I'm getting a first run Pentium 60mhz [excited]

[the.golden.ax]

I originally posted thinking about getting an old PC (see the quote below if you want to) but I've altered this thread a bit because I'm so excited about my new old PC coming in a few days. I ended up scoring a first run P5-60 Gateway with the recalled first ever Pentium chip. She looks super nice. I'm probably going to want some ram (anybody want to trade for some game stuff?)

 

 

 

I've been wanting a dedicated old machine for DOS games from early to Mid 1990. So far I've been thinking 486/66 up to P1/75 but I'm not sure what would give me the best results for the games I want to play. Right now I'm hoping to do stuff like Jazz Jackrabbit, Sim City CD Enhanced, Mortal Kombat Super Street Fighter, Gex, Rayman. Stuff that pretty much says 486/33, but some that suggests better on a low Pentium. Dosbox is okay, but it just isn't the same.

 

 

It seems hard to find this stuff as a complete working unit on eBay. There are no resources around here. They are trashed by Goodwill if donated. The dump won't let me pick any of the stuff (even though I see it every time I'm there). I've asked junk dealers to keep me in mind and give me a call, but nothing so far. So I'm starting here to be sure what I should ask for to get my intended result, and then hoping to post a want ad on AA and see what my Atari brothers can hook me up with.

 

AX

 

----

I just located a first run P60 with the 5v chip in a Gateway 2000. The same exact model I had when I was a kid and my Dad was doing beta testing for M$ in early 1993 for what would become Win95.

Edited July 11, 2012 by the.golden.ax

[20ohm20]

dedicated old machine for DOS games from early to Mid 1990

 

This is one thing that I've had good luck finding locally for a reasonable price on Craigslist; PC's from the mid 90's. Most of them ended up having issues, so I'd harvest the CPU, RAM, video card and floppy drives out of them. I replaced the hard drives with IDE to CF adapters. I had several 256MB and 512MB CF cards laying around and they made good hard drive replacements.

 

My current "90's PC" that I use to play games is an i486DX4-100 w/24MB of RAM, 512MB IDE-CF + 250MB Conner (!) IDE hard drive, 6X IDE CD-ROM (it's a NEC, I think), some generic VLB video card w/1MB, 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives and a 15" CTX CRT monitor. I have this machine partitioned to boot into DOS 6.22 or Win95.

[Rybags]

You can generally underclock the old P1s, and some of the 486s. Although it's sometimes a case of rearranging jumpers which is anything but convenient.

 

I never thought these boxes would make such a comeback, I've thrown out a bunch of old gear in the last 10 years, only really kept graphics and soundcards and Ram. Motherboards and I/O cards I just chucked away.

 

But still they're at a price point well under 100 bucks where keeping them wouldn't have made a lot of sense anyhow.

[ApolloBoy]

I'd suggest maybe something closer to a Pentium 133, which would give you greater flexibility in what kind of stuff you can run. I originally had one in the Windows 98/DOS rig I built last year, but I've since upgraded to a Pentium 200 MMX which works great. If you ever need parts for cheap let me know, as there's a great computer shop in my area that sells old PC parts for much cheaper than those idiots on eBay.

[the.golden.ax]

I ended up winning a 486 on ePay as well. So it looks like I'll have two machines to play with. It the same model 486 I had prior to the first Pentium. A packard bell from 1992.

 

My interest is peaked on that IDE to CF that's the first thing I'm going to want to do. Probably get some more ram going. I have no idea what they come with.

[Rex Dart]

Man, I'm really starting to regret unloading that 700MHz Sony VAIO I had.

It handled Win98-era and older stuff so well. Damn.

[cimerians]

I think I just tossed a Compaq Deskpro Pentium III out. It had a Voodoo 5 card or the last version of the voodoo card. I kept that somewhere.

A bit over 100MB RAM. Perfect for Win95 or 98.

 

I still have a Gateway 486 DX2 P24D or whever they called it with 32mb of RAM. I remember having a CPU overdrive at some point along with a SCSI card and a CD rom drive that used those trays.

 

Bringing back memories I can barely remember that crap. I kept it around for years to use Star Commander with (C64 DOS program).

 

Native games DO run great on those obviously but I can't bring myself to mess around with that stuff anymore (especially those custom Autoexec.bat files). I used to create menu's for games and also did partitioning to load DOS 6.22 or Win95.

 

DOSBOX and GOG.com do wonders for me these days in keeping things alive (and running) so methinks I cant go back.

Edited July 9, 2012 by cimerians

[the.golden.ax]

Looking in to those 3.5" IDE to CF adapters, through Asian sellers on eBay, they are only around $1 SHIPPED. That is incredible (one wonders how they make anything with ebay fees and postage... even if parts and labor were free) and 2GB CF cards for under $7.

 

If I understand this correctly, and those will just plug and play on an old dos box I should have all the space I need for about $8 total. Fantastic!

[the.golden.ax]

Updated the first post. So far I've grabbed a few big box games, Duke 3d, Sim City enhanced, and Super Street Fighter II. I'm going to tone it back a bit on the search for more games until I have her up and running. There are some I'd love to have in the big box like Jazz Jackrabbit, or some of the Commander Keens.

[Austin]

Very cool. I hope to get a P1-based computer down the line, to play PC games like I used to. Although mine would be at least 166mhz like I had in the '90s in order to play anything up through the build engine games at a super smooth framerate.

[Atari Dogs]

I through out a Gateway 2000 P60 and a bunch of isa cards. Still have my p75 that I upgraded. I may have me memory if you need it 16 or 32mb memory if you need it.

[jaybird3rd]

Wow, a Socket 4 Pentium computer. It's hard to believe that they're nearly twenty years old now. I haven't seen one in years; I think I sold my last Socket 4 system sometime around 1998.

 

I wish I had known back then that old PC hardware would become desirable ("valuable" might be pushing it a bit), because I surely would have kept a lot more of my stuff. I still have a few boxes of 1990s PC parts: Socket 5 and Socket 7 motherboards, a bunch of ISA cards (including a few genuine Sound Blaster sound cards), VLB and PCI video cards, a few antistatic bags full of old RAM, etc. It's sometimes hard to justify the cost of buying cases and power supplies to make complete systems out of them, but I'll do it someday. Even old PCs like these are still very useful.

[Video_Invader]

I have a Packard bell legend 11cd 486 dx2. Just got a hard drive for it but realized I have the wrong type of ram:(. Also going to be looking for an original Packard monitor and keyboard. Got a lot of old games ready and waiting on this thing.

[+Gemintronic]

You can usually overclock these things via jumpers. My Pentium 60 went to 90 but it wasn't stable under Windows NT. Windows 98 didn't care and appeared happy.

[the.golden.ax]

You can usually overclock these things via jumpers. My Pentium 60 went to 90 but it wasn't stable under Windows NT. Windows 98 didn't care and appeared happy.

 

IIRC from the first time we had one of these in the 90s it was able to do 60 or 66 by jumper.