The Retro PC Thread

[Ziggy]

Scored one of these off the side of the road...


(Not my image).

Haven't tested it yet, but it looks like it's a typical 17" 1024 x 728 bubble screen CRT. I already have two 17" CRTs, but they're both black. I kinda wanted a beige one to match my beige PCs.

On the side of the road with this monitor was also a printer, speakers and a keyboard. I kinda wanted the keyboard, but it was face down and I couldn't identify it. I was stopped for a red light and had my passenger jump out and grab the monitor. The light had already turned green so I told him to jump back in. It was a beige keyboard, so I guess it could have been a clicky. But this monitor was manufactured around the year 2000, so it was most likely a Dell Quiet Touch. Not that I wouldn't want it, but it isn't anything special.

[fastbilly1]

had my passenger jump out and grab the monitor

No wonder we get along so well.

[Ziggy]

Me: I picked up a new video card.

Co-worker: Oh yeah? What kind?

Me: A GeForce 6800.

Co-worker:



I recently got one of these off eBay for $15. I need an AGP video card for a PC that I wanna dual boot 98 and XP. So I figure I want the best card possible for XP that still has drivers for 98. What I'd really like is a 3dfx, but they seem to be too pricey for me. So I ended up getting the 6800 because the price was right.

[samsonlonghair]

Is that an s-video port? Cool!

[isiolia]

Nice. I had a 6800 at one time, though I have long since given it away, as is the fate of most of my computer parts.

[Sarge]

I've got a 6800 Ultra that isn't being used, mainly because it sucks up a massive amount of power, and my thermal situation in my older PC I just set back up is questionable at best. It's a really good legacy card, though!

Instead, I've got it outfitted with a PCI-based (at least I think it is) GeForce FX 5200 with 256MB of RAM. That's more than enough for what I wanted it for, a Windows XP machine that can run some of the older '95/'98 games my Windows 7 laptop seems to choke on. (Specifically, I scored a copy of Forsaken, and getting it going without finding the open source port (Project X) proved a nightmare. It spun right up on this rig.

The GPU is paired up with an Athlon XP 2600+ and 1GB of RAM. It's not too bad at all. Only frustrating part is that with XP, you really can't do much online (and you really don't want to!), but finding drivers for my stuff required manually pulling stuff from my lappy over to the desktop.

[samsonlonghair]

Only frustrating part is that with XP, you really can't do much online (and you really don't want to!), but finding drivers for my stuff required manually pulling stuff from my lappy over to the desktop.

Yeah, I would just go ahead and disable that network card altogether.

[Sarge]

Yeah, I had it on for a little bit, and then just decided to disable it entirely. About the only thing I'd trust doing is setting up a local FTP or something with my own machine for transferring files instead of via flash drive. Heck, you can't even hit the Windows servers anymore to download Microsoft's version of the drivers, so I had to go traipsing around for a bunch of them.

[CRTGAMER]

Instead, I've got it outfitted with a PCI-based (at least I think it is) GeForce FX 5200 with 256MB of RAM. That's more than enough for what I wanted it for, a Windows XP machine that can run some of the older '95/'98 games my Windows 7 laptop seems to choke on. (Specifically, I scored a copy of Forsaken, and getting it going without finding the open source port (Project X) proved a nightmare. It spun right up on this rig.

Only frustrating part is that with XP, you really can't do much online (and you really don't want to!), but finding drivers for my stuff required manually pulling stuff from my lappy over to the desktop.

Yeah, I would just go ahead and disable that network card altogether.

My Pentium 4 tower has Windows XP Pro Service Pack 3 for supporting all my older Win 95 and XP games. No issue with Firefox browsing online, watching YouTube and downloading. No it will not run the newest games, but does run Mame and the older OS games just fine at full frame rate.

[isiolia]

Really? My Pentium 4 desktop has Windows XP for supporting all my older Win 95 and XP games. No issue with Firefox browsing online, watching YouTube and downloading.

Firefox is something of an exception for still supporting XP (part of why they extended support until next year). However, the OS itself is still a bit of a security risk to have on the open internet. Most home machines are behind a router anyway, which helps some, but still. You're looking at running (mostly) old versions of applications on a no-longer-patched OS, and that's just not a good idea to have online.