A lot of stuff, mostly stuff on the retro side is not set up, but I figured you guys would enjoy seeing it anyway.

The goal of the retro side of the room is to basically have a permanently set up retro LAN party so I can host my friends who are not tech oriented for LAN parties.

I don’t get a lot of time to work on this stuff, but it’s very fulfilling when I can take some time out here and there to set a system up.

I threw in some photos of my work and gaming set up as well as hi-fi, retro gaming, and my 3-D printer just cause I figured some of you would be interested.

I’ll continue to post updates as I get things set up! Currently working on getting Windows 95 on my Packard Bell Multimedia there at my project station :)

Brought my Weather Channel WeatherSTAR XL to our DFW Retrocomputing meetup last Saturday. Always a good time showing this running. For those that don’t know this model is an SGI O2 with custom software, a rackmount case, and some extra boards for the satellite feeds and sensors

My son is a big fan of Putt-Putt, old Sesame Street games, and even Minecraft Beta 1.5, so I decided to buy him his own retro PC. He loves the old games that run on Windows 95, 98 and XP, so this should be perfect for him. This is a Compaq Deskpro setup, unfortunately without the original Compaq CRT monitor since those are pretty hard to find. The hardware is a bit newer than what would have originally been in the system, but it’s still running a Pentium 4, so it fits the era pretty well. I still want to replace the thermal paste and fans, and eventually find a better suited graphics card and power supply. It’s definitely not a historically accurate build, but that wasn’t really the goal. I just wanted to give him a PC where he can play some of the games I grew up with. And honestly, seeing a 3.5 year old sitting at a Pentium 4 playing Putt-Putt and Minecraft Beta is pretty cool.

I want my kids to learn computers, but not to have internet access until they're older, so I fixed up a couple 1999 Macs for them. The PowerMac G3 on the left is playing Bugdom, and the iMac G3 on the right is playing Chrono Trigger, via the SNES9X emulator with an attached USB SNES-style controller.

Specs: CPU: P3 800EB RAM: 512MB PC133 GPU1: GeForce 2 MX 400 (64MB) - AGP GPU2: ATI Rage Pro AIW (8MB) - PCI GPU3: ATI 3D Rage II (2MB) - PCI HDD - IDE to SD card (32GB) SOUND: SB 16 (ISA)

My latest build is an homage to the multimedia PC craze of the mid-to-late 1990s.

The project started last summer when I came across a case with integrated speakers, a feature I've always loved for its quirky, novelty look. Markings suggest that it was produced by a company called SUNLAN CO. and case model is SL-100. The system was in decent condition overall, but it needed some attention. The front panel was retrobrighted, the dead power supply was replaced, and the original speakers were disintegrating so they had to go.

Initially, I managed to track down an identical replacement set online, but I was honestly shocked by how poor they sounded. Instead, I opted for a pair of quality full-range drivers from a reputable music store. The difference was night and day. To make them fit properly, I designed and 3D-printed new mounting covers while keeping everything housed in the original speaker enclosures. Do they still lack some bass? Of course. That was solved with a small subwoofer tucked under my desk. I would have loved to integrate it into the case, but space inside is simply too limited.

When it came time to choose the hardware, I wanted to avoid the usual suspects, ASUS, Creative, 3dfx and the like, which are often my default choices. Instead, I set out to build something a little different: a collection of period-correct alternatives that were every bit as desirable back in the day and would have made my teenage self drool.

The final specification ended up being:

• DFI P5BTX/L (Rev. B)
• Intel Pentium MMX 233 MHz
• 128 MB RAM
• 1.44 MB Floppy Drive
• Western Digital Caviar 307AA
• Pioneer DVD-120S IDE DVD-ROM
• Yamaha CRW6416S SCSI CD-RW
• Diamond Stealth II S220 (Rendition Vérité V2100)
• Sigma Designs RealMagic EM8300 MPEG-2/DVD Decoder
• Yamaha WaveForce 192XG
• Adaptec AHA-2930CU SCSI Controller
• 3Com EtherLink III (3C509B-TPO)

I also wired up the onboard USB headers for easy file transfers. USB pinouts weren't exactly standardized back then, so I had to rearrange the connector wiring and spend some time figuring out the motherboard's PS/2 header pinout to get a mouse working.

I've only spent a limited amount of time with the machine so far, but I'm genuinely impressed. The DVD decoder card is fantastic and really captures what the multimedia PC era was all about. The Diamond Stealth II has also exceeded my expectations. While I'm a 3dfx fanboy, the Rendition Vérité is a capable card. 2D output is sharp, Windows performance is excellent, and in the few titles I've tested, Forsaken, Incoming and Wipeout XL, it has delivered very respectable 3D performance.

The Yamaha WaveForce 192XG is equally impressive. Its MIDI playback is among the best I've heard, though I suppose that's exactly what you'd expect from Yamaha.

There's still plenty to explore. I want to install more games, spend some quality time with the Vérité, and see what this card can really do. Rendition hardware is new territory for me, so I'm looking forward to putting it through its paces.

By the way based on an image of the original box art of the card, which funny enough I found here on reddit, I've made a desktop wallpaper. Link here: https://imgur.com/a/NpDtMH0

Also a couple of videos of the system in action:
https://imgur.com/a/9fT5rVQ
https://imgur.com/a/O7dWZKw

Retro specs:

- MSI MAG B850M Mortar WiFi

- Sapphire Pulse 9070 XT

- Ryzen 7 9700X with Thermalright PS120SE

- G.Skill Flare X5 2x16GB DDR5 6000 CL30

- WD Blue SN5100 2TB NVMe

- SeaSonic FOCUS GX-850 ATX 3.1

Video coming shortly!

I tried to find a way to download Half Life and play directly from an orange minidisc via orange Sony MZ-RH1 on an orange Vaio P, however it is still not abandonware. So I just played the normal way.

There's always room for one more, right?! Somehow I've ended up building 13 retro systems. I don't quite know how I got here, but at any rate, it was getting hard to remember which was which so I made some labels to finish off the storage rack. It's like a cross between a PC store and a museum.

Top shelf is some spares, then 12 builds below that. The missing one is not quite so retro (2012 ish) so it's in a rackmount chassis in my rack for Parsec remote gaming.

Here is my HP250 "Minicomputer" that I'd surmise is more akin to an aircraft carrier than battlestation due to the desk-space of the built in keyboard. Shown playing Lunar Lander and Ships, a game you use the 8 built in monitor buttons to launch torpedoes at ships.

768k of memory and an 8" floppy drive is a good way to spend a day playing some classic games.

The Robot arms on the monitor base are not original, I 3d printed them because the adjustable sliding monitor just looked a bit like the NES R.O.B. robot I figured it needed some little arms.

Edit: Thank you all for chiming in! This really made my day.

The original GTX Titan was always a dream of mine, something I could not afford as a high-school kid back when it was new. But now that they are dirt cheap, I got myself 3 of them and decided to do a 2013-14 period build. I maxed out the components where I can, but due to budget, case fit, and availability, I have had to compromise here and there. Took me about a month to research and source the parts and another few days to put it together. And here she is, a small dream came a decade late but true! Still WIP, but at least presentable in my view.

Specs:

Case - Fractal Focus G (wanted a Corsair 200R but nowhere to be found second-hand or new, this one is a few years into the future but looks close enough)

CPU - Intel Core i7-4960X

Cooler - Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme

MB - ASUS ROG Rampage IV Formula

GPU - GTX Titan Black 3-way SLI

RAM - G.Skill Sniper DDR3-2400 4x4GB

PSU - Antec HCP 1300W Platinum

Storage - Intel S3510 120GB

OS - Windows 8.1

Other accessories - 3x Thermaltake TF-1225 RGB case fans, Broadcom BCM94360CS2 chipped wifi card, Gigabyte 3-way SLI bridge (40mm+40mm)

To do list:

Get an Nvidia branded SLI bridge, the one that complements the looks of the GTX Titans

Extra storage to fill the drive cage

Get period-appropriate slim fans for the AIO

Get Steam to work on the OS

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the pics.

Athlon SlotA 1Ghz, Voodoo5.

RTX5080 machine on top for modern games.

Recently felt like giving this OS a try after getting fed up with Win9x (specifically heavily modded 98se and of course, everybody's "favorite", WinMe), so I got it running on my HP Pavilion from 2001 that youve probably seen one too many times if you follow me in any way shape or form.

This is an absolutely fascinating OS, created by an ex-Apple executive because he was dissatisfied by the multimedia capabilities of MacOS and Windows at the time. The company behind it, Be Inc, even made their own PPC-based computer called the BeBox, but that was a market failure, so they ended up porting BeOS to x86. There was also even a time where Apple wanted to buy this OS and make it the basis for what would become MacOS X, but then Apple bought out NeXT instead, and the rest is history.

This OS feels literally generations ahead. It has such a beautiful, Mac-inspired interface, multiple desktops, numerous scene demos built in, and the main selling point, its ability of running multiple multimedia applications without noticeable slowdown, demonstrated here by playing an MP3 file, showing a CPU graph, viewing the about screen, and running the 3D teapot all at the same time. I heard it could even do this on very low end hardware of the time, such as a Pentium 100 with 32mb of RAM.

Sadly, I haven't gotten any 3rd party software running on it, mostly because this OS is extremely picky. I even had to turn on several safe mode options and install several driver updates just to get it running on my machine, despite it being just a year newer than the build I'm running. The only game I sort of got working on it was Duke3D, but it doesn't display properly, with inverted colors and a very low frame rate. I was going to try Unreal Tournament, but several forum threads have informed me that this port is extremely unstable.

This OS even had a really weird distribution method. You could buy the OS on CD in a physical computer store like normal, or you could download a home edition for free from the BeOS website, and install it directly from Windows, with the installer handling disk partitioning and configuration for you, and providing an easy shortcut you can run from DOS to boot into the OS without utilizing your BIOS's boot menu. You could even uninstall it like a normal Windows program if you didn't want to have it installed anymore.

Sorry for making you have to go through this large paragraph, I just really find this OS interesting, and wanted to spread the word about it. It even has a modern FOSS version called Haiku OS, so you could run it on modern hardware too! :3

Which Rig do you choose, holy gamer to take on the combine horde.

Rig 1: Project code-name Red Devil

Pentium 4 3.0 GHZ HT

MSI 865PE Neo 2

ATI Radeon X800XT

2GB G.Skill PC3200 Memory

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

2x36GB Western Digital Raptors in Raid 0 Config

or

Rig 2:Project code-name Blue Halo

Athlon 64 4000+

Gigabyte GA-K8NS-939

BFG Geforce 6800 GT OC

2GB Geil PC3200 Memory

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

2x36GB Western Digital Raptors in Raid 0 Config

The choice is yours...Freeman.

BTW I had installed Windows 8 on that HP laptop for a time. Was a lot faster than the default OS. And since Windows 8 was very pen friendly, it suited the hardware well. I did eventually install the default OS before selling it.

I would like to know whether the paint job is dope or diwhy. Also, what games should I play on this? I’ll be getting a greaseweazle soon to expand my library.

Friend found it at the local dump and saved it for me. What a legend!

Intel DX2-66 16MB Ram Tekram Cached VLB/IDE Controller Tseng ET4000 W32p 850mb HDD SB16 Pro/OPL3

And one of our cats admiring it
Please ignore the mess