tell us about your first computer, and your experiences clicking, typing, gaming and shitposting in the days of retro.
>>12466259Our family's first computer was a Packard Bell Windows 95 machine that came with Packard Bell Navigator (pic related). I was like 4 so memory is a bit hazy, but I do remember fucking around in Journeyman Project (which came with the PC)First machine I started properly gaming on was the Windows 98 PC my dad bought a few years later (which had a Voodoo card, but I don't remember which one exactly). First game I had for it was Rayman 2 which is still one my favorite games. Around that time I was introduced to emulation with Nesticle and played Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (which we called "Baby Mario")
>>12466259
first computer was some beige tower (ibm i think) that ran windows 3.1. started my shitposting career online i think in 1994 with the prodigy service
>>12466259>Most heterosexual PC gamer
Trying to get an Acer Aspire X1700 mobo to work, but it's getting stuck on checking NVRAM. Checked all the components and cleared the CMOS multiple times, and nothing. I can still get into the BIOS if I'm quick enough. Any fixes, preferably ones that doesn't involve spending any more money?
I grew up with an Apple IIGS and an IBM 5170. Not sure which I used more or first.I played plenty of 80s games but remember very few of them.
I think it was a 386 or a 486 running MS-DOS 6 and Windows 3.1. I played Solitaire on it. Many adventures were had but I don't feel like writing a long post about it.
>>12466259was some Dell piece of shit with windows 95. came with a port of battlezone along with some other games i don't remember. i remember playing warcraft 2 on some service on america online, pre-battle.net. given that i was 5 though i was fucking shit. not even sure if i ever even really played against people because i always used the cheats.
it was called wang lol
>>12466259The first computer I must've used was our Atari XE (not sure exactly which one, maybe the 65XE), but I remember close to nothing about it other than maybe playing Dig Dug on it. Later on my dad bought a relatively cheap generic 386 for use at one of his stores as a POS system, but when times got tough and he had to close that store to cut costs, he brought the 386 home. It had DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 installed, and I wanna say it was SVGA-capable, but it didn't have a sound card. Still, I played around a lot with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Prince of Persia, and a cut-down version of Pinball Dreams called Pinball 2000. I believe we had a few WEP games installed, too, such as Klotski, Rodent's Revenge, and Taipei. Good shit, honestly. Maybe someday I'll try to recreate it on 86Box or something.
I first got a VIC-20 around 1981 or so, and I loved that clunky little box. My dad was based and bought a thing called The Motherboard that allowed you to dump cartridge images to and from cassette tapes, so we could rent games and pirate them. I think my favorite was a janky Scramble clone called Raid on Isram, though I really dug the Scott Adams adventure games, Gridrunner, and Scorpion
>>12466259This is one of the remaining pieces of my first computer. A keyboard featuring clicky "space invaders" switches. The typing feel is still amazing, but it is not really suited for gaming, yet I still played through Wing Commander 2 and most of X-Wing using it primarily without a mouse nor flightstick, hard to believe. It was connected to originally a 286-12MHz machine. Even back then I had a habit of loading up the RAM as it had a whopping 4MB, and it had a 40MB HDD (before adding a secondary slave 80MB one). Unlike all the explanations online, the turbo button specifically for mine was toggled on for the full 12MHz and un-toggled for 8MHz compatibility with older 8086 games. I do love the machine, but it was last a 486DX4-100MHz before I had to move on from it. The games played in those days were some great experiences.
Let’s say I’m autistic enough to have my own NAS, inventory, and other shit on an isolated setup (nothing is connected to the internet). Which PC should I consider? I already have a 17-inch iMac G4 in my living room next to my phone, but I want a PC at my storage to make it easier for the inventory. An Atari XEGS + FujiNet? I'm clueless.
Great thread!Pictured are custom made(SOJ to DIL) 128K cache srams.
Bought a few Terratec sound cards - both Base1 and EWS64S. Some hogh octane 486 boards, Am5x86s, Socket 4 boards, cases, etc.Pictured is a Ga-486AM/S running the Am5x86 at 4x50mhz with all settings at maximum.
One of my favorite cases...
Back when I was living on the country side I had a few very nice CRTs... unfortunately I sold most of them.
The miroSOUND PCM12 is one of my favorite sound cards - 2MiB sample rom and fully compatible under DOS. PCM10 and Pro are only "Midi capable" under Windows.
>>12466723Nice keyboard - I only had the chance to experience the 286 era at a friend's house. He had a vga card installed which impressed quite the heck out of me.
my first computer was the popular in 2000s white computer with quadratic monitor, i played there disciples 2, warcraft 3, nfs underground 2, call of duty 2, pocket tanks and game about motorcycles racing(i forgot the name). there was <100 gb memory <1 gb ram and processor intel semprom
>>12466259No idea what the first computer I had was because me big dumb but it played command and conquer and red alert, which was enough for me to play every weekend until my eyes bled after early morning Saturday soccer games. Good times. I do wish I knew what it was now tho. It had to have been a windows 95 compatible and it was around 98-99 pretty sure the computer was a hand me down tho because no way could we afford it at the time.
I've been looking into how many machines you would need to be able to run almost every DOS and PC booter game (not counting downclocking or disabling cache shenanigans). So far what I'm getting is that you need some manner of 8088 running at 4.77 MHz (maybe ideally a Tandy for its superior sound and graphics) for the super early games, and a 386 between 20-33 MHz for later ones that still run too fast on 486 and Pentium systems. I'm guessing late-era DOS wants a Pentium 75-100 or thereabouts. Anything else?
>>12467353One could maybe add a P4 with a good gfx card to give high resolution build games some fps boost.A faster 386 could be "emulated" by a 486 sitting on a board that has options to run below 33mhz front side bus - some manage go as low as 16. 25mhz fsb is assured by many 486 boards and can be coupled with a 486dx to "take it slow".
I remember having five of these Kingston 486 Turbo chips - some of the beige plastic always reminded me of the original Alien movie.
an A600HDa real beautand had a shoe box full of pirated floppies to go with it
>>12466478You know something funny? I actually cheated a bunch in diablo singleplayer because i wanted to figure out stuff and not go through the whole thing again.That was my introduction to modding. Now i often prefer games that i can strip down and change the experience to my liking. And if i can't, i just create my own challenges and use debug/cheats to coordinate it.For example: I made a mod that swaps all enemies in RE4 with either J.J. (Machine gun guy) or Regenerators. It was one of the wackiest shit i've done, and i still love mangling games like this. It's like grafitti.Lots of retries didn't matter, it was so silly and engaging
Orchids Voodoo cards were also cool - miss the clicking of the relay.
>>12467789I remember seeing these in the local electronics shops, long after I had sold my A500.
>>12466259my first shitpost
>>12467007Thanks. I already experienced the Tandy 1000 at my cousins' but my first computer was that 286-12 utilizing the graphics on the upper right. So I focused on getting everything that was VGA which led me to a lot of the games I loved. It was short lived as a 286-12 for about a year before it became a 386DX-40MHz for the majority of its life thanks to the free upgrade by family to the upper left VGA card. VGA graphics was my era never failing to impress alright.
>>12468559The Tseng is sweet - never owned one
Some more random cpus.
Had three of these but due to moving I had to sell them. Sweet Crts made in 2005.
>>12469687Man, I used to have a small CPU collection long ago. Had some pretty rare ones, too.
>>12469874Did you have the ultimate 486?
>>12470267No, though I did come across a machine with a 100 MHz AMD 486 processor once. I think it's still in storage at my dad's.
>>12469691How much did you get?
What was it like right before Doom came out?Perhaps i'm specifically talking about the triennium 1990-1992, the period that goes from late 1989 to early 1993.
>>12470447Well, it wasn't full of gay nigger faggots like you, asking for content for their shitty Youtube video
>>12470442I sold them to enthusiast - 150 for the trio. I would have never parted ways but if you do not have the room to use them appropriately it sucks.
>>12470730Could have easily gotten 300 bucks a piece.
>>12470731Money is not that important - hope they're well taken care of.
>>12470731kill yourself
>>12468410Sega Syster?
bump
>>12466259>no c64 light powered on>no 1541 powered oncringe fake photo.
>>12470690what kind of fucking answer is that you stupid fucking cuntwhat a way to shit on this threadwhat a fuckhead
>>12472685>what kind of fucking answer is thatAn answer to a zoomie nigger like you who's asking this board for info for his gay ass Youtube video
>>12472705go eat some different shit you stupid fucking autist cuntwtf lmaostupid fucking mental cunt
Anyone here experienced with memory management under DOS? I've been working primarily with Phil's startup menu since up to this point it has just worked for pretty much everything, but upon trying to run the CD version of Epic Pinball, it hit me with a message saying I did not have sufficient memory available, and none of the options (EMS, XMS, conventional only, without mouse or CD drivers) seemed to free up enough space. I ended up freeing up just enough via googling and changing some things in config.sys (I forget what exactly it is that did the trick), but now I'm wondering if there's more I should be doing. For the record, this is under Windows 98's DOS mode, and I already replaced the CD-ROM driver with the one from FreeDOS. I've seen a good bunch of posts online about best practices, but I'd like to hear what you all typically do to get as much conventional memory back beyond moving stuff to upper memory.
>>12473185Win98's himem eats a ton of conventional memory, try himemx
>>12466259First home computer was a monochrome 286 (parents computer) and the only game was some golf shit. Tiny little monitor thay glowed green and looked like shit.I eventually got my own 386 and first games were battle chess and kings bounty, plus hero quest(before it was renamed "quest for glory".Eventually upgraded to a trident video card and entered the VGA era with wing commander and 686 attack sub.First SVGA game I played wasScorched Earth. It was the best shareware game until the arrival of doom.
>>12473562Ah, well I'll look into it. I'm wondering what games could require more conventional memory, though. Epic Pinball wants 560K.
>>12472669That's not a C64 on the monitors, dude
>>12473663Wipeout needs close to 600k iirc
>>12471150>Sega ESL?Yes. That.
bamp
People do talk about retro computer gaming on /vr/, they said.
>>12477593Sure, make a Amiga shitposting thread, guaranteed replies.
>>12477593You can also try /g/
>>12477607/g/'s /retro/ threads are deader than dead nowadays
>>12477640/g/ has retro threads?
>>12477642Used to like 10 years ago
>>12477607Yeah. And while we're at it, keep the game threads in /v/.
Too few ISA sound cards around...
One of the nicest late era 486 boards... the Biostar MB-8433UUD
>>12477905But not perfect. It has an odin battery instead of a coin cell
I remember playing midtown madness 2 on an old windows ME packard bell that really was not up to the task so the game ran at 15fps on a good day. The mission where you have to ram the blue ford pickup off the road took forever under such conditions as looking at it (and the effect of churning grass it threw up) killed performance even more. I also remember C&C tibsun running like shit on the machine as well. I have some vague memory of using some software like packard bell navigator but that is at the very edges of memory.It is because of those experiences I have embraced throwing newer hardware at old games to play them at higher framerates and resolutions and to not go back to the old bad days.My first PC though was some ex-office windows 3.1 hulking great IBM machine of some sort that someone loaded a whole shitload of shareware onto (I vividly remember duke nukem and its crunchy sounds). I forget what happened to it but I do remember the hard drive got so fragmented a defrag took all night.
>>12466259>your first computer,why are you datamining me again?it's my uncle's IBM clone XT machine if that counts.bought with my own money? old warehouse stock Pentium 2 rig from HP.
>>12477646never knew. i always thought they just shilled their loonix riceing , or shill stupid china phones.
Which retro/vintage computer would give me the image of a person who hates PC gaming, hates Half Life, hates Gabe Newell, hates playing with a keyboard and mouse, and wants a totally anti-PC gaming computer?
>>12478548Steam dickriders killed PC gaming so your post seems a little contradictory
>>12478556Look, I hate Gabe Newell, and I also hate and reject that Steam crap.I'd love a PC that's totally anti-gaming, one that gives me the image of someone who hates PC gaming and hates Gabe Newell.
>>12478565install loonix on an Xbox.
>>12477931It hasn't been modified yet.
Terratec's EWS64 - pretty nice card if you're into all-in-one wavetable solutions. Granted...not as nice as their very own Maestro 32/96 though.
eXoDOS is NOT BaSeD.Thank you for attention to this matter
>>12478516https://desuarchive.org/g/search/subject/%2Fretro%2F/type/op/page/14/
>>12479423it's crazy how far downhill /g/ has gone, I used to browse there a lot but now I find it unusable
>>12479879That goes for literally every thread, general, and board on 4chan over the past decade. For every person that is interested in genuine discussion, there are ten that just want to shitpost.
>>12479879>>12479885First downfall was 2007 - 2017, second downfall is 2018 - still going on.
>>12479896I feel like 2020 is where I can pinpoint everything going to total shit
>>12466259got addicted to the internet using computers at school and family PCs from 97-2003 so it was a HUGE deal when I finally got my first computer of my own that would go in my room, some laptop, in 2004 when I was 13. Honestly life changing because then my internet addiction went off the rails having my own private access anytime I wanted. Funny thing is we didnt have wifi when I first got that computer, but by sheer divine luck there was one spot in my room near the window where I could reach a neighbor's wifi which was totally unsecured and I used that connection for years (the connection sucked too, I remember torrenting shit at 10 kb/s for days at a time). The things I remember most from those early days were newgrounds and other flash sites, classic 4chan /b/ era, ytmnd, IRC chat, playing diablo 1 for the first time with my IRC buddies, posting on actual forums with avatars and signatures, posting a ton on gamefaqs forums for specific vidya you were into, and having a blast torrenting whatever media I wanted. One thing that's stuck with me are laptops, Ive never owned a desktop because Ive just always had laptops and they are much comfier for me.
i remember playing Reading and Me off of a 5 1/4 floppyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKWrIMZy38Yand Larry Bird vs Jordon 1 on 1
>>12480429Quite the nostalgic experience
>>12466259>lil Howies math and acid trip adventure>minesweeper>asteroids>some weird paint by numbers thing with bizarre pictures>shitposting in chat rooms>occasionally people would ask me for my number and I'd send them a random number from the white pages
