Retro Computers?

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

I technically still have an old MS-DOS PC, but it's in storage with some of my stuff that never made it out of my parents' house--it's my old, original BBS PC that I just turned off and put in a closet one day when I put together a brand new PC for gaming.  I don't use that one, but I do have a couple of flavors of Apple II's that I have in my house which see usage on occasion.  I don't have very much original media for them, as it wasn't a system that I actually had growing up, but I have laid my hands on a few modern upgrades (floppy drive emulator, CPU accelerator card) which make them very convenient to use.  In regard to the folks saying you should just suck it up and play on an emulator, I disagree that this should be the first and foremost solution, as the experience is really very different  from playing on old hardware, even if it's been upgraded a bit.  Yes, CRTs and such are bulky, but they don't necessarily need to be utilized--the primary screens for my Apple II's are a VGA monitor and living room TV, both modern flatscreens which get the job done.  There's not quite as much nostalgia there as having the setup be 100% "pure," but there is a lot of convenience built into those compromises which still allows the true nostalgic feelings to flow without having to forego storage space, etc.

[Estil | 1,291]

I'd love to someday get a Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 based computer to run vintage games/software but for either one how do you know which kind is the best and what ideal specs you need?

Same goes with my favorite 80s home computer, TI-994A...I'd love to someday get one (and I think someone even did an "Everdrive" for it) but how do you know what's the best expansion setup for it?  Like if you get that big box thing that holds expansion cards, which ones should you have?

[Deadeye | 1,601]

The best way is to target what era of programs you are looking to run. For a while, program speed was timed to cpu clock speed.  So in other words, the program would go too fast if you had a newer processor. 

Certain CPU have "modes" where it can be set to certain speeds, so those programs run properly.  If you remember the turbo button, this was it's function.  Typically you can set these in the bios.  At some point, this was done away with or less speeds were supported.

So say you want to play really old games and mid 90s ones, you can get a CPU that supports many clock speeds, and can get the best of both worlds.

As far as operating system, maybe you just like the way it was, windows 3.11, or you want certain features, like USB support in windows 98SE.  Another route, it to have many setups on different SD cards (if you are using an SD to IDE converter) so you can change on the fly to an all DOS setup or a windows 95 one.

Some people may want to be a purest and just want a period acute model, like a IBM 5150 and just collect want cards were available at the time.  Or really want a 386 or 486 and go after that.  It is a really open endeavor.  Basically ask yourself what do you want to get out of it and start there.  Narrow it to what you real want.

[Tulpa | 3,704]

1 hour ago, Estil said:

I'd love to someday get a Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 based computer to run vintage games/software but for either one how do you know which kind is the best and what ideal specs you need?

Keep in mind this is not like playing on a vintage console. You're going to have to figure a lot of stuff out yourself.

[KHAN Games | 149]

On 7/27/2020 at 9:36 PM, Deadeye said:

I built one in the last year or so.  Do it. 

I decided on windows 98 SE  / DOS build with 3-1/2" and 5-1/4" floppy drives based on what I wanted to do with it. 

@KHAN Games helped me with selecting the parts.  Selected a AMD K2 processor and built around that.  I used a modern case and modern power supply, and the rest was used parts.  Due to limited space, I used a scaler (Extron VSC-500) so I could use my PVM as a monitor. 

For ease of setup, I bought a floppy emulator (the image with a red number on the display), so I could install DOS very easy.  The rabbit hole goes deep with wave table chips for your sound card or DOS Wifi adapters,etc.  There are still BBS servers in use.

 

 

I guess we're the only weirdos that enjoy tinkering with old machines for an hour to get a game to sound good with our wavetable boards.

DOS hype for life.

[JamesRobot | 6,026]

I really wish I had an old 486 with a 3 1/2" drive.  Can't bring myself to start collecting all that and the old floppies.  I want to but I know I can't 

[Tanooki | 5,113]

What deadeye there went into is what I crafted as a setup using PCem.  Yeah it's not 100% honest as it's not old hardware, but it's 100% on the nose simulation of the environment considering it can post an original copy of many many old BIOS's of the day into a prompt.  From there, skies the limit so I've got it where I can do DOS 6.22/WIn3X and also Win98SE.  The up side simulated, a few clicks I can go from a 386 to a 486 to a Pentium class and change the MHZ basically on the fly.

If I were going for real hardware I'd be hard pressed on choices.  I'd want to be able to hit USB stuff so 98se capable hardware would be ideal, so I mean you could run a 486DX266 or DX4100, and a P100 would be about it before old 1990-91 early era stuff may go into crazy mode since the coding was made CPU clock sensitive and not-throttled.  Wing Commander 1 suffered from this so I'd use MOSLO.EXE in the day once I went from a 486dx33 to a P100.