Sad realization in my life...

[doctorclu]

Stacker... wow,it has been a while since I have heard that.

 

Anyway, I know a friend that has project boxes. Work on one project box for a while till you get stumped and then move on to another project box.

 

I like the idea of decoration. My Atari Jaguar CD was used for a year or two just as a CD player. My Dreamcast is currently filling that role. But at some point I'll pull them out for some game, or to play Little Green Army men on the Dreamcast.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I believe one reason why there's so little nostalgia for IMB-compatibles is because we're still running them. You could literally take a modern quad-core x86-64 PC and install DOS on it. Set up the SATA hard drive as IED mode, plug in a USB floppy drive, keyboard, and mouse (you'll need to configure "legacy" support in BIOS so the OS recognises them as floppy controller and PS-2 peripherals). Partition your 1 Terabyte hard drive with a 2-Gigabyte (or smaller if you want) FAT partition on it. Leave the rest of the drive space unallocated and unformatted. Your modern video card with cell processors will still happily pump out blissful 16/ 256-color VGA graphics over HDMI and you can run all the DOS games you want. All that extra capable hardware will go unnoticed by the OS. Windows 3.1 will prolly cap out at 256Mb RAM. Your new/old PC will boot in less than 2 seconds. Some DOS games might go a little berserk on a 3+ Ghz processor, but it will work. I remember certain DOS games going berzerk of my 400Mhz Celeron in 1999...

Edited December 7, 2014 by stardust4ever

[82-T/A]

Nothing, actually, you just made a bad decision spending a $100 on a piece of crap. There is nothing classic about Leading Edge systems. Or many other clone systems of the era. It may be special to someone that used it and to whom it was their first computer. But otherwise, no.

 

For example. I like *my* specific DX2-50, it was my *first* PC that I fully owned. And I played Doom on it! Other 486's and x86 in general generate little nostalgia other than a curiosity of what they look like on the inside.

 

 

Not entirely... I would normally agree with you, but Leading Edge was a major distributor back then, just like how Dell or HP is today. Back in the late 80s, you had quite a few, but there were a few prominent ones. Dell wasn't really on the radar, though they did sell systems back then. Leading Edge was a very popular manufacturer back then. Their "hay-day" was in the 286 and 386 era. They were also one of the few distributors to give the customer an option between GeoWorks or Windows 3.0. I'll make my money back on this, probably double it... but totally not excited about going through the effort.

 

 

Mes autres passions principales étant la lecture et la programmation permet ce retour naturel et-vient assez facilement. Parfois, une autre personne vient dans ma vie à faire mes passe-temps magique de nouveau parce que la surprise est de retour. Je pense que les loisirs solitaires sont beaucoup plus vulnérables à la fuite magique, cependant.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------

 

Heh, you translated Omegot's text into French.

[doctorclu]

I'm curious since I am more a fan of the non-PC lines of classic computers: What does those fans of of the "PC" line find so interesting about the older PC's.

 

Sometimes I come across perhaps a cool looking PC but for the most part the PC cases look kinda bland.

 

There are also some PC's with interesting hardware features that might or might not have caught on.

 

And of course there is always the advantage of keeping a Win98 or DOS machine around to run older utilities related to retro computing or perhaps a few older games.

 

But I think to me the older PC line is just basically underpowered versions of what we use today. So curious what a lot of older PC fans like about the older computers?

Edited December 7, 2014 by doctorclu

[AtariLeaf]

I'm really now just starting to explore some of the great old DOS PC games that I used to own and play. Some are really expensive and hard to find now which is making it harder, especially any CIB Lucasarts games. I'm still after a nice 486DX2/66 setup. and yes, there's nothing great about the 486 pc's, they're mostly just bland beige boxes, It's what we ran on them that was great.

[jhd]

 

But I will definitely think twice about turning any of my hobbies into a job again, unless it's my only job.

 

Some people do not understand the distinction -- what is fun for them is a job for others. I used to work in public service, especially catering to a particular hobby/special interest community.

The people that I dealt with were doing this because they enjoyed it. They were utterly unable to understand why the staff were unwilling to work extra hours, weekends, etc. since the activity was so much "fun". There was no understanding that this was their hobby, but that for me it was just a job!

 

On the other hand, one place I worked replaced (most of) the paid staff with unpaid volunteers. The people that were happy to volunteer their time, since this was "fun" became burned-out and quit within a year. They quickly realised that a hobby can easily become a drudge.

[82-T/A]

I'm curious since I am more a fan of the non-PC lines of classic computers: What does those fans of of the "PC" line find so interesting about the older PC's.

 

Sometimes I come across perhaps a cool looking PC but for the most part the PC cases look kinda bland.

 

 

I would say in reality... and for the most part, you are correct. However, there is a clear distinction between a clone PC... like something that literally would have been built from parts that came from the Computer Shopper. This is how the majority of the computers sold by local computer stores were typically made.

 

On the other hand, you had major manufacturers who developed their own motherboards, and many of them went "the extra mile" if you get the metaphore.

 

Generally, the older the computer, the more unique it typically was. When you look at Tandy PCs, you'll notice a distinct difference in the sound production. All other PC compatibles had a 1-voice PC speaker. The Tandy PCs had a 3-voice. Hardly much of a distinction compared to a Commodore's SID chip, or the Atari sound chip.

 

Then when you look at KayPro from the mid 80s... they did things that most other computer manufacturers did not. Imagine 768k of ram on an 8088. You had 640k base, and then the extra 128 was used as a ram drive to store the COMMAND.COM for fast OS performance.

 

The Leading Edge, for example, often came pretty loaded, and it was in a nice clean package. You also had DELL back then which was just starting to do well as an alternate to the business machine. You had the 325P, which was the first mass-produced small form factor PC (about the size of a smallish Dell 990 SFF now).

 

A boring beige box... yeah, kind of lame. It was nicer when you felt like the computer you were using was built with quality... and some manufacturers did that.

 

 

 

I'm really now just starting to explore some of the great old DOS PC games that I used to own and play. Some are really expensive and hard to find now which is making it harder, especially any CIB Lucasarts games. I'm still after a nice 486DX2/66 setup. and yes, there's nothing great about the 486 pc's, they're mostly just bland beige boxes, It's what we ran on them that was great.

 

You can also get an older Pentium computer, like say, a Pentium 66. They basically run at pretty much the same speed, but allow for faster loading times. Might be easier to find one of those than a 486 DX/2. You'll also get PCI slots, so you can get better graphics. I can't remember if the 486 DX/2 had PCI... I think it was just 16-bit ISA slots, and EISA... and of course, VESA local bus.

 

[fujidude]

 

It's pretty obvious to me what you need to do with that big block.

 

Go kart.

 

How about a snow-blower? I swear I saw a V8 on a snow-blower in a video a while back.

[Nebulon]

I'm curious since I am more a fan of the non-PC lines of classic computers: What does those fans of of the "PC" line find so interesting about the older PC's.

 

 

 

Nothing.

 

I think maybe it's partially because older PCs remind me of work (since it was my job to configure, repair, and support them). So now I associate older PCs with work. And yeah, most of the older PC are boring to look at. It wasn't until the gamer-PCs with all their crazy LED lights and other custom doohickies that they started to look more interesting.

[Keatah]

I'm really now just starting to explore some of the great old DOS PC games that I used to own and play. Some are really expensive and hard to find now which is making it harder, especially any CIB Lucasarts games. I'm still after a nice 486DX2/66 setup. and yes, there's nothing great about the 486 pc's, they're mostly just bland beige boxes, It's what we ran on them that was great.

 

Yes, what we had on them was great. The hardware meant little to me (and I suspect everyone else) unless it was something you carefully upgraded and "modded". Since the 486 had slots and ports I upgraded it just like I did my Apple II, each new piece of hardware was carefully chosen and hand-picked for performance and versatility by me. So in a sense, while my DX2/50 was mail ordered from Gateway 2000, I felt like I built it up myself. It came to me as a stripper with a keyboard, powersupply, case, videocard, mobo, hdd, fdd, multi-io card, and monitor. The rest of the stuff, modem, soundblaster, wavetable, 2nd parallel port, memory expansion to 16MB via the M810 expansion card, 2nd ata card, zip disk, snappy digitizer, 2 more hdd, 2nd set of analog joyports, 1x cd-rom, ch flightstick, video bios update, and more, was stuff I added in myself. On a rather expeditious schedule too.

 

Since it was added in in a short time frame I came close to, but not quite, re-capturing the nostalgia of upgrading my Apple II. With the Apple II each piece of hardware was a highly anticipated and planned-for purchase. A fun purchase. A fun experience. But with the PC, things were so "speeded up" I felt I was running downhill straight into a brick wall, bursting through, only to crash into another. That means every new "thing" I wanted to try my system seemed slower and slower and the updates were more costly. The soundcard and cd-rom and wavetable add-ins were like $500!!

 

It also didn't help I didn't have the development tools (or mature mentality) to get into serious programming. Not like on the Apple II - where when I needed something, a warez-guy would fix me up. Nor did I build circuits much, but I did some. I was into those marque scrolling signs made from 16-segment LED's, and I had a blast! But still a far cry from my fantasy adventures with the Apple II and MicroModem.

 

So its overall a mixed bag. And, now, in looking back, it was mainly the software that was "nostalgia building". Doom & Raptor, Microsoft Arcade & Activision ActionPacks, Car & Driver, and many more. I was seeing all sorts of headway being made in PC gaming and knew from right then and there, that this was the premier platform to be in!

 

In going a step further, I had Redshift astronomy software, Fractinit fractal renderer, Vista-Pro landscape generator. PaintShop Pro 3.12 which I still use today. All this stuff sparked my imagination similar to how the Apple II did, and laid groundwork for future advances. That was perhaps the most exciting thing, the future advances we could expect to see. Better capabilities, faster MHz, more memory. How would all that be used! What applications and games would come next? And the wonder and excitement peaked (for me).

 

I never saw the PC as a disposable beige box until after the Pentium II fell out of fashion. Each one had the potential to be a special machine in some way. But the transition from P2 to P3 marked the height of the dark ages for me and shortly thereafter the software itself became important in so many ways including collectability and nostalgia. I'm happy to have kept all my originals and docs from my pc heydays.

 

An old engineer friend that passed away some 10 years ago had taught me the importance of documentation and versions and lists. Today, each payware and freeware bit of software I have on my PC contains complete documentation alongside its appropriate ISO, EXE installer, or ZIP file. The documentation consists of captures of the web page, any online manuals or printed manuals, downloadable PDF or CHM help files, specifications, requirements, or my own notes. Including install procedures and whatnot. I'm very anal about that and it has proved helpful from time to time.

 

Today my PC experience is all about the software.

 

 

I would say in reality... and for the most part, you are correct. However, there is a clear distinction between a clone PC... like something that literally would have been built from parts that came from the Computer Shopper. This is how the majority of the computers sold by local computer stores were typically made.

 

I remember one of my first IT jobs was helping a guy start a computer business from his apartment. It was my duty to peruse the Computer Shopper magazine and place orders and stuff like that. He even would buy other computers that were failing and reconfigure them. For example, the primary IDE controller chip might have a visible burn mark. It was obviously blown up. So he'd cover it with a Sharpie and reconfigure BIOS to boot from secondary. Once the complaints came in I got the hell out of there and went to a real computer store where I was asked to do things I had no clue on how to. I was expert in Apple II, not PC! Sometime later on I went to apply at Comp-USA. But the woman manager scared me by swearing and throwing a fit (and things) all over the place. I forever and ever viewed it as a junk shop thereafter!

 

 

A boring beige box... yeah, kind of lame. It was nicer when you felt like the computer you were using was built with quality... and some manufacturers did that.

 

Yes. My Gateway 2000 486 DX2/50 was that way.

 

 

You can also get an older Pentium computer, like say, a Pentium 66. They basically run at pretty much the same speed, but allow for faster loading times. Might be easier to find one of those than a 486 DX/2. You'll also get PCI slots, so you can get better graphics. I can't remember if the 486 DX/2 had PCI... I think it was just 16-bit ISA slots, and EISA... and of course, VESA local bus.

 

PCI was indeed used on some 486's in their waning years.

 

I always like to say that the 486 didn't saturate PCI enough to be a good match. PCI was sort of geared toward peripherals that needed a lot of software overhead (think winmodems and the first 3D accelerators). Stuff the 486 just couldn't push hard enough.

 

And then there was Plug'n'Play and new chipsets and caching schemes. All this stuff was built around newer architectures of the Pentium. Newer instructions were needed that the 486 didn't support.

[Nebulon]

 

I felt like I built it up myself. It came to me as a stripper with a keyboard, powersupply, case, videocard, mobo, hdd, fdd, multi-io card, and monitor. The rest of the stuff, modem, soundblaster, wavetable, 2nd parallel port, memory expansion to 16MB via the M810 expansion card, 2nd ata card, zip disk, snappy digitizer, 2 more hdd, 2nd set of analog joyports, 1x cd-rom, ch flightstick, video bios update, and more, was stuff I added in myself.

 

This is a good point.

 

A buddy of mine is a massive PC fan (his dad worked for IBM and kept giving him machines over the years). Last time I stopped by his place, there was a Heathkit manual on the coffee table. I think that pretty much sums it up for why a lot of PC people like PCs. It's the sense of frankensteining something together like a kit.