimm(i don't know the amount of ram either), one ISA sound card that i don't know the brand, one really long card that i assume it is SCSI(it even have a fuse), two hard drives, idk if they work, two cd drives, a real modem.
Let me attach some pics and ill go clean these and test them, wish me luck, if everything work it will be an really awesome score for me.

Tested some hardware that I left in my car (never do that) and two of them are broken or has an issue:

1) Samsung SyncMaster 2333 (broken screen)
2) HP LaserJet 2200dn (formatter didn't work when I was attempting to print a test page or demo page).

To the scrap yard they go.

I finished setting up my HP Vectra Pentium 75 with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 using a 2GB SD card - works brilliantly now. Now it's my Pentium III 600's turn to get solid state media - the very noisy 80GB drive is getting replaced by a 480GB SSD.