Old hardware appreciation thread

[dirkmirk]

I strongly suggest anyone looking for retro hardware to check your local e waste recycler, I picked up 3 AT working systems for $10 each a month ago, they literally had like 100 cpu's in box ready for recycling, 486's, Pentiums/II/III you name it and I bought one for $5, I was almost tempted to buy working 286 nec powermate but what do I need a 286 for?

CRT monitors any size probably $10 a piece at most, if you dont want to pay rip off prices on ebay its the way to go, they are going to keep an eye out for a cyrix 586 tower for me as well as VLB cards for my 486's.

Bottom line they get working retro computers all the time and they want next to nothing for it.

[FuzzyKaos]

Dont have a picture of it anymore and these are the pieces of hardware that ive regretted getting rid of.

Diamond Monster Sound MX300

Canopus Pure3D

I still have the old PC they were plugged into, ill post pics soon.

[FuzzyKaos]

Here is my PC from the 90's god bless dial up and beige



Here is a more modern one, probably bout 2001/02



Slot load Pioneer DVD-ROM, LS-120 Superdrive, Asus CUSL2 Motherboard, P3-1000 I think I had a GoldenOrb cooler on it too, if anyone remember those. Case was an Acer HX... something something, cant remember.

This would have been the PC that had the Pure3D and MX300 in it.

Did all the air vents myself, back in the day when it was all new

[Mau1wurf1977]

Something from Europe, but also worth sharing IMO

This image was hard to track down. I purchased this Magazine "Highscreen Highlights August 1992" off eBay from Germany. Inside I found this advertisement which shows the EXACT computer I had as a kid.

It was my very first PC and over the school holidays got a Sound Blaster card and played Monkey Island 2, Wing Commander 2 and Fate of Atlantis.

The PC scene in Europe was very fragmented with heaps of dodgy shops. Highscreen was the "peoples computer chain" so to speak.

The price is in DM (Deutsche Mark). ~ 1250 Euros.

[FuzzyKaos]

It still works.

[FuzzyKaos]

Here is that old PC that I used to have.



LOL thats how I used to sleeve my cables back in the day, just electrical tape.

Pentium Pro 200 with 128GB o RAM.

Back in the day, this motherboard/ram/cpu cost an absolute fortune, but that's what you pay for the best!

Still works too, I think the last time I did something with it was a Ubuntu distro, worked great!

I don't know if there is any merit in this, but I believe that the old games work best on old hardware, maybe as time goes by older libraries are re-written or emulated, or that hardware changes so much that the old instructions are translated differently on new hardware etc.

[xlot]

Originally Posted by FuzzyKaos

Here is that old PC that I used to have.

Pentium Pro 200 with 128GB o RAM.

Heh the 5th CPU I owned was a PPro 200 bought from Dell in 1996 (I was in the UK).

Awesome processor - lasted me three years until a Slot-A Athlon 850, thanks to assistance from a Diamond 3dfx Voodoo in Quake

Here's the slot-A - in my office behind me. First generation of K7 core cpus.. kept AMD going very nicely and paid for the intro of the Athlon64 in 2003. I had two more K7 cpu's.. Thunderbird 1333 and a 2600+.

Starting to sort the slot-A out for retro purposes - will remove the old ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder TV/Video card - replacing with an AGP Geforce2 GTS for some 3d performance in Win95, and will use my old Orchid Voodoo2 via pass-thru where possible



I need to find a quiet replacement for the fans on the slot heatsink.. one of them is noisy-as - but it booted ok on the weekend.

[elvis]

Originally Posted by FuzzyKaos

Here is my PC from the 90's god bless dial up and beige

http://i.imgur.com/Yi9xe.jpg

That sound system kicks arse!

I had some nice 80W Marantz beasties hooked up to mine. They're in my games room now. Playing Doom through those kicked arse with the shotgun, and later the rocket launcher in Quake.

Actually, there was one particular evening hosting a LAN where we were playing Quake, and the vibrations from those speakers and constant rocket jumping caused a framed painting hung on the opposite side of the wall to fall off! Breaking glass noises in the middle of a LAN are not cool.

[breech]

Originally Posted by Asteroid

Also an AthlonXP 1800+ Thoroughbred B (Socket A) that was sold

i have one you can have if you like. also another athlon, nfi what it is.

[Asteroid]

Thanks, but nah. If I build a retro-pc it'll be a BP6/ dual Celeron box. Oh yeah!

[stano]

talking of dual cpu systems here are two of mine:







Asus A7M-266D with 2 AMD 1900+ Athlons plus an Asus Geforce 3

and one other dual cpu monster





this is a Abit vp6 with dual coppermine 1000mhz P3. Video card : Asus geforce 4 4600.

[elvis]

LOL @ Athlons being "old". I still use two Althon XP based systems every day! I've got a customer who's using a dual Athlon XP pencil-modded to MP in a production thin client server as you read this!

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by elvis

LOL @ Athlons being "old". I still use two Althon XP based systems every day! I've got a customer who's using a dual Athlon XP pencil-modded to MP in a production thin client server as you read this!

Heh.

They stood the test of time better than the p3 or p4.

[Draxx]

Originally Posted by FuzzyKaos

... Case was an Acer HX... something something, cant remember.

That would be AOpen HX-45

[FuzzyKaos]

Originally Posted by Draxx

That would be AOpen HX-45

Thats the one!