Vintage gaming on Old Ass Computers

[nathanallan]

Started from another thread, how many people here liek to build the occaisional Retro Rig?

Right now I have two machines, both eMachines, both 300mhz. Not really old by my standards, but still past their prime. On the AMD equipped one (the other is a Cyrix), there are two hdds, one the original 4gig and added a 12gig, 256MB ram, ATI II something 3D graphics, AWE32 SoundBlaster (amazing the drivers aren't broken), running Windows 98. So far I have loaded a Genesis emulator, SOnic CD for win95 and Mega Man X. I have here Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider 2, Doom and a few Duke Nukem titles that I intend to get going.

Something I would really like to do is get that Black Box I have building that messed up (something about the hardware working wrong with Win2K), but get it working again, but with a totally different OS specifically for gaming and loading roms. Yes, I mean emulation, if it rubs you the wrong way sorry (cause I'm still into it).

Linux seems to be a really good start, something that will load up a nice screen tailored to look like the front end of a game machine, NOT something windows or OS specific (I like penguins but...) and so far no luck. I wish I could code better! BASIC doesn't do so much for me this way.

[Rusty Venture]

I have a 500Mhz I found by the dumpster that I upgraded from the HP Pavillion it was, into the machine it is today

AMD 500Mhz
384meg of RAM (maxed out!)
20gig HDD
Soundblaster Live! X-Treme Gamer
VooDoo 3
Windows 98

Put it in a new case because the one it came in had no space to work in, and cooling was limited to the processor & PS fan. Now its got cooling overkill.

[David J.]

I thought about a retro machine, but meh... it's hard to get an old computer here for cheap. I did spend all weekend working on my two newer computers.

[Guntz]

As of right now, the only vintage computer we own is a ton of G3 iMacs and an old Toshiba Laptop running Windows 98SE with a broken AC adapter jack.

WAY back in the day, mid 90s, my folks owned an Apple][e which us kids used for gaming while my Mom had an Apple][gs for business. My old man threw out all of that several years later. I still can't believe that actually happened... Now I don't have the space to buy one again. Not to mention they're excruciatingly pricey and the disks are insanely hard to find. Even just backups for burning games onto, I could care less for the masters.

[Namakubi]

Now if you wanted to get REALLY retro, I'd kill for a working Amiga 500, just to play all the fantastic Amiga games like Turrican that the Europeans were always freaking out about.

[j_factor]

Amiga 500s aren't that hard to get a hold of. It was the most popular Amiga model, after all.

The only old computer I have is a Commodore 64. But I don't own any games for it, so I fail.

[Rusty Venture]

WAY back in the day, mid 90s, my folks owned an Apple][e which us kids used for gaming while my Mom had an Apple][gs for business. My old man threw out all of that several years later. I still can't believe that actually happened... Now I don't have the space to buy one again. Not to mention they're excruciatingly pricey and the disks are insanely hard to find. Even just backups for burning games onto, I could care less for the masters.

There is an Apple //c //gs emulator that runs in browser on the in-tar-web.

I remember telling my dad about it and showing it to him (we used to have a //c). He was less than nostalgic about the trip down memory lane. I'm kinda glad I don't have to type all commands and load disks all the time. I also like the upgrade to mouse and keyboard...and also an internal HDD.

[Flygon]

All of my old computers have died... my father never understood the concept of buying new thermal paste.

Shame, getting Windows 98SE to run inside a VM isn't being a very friendly experience, all I want to do is play Civilization II on a 64-bit machine... using a 'dedicated' computer is the next best choice (That, or I get off my ass and get Windows XP to run inside a VM).

[Rusty Venture]

I've tried to get Win98 to run nice in VM's and its a lost cause.

Virtualbox doesn't have additions, Virtual PC 2007 wouldn't let me use high resolution and 32-bit colors...plus "Blood" kept looking for network players even when I disabled network. And don't get me started on WINE.

My dedicated machine lets me play my older games without problems (mostly) and that is how I get my Win98 gaming fix.

[NeoVamp]

And here i thought this was going to be a thread where i could discuss my C64 and MSX2..

PC side the oldest thing i have is a dedicated 166mhz DOS pc with.. a weird ammount of ram,
I think.. 300mb or something?

AWE32 Soundblaster card and.. well some sort of graphics card and one of them loopthrough 3DFX cards.

[Baloo]

I've got my trusty Tandy 1000 SX right here next to me, don't really have enough games for it though, only one. Ducktales: The Quest for Gold. I still want to get that DOS TMNT game (not the port, the entirely original one), Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, and maybe some others.

[Devil N]

And here i thought this was going to be a thread where i could discuss my C64 and MSX2..

Yeah, so far this topic has been suspiciously little about old ass computers. 300 Mhz Pentiums? Feh, that's not old at all.

Back at my parent's house I've got a small collection of late 80's Macintosh computers, ranging from a 1986 Macintosh ED to a 1989 Macintosh IIci. All of them equipped with good ol' Motorola 68k processors. Black-and-white Lode Runner and Fool's Errand FTW!

[bohokii]

i find the nesticle,genecyst and callus work well with slow old computers at least post win95 computers

[Guntz]

There is an Apple //c //gs emulator that runs in browser on the in-tar-web.

I know, but in my experience Apple][ emulators have horrible joystick emulation. I was trying to play Gremlins 2 on a few different emus and the game simply refused to work. All I know is despite all the disk loading and command entering, at least machine actually worked.

[fatboy]

I have a bunch of old rigs set up:

1st: My Win98se machine, "Miller". I call it that because during the eight days I spent building it, and almost every time I play it, there always seems to be a beer either in My hand or within My line of sight This system was built with Mechwarrior 3 in mind, because that game is a salty pain in the ass to run on XP, but I have plenty of other 98se-era games I run on it, too.
It has:
Mobo: ASUS P2B-F. RAM: 256 MB. CPU: Intel Pentium III 800 Mhz slot 1.
20 Gb Hard drive.
Optical: DVD-ROM, CD-RW.
Floppy: 3.5, 5.25
Sound: Soundblaster 128PCI.
Graphics: Nvidia GEforce2 GTS. Monitor: Samsung 753df 16" viewable flat CRT.

2nd: "Nightmare", My DOS machine. I call it this because of the unspeakable hell I went through jimmy-rigging the wrong type of drive rails for the tower just so I could mount My floppy and CD-ROM. I put this one together because there are tons of programs that just don't run right in DOSBOX. The system is packed up in a closet right now, so I have to recall the specs' from memory and what support files I have on My main system:
Mobo: FIRST INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER, INC. 486-GVT-2 (AT Type)
Ram: 20Mb (I think) CPU: Intel 486DX2 66 Mhz.
I/O: DATA TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION DTC2278S VLB I/O card.
Hard drive: 425 Mb (Roughly)
Floppy: 3.5, 5.25
Optical: Toshiba 40X CD-ROM
Sound: Soundblaster 16 ISA ( Model CT1740 )
Graphics: ATI VLB (can't remember the Exact specs )

I also have a Commodore SX-64. (The sort-of portable version) and a few hundred floppys for it. On top of that I have two Commodre Amiga A500's, one running OS 1.3, the other running ver. 2-something. Both systems have problems, though

As You can see, I have WWWAAAAAAYYYYY to much time on My hands