What is the Cadillac of old computers (mid-early 90s)? For old DOS games, primarily

[blue lander]

I'd avoid the old Compaqs, actually. The damn things use mostly proprietary parts that are difficult to replace (or upgrade) unless you get them from another Compaq.

Personally I'd just stick with DOSBox. I've never seen the allure of mid-90's computers, they're all just soulless gray identical boxes, and there's little challenge in setting them up. Older PCs from the very early 80's are much more interesting.

[OldSchoolGamer]

You do not have to sign up or log in if you just want to download games. Also, look at the sticky threads.

Thanks man! I Emailed for manual activation!

[Ed Oscuro]

Some random thoughts from me:

1.) Thift stores for the win. $100 (as was mentioned earlier in this thread) is way too much to be paying for a system unless you have a very specific need (i.e. I want to play Tomb Raider on a Voodoo 5 6000 - then you might have some problems).

2.) No brand of computer is uniformly great. Packard Bells aren't always awesome. Mine is a real pain to mess around with due to the insane case configuration (odd mainboard with huge daughterboard sticking straight up inside the case, as I recall). Even installing RAM is a major chore.

Thus, buy for the configuration. A regular old-fashioned tower is your friend.

3.) If you only want to play a few games, there may be solutions ready for you. $60 a year, for example, will let you play GameTap and they have a lot of DOS games and especially Win95-present titles working pretty well (but then some games aren't working so well). It may work for you - or not.

Also, if anybody wants them, I've got some old PC parts lying about that I should get rid of. Have a few 386-era motherboards, a few old power supplies, a lot of EDO RAM, and most of an old Compaq Deskpro. Anybody wants me to take pictures, I'll do it. Unfortunately shipping could be a problem, which is why I recommend thrifts (better yet, side-of-road finds, although I haven't verfied if the 486DX/66 I found that way works).

Oh yes - I recently bought a nice 5.25" drive off eBay. When I get 'round to it, it'll go in my new PC (and I hope it works - if not I'll put it in one of my older PCs).

[PentiumMMX]

For a PC, Anything by NEC.

Their PCs are built like tanks (Metal case!) and work great (I know, I have had the same one for 10 years, and it still works just as good as it did out of the box). I'd say that would be the true Cadillac of PCs, and would work good enough for what you're trying to do.

(I'll post a pic of mine if you want to see it)

[Ed Oscuro]

Oh, GREAT suggestion! They do make some great hardware.

I would try to counter with Grid but it's hard even finding a model with a color screen XD

[Jorpho]

I suddenly recall the good Mr. Trixter's lauding of the Dell Optiplex GXpro 200. It does sound like it has some nice advantages, and a 200 MHz Pentium Pro sounds like a good middle-range speed: fast, but not too fast.

http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/friendlyboxes

[scorch56]

In the next few weeks I'll be building my new PC (hopefully.. if I sell my collection lot).. in the meantime I'm upgrading my old W9X box. I've been posting about my "graphics" problems here and over at Underdogs in the past. My W9X machine has been sorely lacking in the graphics department on account of it had a PCChips mobo with an onboard TNT2 (the ONLY mobo of it's era with an onboard Nvidia chip). At the most.. you can only dedicate 32 megs of your RAM to it.. so I can't even play some of the later W9X games (like X2 & Homeworld 2). A few weeks ago I got my hand on a brand new GeForce 4000 PCI card w/64 megs and trying to install it on this mobo turned into a nightmare. In the end.. it was the fact that I ALREADY had an Nvidia chip onboard that doomed me. There was no way to actually disable the onboard chip, so the two sets of Nvidia drivers conflicted. I tried everything.

So last night I bought another mobo.. it's a Gigabyte that still supports my 800Mhz 133 FSB processor and will accomodate my 512 megs of PC-133 RAM (Crucial - CL2). I also acuired an 80 gig ATA 100 WD Caviar a few weeks ago (the limited edition one w/8 meg cache and 7200 RPM). This new mobo should accomodate all this stuff just fine including my new PCI vid card (even though it's got an AGP slot and onboard Intel graphics which CAN be disabled). When I get it set up (in a new case because the old mobo is a mATX in a small case) in my "Demon" full-size that I've had laying around for 3 years.. but brand new.. this will be my final, maxed out W9X box; should be a screamer.

I'm also planning to use it as my DOS box for now.. but I'll have to most definitely use some slowdown utilities in DOS 7.0. Later on.. I plan to get an old, old laptop with a color screen strictly for DOS games and put nothing but 6.22 on it.

BTW.. I'm also going to drop a Soundblaster Live Gamer in it (although this mobo DOES have an onboard Creative sound chip.. imagine that.. another "oddity") AND.. my two 12 meg Voodoo 2's in SLI. I bought two 8 meg Voodoo 2's at first.. but was dismayed to find out that 2-8 meggers in SLI still can't do 1024 X 768.. so I got the two 12's. I'll post pictures when I'm done.. it'll look awesome. My case is a custom w/windows & lights (blue/red as I recall) the mobo is blue, the GF is blue, and the two Voodoos and SB Live are black. It'll be the first mod-case I've ever had. It was the case I was going to use for my new computer.. but I've decided to go subtle on it.. probably solid black since I'm building it to be an HTPC basically.

I'll probably get rid of the PCChips mobo.. I don't need it anymore and it would still make a good W9X/DOS box for someone.. the TNT2 still makes a good video solution for most W9X games up until the "Medal of Honor" era (That's when this board started coming up short). It also has onboard sound.. though it's a Crystal chip. The board I just bought comes with an 866Mhz CPU but the seller doesn't know if it's an EB model (as in 133 FSB).. either way.. I'll be getting rid of one of the CPUs.. and I STILL have both of those 8 meg Voodoo 2's. Some RAM is coming with the board but I don't know if it's 100 or 133.

Besides DOS.. I'm hoping I can get some decent N64 and PSX emulators up and finally running; and maybe DOSBox will run better as well.

BTW.. the original System Shock needed 128 megs of RAM?! Are you sure?

[c0ldb33r]

For a PC, Anything by NEC.
...

(I'll post a pic of mine if you want to see it)

Please do

[PentiumMMX]

Here's my PC, like you asked:



(Don't get online with it anymore, but I used to. I use a more powerful PC for internet surfing)

[s1lence]

I just built my own old machine out of parts I had laying around my house. Voodoo 3 video card, P200 processor, SB16 sound, it rocks the old games. If I need a better card I have a voodoo 4 and 5 sitting around as well.

[Jorpho]

Say, do we have a thread about the new DOSBox version 0.70 ? Perhaps we should.