/retro/

Old thread still has plenty of posts left. Not needed.

>>43063824

It's gonna die sooner or later, plus we need a better OP/pasta for these things.

>>43063812
I do prefer this OP, it develops more on what is accepted.

I was pretty worried we'd end up with a bad copypasta, but this one is nice.

First Computer Chronicles post of the thread!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQbwgnw41UI

>>43063812
Everyone go to >>43064606, we don't need three of these.

>>43064634
This one came first, use this one.

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>>43063812
best laptop keyboard

>>43064076
I can't keep my eyes off that combover.

>>43064742

>tfw my friend totally fried the hinges on my 701cs and I had to behead it

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Amiga, why did you never catch on? ;-;

>>43064803
A jew and a paki.

>>43064803

>tfw I'll never own a 128D

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Here's a [german] HP-HIL keyboard similar to what would have been attached to earlier HP Vectras discussed in the last thread.

This one is from a 9000, though. I don't know if they shipped their PC-compatibles with the same keyboard.

>>43065241
That's a pretty cool looking numpad

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>>43065824

Why the fuck would OS X be tolerated but not XP?

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>>43065824
>>43065841

>>43065849
OSX of similar era has nearly no users
XP still has reasonable marketshare.

Timewise it is indeed confusing, but it's a necessary evil. I don't think anyone would be too flustered if you posted a little XP stuff (beta versions and such).

>>43065849
OS X isn't just one version of the operating system. We are getting the tenth major release of OS X in a few months.

The lifespan of XP was far too long and still has a big marketshare. OS X on PowerPC is nothing more than a niche thing now. You'll rarely find someone who still uses a G5 iMac as his daily driver.

>>43065849

Early versions of OS X are grey-area retro like Windows 2000/Me, running on PowerPC Macs which not a lot of people on /g/ still use except the retrocomputing crowd or very specific cases.

But why do people always complain about not being able to post about XP in here? It still has 25% of the market share and systems were still coming preloaded with it as recently as 2010. It isn't retro and it won't be for another couple years.

>>43065910
Why don't we just move this thread to a dialup bbs?

>>43065982
I'm a Mac PPC user and I'd rather don't have PPC OS X included on these topics because it makes me feel old.
Also a couple of weeks before these threads became a thing, PPC Mac threads were largely discussed on, even though not common. And you can still use a PowerBook G4 or a Mac Pro G5 as your main rig. Not everything will work on it, though.

>>43066047
If you think it could get enough replies, I'd like to see some PPC mac threads.

The white iBook series was cute.

>>43066047

I daily drove a G5 for a while recently, it was pretty good.

I'm OK with it mostly because the userbase is small enough and won't shit up the thread, and it's mostly the same crowd who's running old PowerPC stuff anymore anyway.

>>43065982
I don't mind that XP can't be discussed. It is still somewhat relevant in contemporary use, and there are many other threads where it can fit in without any problems.

Maybe it would've been different if people dropped XP as soon as Vista came out, but I guess Windows users don't like to do that. It seems to me many of them uses their old OS for a bit too long. Seen people refuse to upgrade from Vista, even when they were offered a free legal upgrade to 7.

In my eyes, XP and 2k are pretty much the same, except XP had a much longer life, so I wouldn't be upset if it was allowed here, and it doesn't really matter to me if it stays an illegal topic.

Can you guys post some fucking retro instead of arguing what is and isn't retro

>>43066198
I'm sure people argued about the same damn thing 20 years ago, so I guess it is retro to argue about retro.

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Anon insisted I come over here,
I will boot it up, Get on netscape, and try to take a photo of me browsing 4chan on it since it has Ethernet

>>43066198
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-hD7xT_SbU

I like the iMac G3. That translucent look contrasted nicely with the beige boxes. (Not to say beige boxes are inferior, both are an important style. It's variety that's important.)

>>43066198
I have some /retro/

I finally went into my shed and got out my Tandon TM 362 (which appears to be a really early WD rebadge since they hadn't even replaced the TM suffix with WD yet)

I have no idea if it works or not, I got this when I was just starting out in retrocomputing years ago and I honestly neglected the shit out of it, it came out of a Tandy 1000.

Does anyone know if you can power these with a standard 8-bit ISA slot or were the 1000s specially equipped for this option?

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>>43066270
YUSSSS
HERE WE GOOOO

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>>43066306

forgot picture kek

I'm thinking of putting this in my XT, but I don't know if it can drive two hard disks since it has the stock power supply.

>>43066270

fuckin noice

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>>43065891
>>43065878

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>>43063812

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Time 4 bugdome

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Too lazy to post all my ads, so here's one before bed.

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A few threads back, I was postan progress of a Pentium III build I was working on for Win9x.
Has a Labway/Yamaha YMF719 ISA sound card in it, basically an SB Pro 2 on crack, so I have excellent DOS compatibility.

Finally got around to getting back to it, installan Windows 98 SE now!
Well, formatting the drive for it. Surprisingly, and thankfully, DOS' FDISK is able to remove ext3 partitions.

Man, remember how hard it was to photograph CRTs? Its alright if you get close up to it, though.

>>43066305
>That OS10 preview
Interesting. I wonder if that version is available anywhere online.

>>43066661
>OS10
>1998
That's weird.
Was OS 9 delayed at one point or something? OS 9 didn't come out until October the following year this aired.

Did this version have a codename?
There are a lot of Mac OS prototypes online (WinWorldPC has a Macintosh section with them)

>>43066698
I'm not sure about OS9. It was just a brief mention of how it handled application crashes so I didn't get much detail, just caught him saying ten.

It had Steve announcing 8.5 seconds before, so I'm not sure what they were doing.

>>43066698

Apple had been working on a *nix operating system for a long time, look up Rhapsody, or hell, even A/UX, which is much more based anyway.

>>43066546
Going for a Soundblaster Live with my P3 build. Not going to bother with MS-DOS compatibility as this computer is mostly for games from around 98-00 anyways. I think the CPU is a little bit too fast for many earlier games. Sim Tower skipped years before I could place the first floor.

I don't have a CRT yet, but I'll find one. Have to be someone around here who wants to give theirs away.

Can't find many decent HP Vectra pics, especially of that weird mouse they used.

my grandfather had a ton of retro computers. An old mac that I tried using when I was like 4 and some other stuff. He died a few years ago but I'm definitely going to hold on to them.

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>>43066801

was it like this?

>>43066801
I think only their top-line workstations used those mice while lower-end models just had serial/PS/2.

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W98SE installed! Time for drivers.

>>43066741
>Soundblaster Live
Nice. Have one of those in my Athlon build (the original Slot-A based ones.)

If you have the chance, check out Blood 2 or Shogo with their EAX 3D options turned on. The positional audio and reverb are quite excellent in those games, especially.

And if you need good drivers, you should google for "LW30_9X.EXE." Its a self-extractor of the contents of the Live!Ware 3 CD that came with later SB Lives.

And as for this CRT, its actually a television with S-Video input. Fucked with the color/brightness/contrast to make text legible. I wish I had a real CRT monitor (a good one; *tron, NEC Multisync, Sony GW/GDM, Intergraph, etc.) but no one in my area has one.

HP Vectras are nice machines, but they're not for inexperienced people who just want to play around with DOS games or things like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIL_bus

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For anyone interested, here's one of the proprietary drives he was talking about in the last thread.

This is a D1674A, an ESDI drive with 103 MB capacity designed specifically for the Vectra RS server series. Mine left the factory on July 20, 1989 (it's turning 25 in 3 days, nice)

Next to it is an HP-rebadged Quantum ProDrive 40AT out of a 386DX-20 Vectra system (not sure of the model, the case was fucking destroyed when I got it)

>>43067034
Are they both custom units or only the ESDI one?

>>43066862
Seen people talk about or mention shogo on /v/ before. I will look around for those games. Loved monoliths NOLF series.

I can only find CRT TVs and old 5:4 LCDs around here. I think I'll have to ask around and see if I can find a CRT in someones basement. Maybe send some emails to various businesses too.

This museum I used to work at had a closet filled with old computers and CRT monitors. I never cared too much about it back then, so I never thought I could ask for one.

>>43067053
The ESDI drive was manufactured by HP themselves in their Idaho plant; it uses 256-byte sectors and requires a special controller. The Quantum one is rebadged but AFAIK is a stock drive.

Someone mentioned that HP Vectras used a special version of DOS and possibly Windows as well.

>>43067087
>Someone mentioned that HP Vectras used a special version of DOS
Yes they did because it had to support those 256-sector hard disks and other nonstandard features.
>and possibly Windows as well
AFAIK, no they used standard Windoze.

>>43067053

The ESDI drive was designed and built in-house, probably in the Boise, ID division near me, too.

The ProDrive was Quantum's first ever product, it came in 40 and 80 MB flavors, IDE or SCSI and was also used a lot in Macintosh systems. Most of them were made by Panasonic in Japan but this one is specially labeled for HP and actually might have been assembled at the same plant.

>>43067114
I mentioned that Zenith PCs needed a custom version of Windows 3.x because they had hard disks with 1024-byte sectors. You could use standard Windows, but 386 Enhanced Mode wouldn't work since the 32-bit disk driver was incompatible with Zenith hard disks.

HPs only used nonstandard hard disks on 8086/286 PCs that couldn't run Windoze in 386 Enhanced Mode anyway.

>>43067180
>You could use standard Windows, but 386 Enhanced Mode wouldn't work
It would start up and run just fine, but Virtual Memory and 32-bit disk access didn't work, which defeated most of the purpose of using Enhanced Mode.

I also recall that some AT&T PCs also needed an OEM Windows, but I don't remember the reason for it.

Ive got tons of legacy shit that's still good. like a US Robotics V.92 PCI modem, a Santa Cruz, a Montegro II, some peripheral isa card, and s few others, I might as well start taking photos when I get up in several hours.

>>43067072
Most common disk utilities (eg. Norton ones) wouldn't work on HP drives either; you needed the special ones included with the computer.

All HPs made pre-Windows 95 need their OEM DOS. When 95 came out, they quit using proprietary stuff.

>>43067263

I'm running stock MS-DOS on my 486/66ST, and it's still running on the original installation.

The ones that needed the OEM DOS to run were systems like the Vectra RS running special ESDI drives like the one I posted in >>43067034

>>43067339
Didn't they also have to support HIL mice and other such brickabrack?

>>43067434
HIL was only found on some high-end workstations and I think they no longer used it by the 486 era.

Still, as someone mentioned, HPs also did things like use oddball VGA chipsets that are hard to find drivers for.

I fear I am becoming a macfag
Currently, I have a powermac G5 with no operating system on it that I'm deciding what I want to do with, a functional LC 575, and a PowerBook G3-500 that should get its charger in the mail tomorrow. Still outweighed by my massive collection of PCs though.

>>43067434

Not by then, there are some earlier ones with HIL ports but I think they also had PS/2 or AT keyboards available as well (can't remember, I'll have to take a look at my destitute one)

Most of the 486-era Vectras were PS/2 exclusive and not quite as special as HP's earlier models.

>>43067537

There's nothing wrong with that, Macs were actually unique, interesting, and powerful back then.

I don't use my G5 anymore, but it was a pretty good runner when I used it daily a year or so ago. I'm thinking of buying a serial adapter for it and turning it into a terminal server.

>>43067537
Will you run MorphOS on that G5?

>>43067577
was considering snowleopard. It's a late 2003 dual CPU model, 2 GB of RAM (I think, I just grabbed whatever 400 MhZ sticks I could find out of my RAM drawer), 250 GB Hard drive which is currently empty, and some ATI card, don't know exactly which.

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>>43066305

>mfw brightly colored laptops will never make a comeback

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>>43066111

>going Palm for your PDA

Dude, check Handspring's models. Expansion slots and all. I heard that Palm is going to buy out Handspring, though.

>>43067595
SL is for Intel only. Leopard will be the latest for PowerPC Macs.

>>43067643

Fuck, I meant to say leopard. Also if I have the chance to pick up an original imac, original ibook, possibly a newton, and a powermac G3, should I? I already have more PCs than I know what to do with.

>>43067605
how am I supposed to get the toilet cleaner in there?

>>43067745

If they're all first-run teal/white models that would be a pretty sweet collector's set. You'd just need a Powerbook G3 to complete it.

I like my Powermac G3, but my iMac Rev. A is a piece of total shit.

>>43067792
I have a powerbook G3 right behind me, and yes both are teal. However, if I remember right, the ibook has some structural damage.

>>43067605
Now I'm sad.

I don't like the current macbook-ripoff aesthetics of most laptops.

>>43067605
They definitely are and have. Look at the Surface, for example, or Dell Inspirson

>>43066546
Yamaha did the OPL3 chip implementation so it's the other way around

I've got an LS-120 drive I've been trying to get working on a modern system in order to archive and restore floppies. The laser-guided head in these things fares a lot better than a standard floppy drive on old degraded media.

I added a jmicron controller to get an ide port but the thing doesn't seem to understand what to do with floptical drives. It reports it as a DVD drive to the OS, which then can't do a thing with it.

>>43067605
HP had some around 2007-2009 that looked like they were designed by Marc Ecko. Then Toshiba and Acer came out with purple, red and pink laptops. But they might never be more brightly colored laptops. One thing is for sure though, they'll never have a PowerPC processor again.

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>>43067808

I dislike those ripoffs too. This one, the HP Envy is actually more expensive than a macbook (IIRC).

>>43067813

Really? As far as I know the Surface is still a tablet. I'll look at some Inspiron models, though.

>>43066741

You shouldn't have any trouble with DOS compatibility on a P3 anyway.

The first thing that went down the shitter for DOS as tech advanced was sound, when they stopped providing NMI/DDMA or SB-Link interfaces on chipset southbridges.

>>43067605
i wanted one of them so badly when i was 11

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>>43067894

I miss them. I want to get one of the colored iMacs and see if I can get a mATX board and an LCD in there. A pawn shop near me has one of the next gen ones that looked like an LCD on top of a halved white bowling ball, I didn't check the price, though. Might be cool.

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>>43067971
>one of the next gen ones that looked like an LCD on top of a halved white bowling ball
the eMac? they use a flat crt

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>>43067999
oh wait, maybe you meant the iMac G4

those were neat, too, i've seen someone mod one into a modern pc (not much space in them, though)

>>43067971

It's hard enough to upgrade the RAM in those things let alone convert them into a modern system without it looking like total shit.

You might have better luck with a Mini ITX board though

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>>43068022

Yeah, the G4.

>>43068036

If you just gutted it out I think there'd be enough space. Probably not enough for a dedicated GPU or anything, and I'd probably have to drill holes for the mount to work. Same with the LCD, it'd have to sit in there somehow.

>>43068097
How does that handle the web?

I have a Snow-G3 and it's a nightmare. Granted I only have 128mb RAM

>>43068133

Feed it more RAM and it will probably run like a dream, I actually know someone who still daily drives a spotless-looking 800 MHz G4.

I'm still dailying a P4 1300 myself as a shop box

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>>43068036
lel, the ONLY easy thing to upgrade on those fuckers is the RAM. The guy who sold it to me two years ago only told me the hard drive was faulty, when in fact the CD Drive and the headphone board were faulty too. You have to remove the fucking CRT to remove the headphone board even though is in the front side of the computer. The CD drive is rather easy to replace if it wasn't for the fact you can only replace it with another laptop IDE slot loading drive.
And because the headphone board is faulty, the speakers won't output sound. Which is a big deal considering I bought it to play music and old games.
Pic related, the resistors you need to rewire if you want to overclock it.

>>43068133

It's not mine, but I have an iBook G4 and a PowerBook G4 (dat near-bezeless screen).

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>>43068022
>IE icon

I almost forgot IE for Mac was a thing

>>43068351
>Steve jobs got booed as he announced it would be the default browser

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Get this Mac shit out of here.

Why is WinUAE so much more complex than other system emulators?

I have no idea what I'm doing and there doesn't seem to be a nice "pre-set-up hard drive, just link the emulator and go" file anywhere. (I'm more interested in playing with the OS itself than vidya at the moment.)

>>43068420

>tfw 1200XL with no peripherals, power or displays to run it on

>>43068554
probably because it's made by amiga enthusiasts, therefore users are expected to know how to into amiga already

i haven't used winuae or a real amiga, but that'd be what i'd expect

>>43068554
Emulators for Commodore PCs are too good, they suck ass. Too many features IMHO. I installed VICE and couldn't even type anything with the keyboard.

I was like "fuck that. Back to DOS gaming then."

>>43068622
"pls go: XP, OS X on Intel systems, one-liner nostalgia shitposting"

>>43068724

how is that one-liner nostalgia shitposting?

>>daily reminder that /retro/ is a no bullying zone

>>43068788
Exception made for some of the recurring trolls like KyaDash ;)

>>43070129
thanks scsi

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>>43066801
This is an 8086 Vectra. Aside from the nonstandard hard disk, it also doesn't have the normal XT-type keyboard.

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286 models also had a nonstandard keyboard. These things are generally BIOS-compatible with IBM PCs, but at the hardware level it's another story.

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>tfw you remember when HP was a really respected company that produced quality and rock solid products
>tfw all of that changed when they spun off Agilent in 1999, taking the original HP with them
>tfw HP is a mere shell of what it used to be

>>43070423
HP wants to get back in the game with memristors and shit

god, even their servers fucking suck

>>43070433
Do they?

I'd still buy enterprise HP gear today, it's still quality.

Though nowadays if you want blades, you go for Cisco UCS.

>>43070333

So they did use the same keyboard as >>43065241

Maybe one day I'll actually find one of those fucking things.

>>43070423

That shit started going down the second the founders left in the mid '90s

;___;

You'll never hear MIDI again ;_;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCYboSajaLs

>>43070450
People often blame Carly Fiorina for killing HP, but I'd say it was Lew Platt - a guy that actually worked his way up from the bottom to the top of HP.

When he spun off Agilent he killed the 'original' HP: HP was a test equipment company that was also successful at producing printers and computers.

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Any DEC fans in here?

>you will never see Alpha reach its peak
>you will never have an Alpha powered computer running Windows
>Apple never went with Alpha
>VMS > UNIX all day every day

>>43070469
http://www.pa.uky.edu/~doyleb/midi/duke3d/GRABBAG.mid

>tfw

>>43070495
>duke3d grabbag
nice

What do you think you will gain by using super outdated hardware and software? Is this the new hipster trend?

Sent from my Windows Phone running version 8.1

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>>43070504

>>43070489
The Alpha lives on in the Athlon/64/Phenom/Bulldozer/Steamroller chips.

NT on Alpha was a joke.

>>43070489

I'm still looking for one of those.

Closest I've ever gotten is a gutted to fuck ES40 that I only managed to salvage the CPUs and RAM from

>>43070473
>HP was a test equipment company that was also successful at producing printers and computers

They were an engineering-driven company, so they produced computers targeted at that market (ie. people like themselves). IBM meanwhile mainly aimed at the business market (befitting their name)

>>43070489

How hard would it be to fit an ATX mobo in one of those?

I've always wanted one of those GIANT gateway 2000-like case, or an SGI Onyx

>>43070687

Probably not difficult but you'll have to mess with it a bit if you want it to look good.

Obviously, don't do it to a good working one.

>>43070599
Very true, and I think that engineering focus stemmed from the test equipment origins.

DEC + HP = engineer driven
IBM = business driven
Apple = le consumer face :^)

>>43070703
>Obviously, don't do it to a good working one.
THIS! These workstations are fucking rare compared to other stuff.

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been tweaking the focus pot on my tv, scanlines show up a bit better now, and there's less bleed in brighter parts

>>43066520
>retro
>windows 98

underage b&

>>43066305
>The 'i' stands for internet
Now we know, now we know...

>>43071696
>internetPod
>internetPhone
>internetPad

>>43071935
The Morrow Decision was a single-board Z80 computer issued by Morrow Computers in 1982 in an attempt to answer the high cost of computer hardware. Retailing for $1600, they were neat little machines with 64k of memory, single-sided floppies (later replaced by double-sided units) and could use any ordinary serial terminal for keyboard/video. In keeping with their bare-bones design, there were no expansion slots or ports except for two RS-232 connectors (one occupied by the terminal) and an external floppy port.

It was nothing special from a technical standpoint however, and like the Osborne 1 its main attraction was the large amount of bundled CP/M software. Machines like the MD-1 soon gave way to IBM PCs.

>>43072191
The free RS-232 port could be used for either a printer or modem, but you had to pull the cover off and adjust DIP switches depending on what you were using it for, which was clumsy.

>>43067431
2 meter whip?

>>43072191
>It was nothing special from a technical standpoint however, and like the Osborne 1 its main attraction was the large amount of bundled CP/M software

To make the MD-1 more user-friendly, a shell program was included that allowed selection of programs without needing to type commands at a prompt.

>>43063812
I have an IBM 5150 in my attic. It doesn't power on, though. Power supply is good, it just doesn't boot.
Think it's worth trying to fix up?

>>43072284
There may be a bad capacitor on the motherboard. Most power supplies will refuse to run if they detect a short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuBXbvl1Sg4

Who triumph of the nerds here

>>43072191
One contemporary magazine reviewer described the MD-1 as "a marketing rather than a technical coup". He commented that "The machine has no case fan and an LED light on the front is the only way of knowing that it's powered on." and "The floppy drives are among the fastest we've tested compared to the agonizingly slow disk access of many personal computers."

I remember reading a scanned magazine review from this same period (1982) and the reviewer goes on to rip the VIC-20 and TRS-80 CoCos to shreds. The only stuff he liked were CP/M boxes with detachable keyboards.

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Hi /retro/, I was wondering if you could help me with something.

A while ago my grandfather passed away, and left me his very old computer. Finishing my university degree, so it has been sitting on my floor for a long time. Only had time now to give it a try.

I'm struggling to find much information about it. From what I can tell it's a C/WP Cortex computer, obviously an old IBM clone, running Kildall's old CP/M operating system. Can anyone tell me if they can identify what kind of computer it is, I really want to find some kind of manual for it. I really can't find anything on the internet. Right now it's amazing, but I have no idea what to do with it.

>>43072879
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=899&st=1

>>43072879
>I'm struggling to find much information about it. From what I can tell it's a C/WP Cortex computer, obviously an old IBM clone

Not an IBM compatible. It's a fairly typical Z80 CP/M box, although they did copy the IBM XT keyboard, which also had the added wrinkle of being able to output WordStar control codes.

>>43068554
>"pre-set-up hard drive, just link the emulator and go"
Look for AIAB, Amiga-In-A-Box.

>>43072879
>Right now it's amazing

Please do not post Reddit-tier comments on here. Thank you.

>>43073277
>amazing
>reddit-tier
What

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>>43063812
i have a nice pentium3 machine

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can someone please tell me what CPU era the switch from AT to ATX took place?

>>43073777
atx standard was in 1995, pentium II came out in 1996, so i'd say "the pentium > pentium II era"

How do I get people on craigslist to realize that the computer they bought 15 years ago won't sell for what they bought it for?

>>43067999
by far my favorite mac beside the g4 cube

>>43070489
>you will never have an Alpha powered computer running Windows

who the fuck would want that? windows is shit

>>43075043
wasn't there an alpha port of windows nt3/4?

>>43075490
Speaking of NT3...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0sepZl9sEw

>>43074812

I remember doing video editing on one of those when I was 10 in 2004 for school. Then we tried to play Runescape and they all just about took a dump trying to run RS, and plus we couldn't right click.

>>43073777

around the late Pentium era for prebuilts, but AT continued to be used for whiteboxes up until the coppermine Pentium III era

>>43075490

there was, but there was no software to run on it unless you wanted to develop your own, there's an SDK floating around somewhere

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I remember my family getting our first mouse. It was one of those optical mice with the special mirror-grid mousepad.

I was pretty young, but it was quite a big deal & one of my earliest memories. My dad & I stayed up all night playing all kinds of new games that we couldn't before.

>>43063812
I have an old Mac SE in my family's garage. Additionally, I managed to not let a small library of floppies mostly from around 1989 get thrown away.

I have an old USB1 floppy disk reader that only seems to work on Linux because of default drivers.

It's funny, my dad has stuff like "WordPerfect 5.1 Install/Learn/Utilities 1" with "part 1 of 12" written on it... in a stack of 12 floppies.

There's an unopened (still shrink wrapped) box of ten 3M "high density" 3.5 inch diskettes. It comes with a "FREE 11th DISKETTE, FORMATTED, IBM COMPATIBLE".

I'm afraid the Mac SE floppy drive may not work though, because as a little kid I accidentally kicked it and that spot shattered. I'd have to survey the damage though, it's surrounded by junk and I haven't actually gotten it out yet.

The real question is, there's a lifetime warranty on these diskettes. Will 3M deliver? They better deliver.

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I found my old Sony Vaio with windows ME down in storage, missing the speakers and the lcd screen has long since been burnt out(I might try getting it fixed), but I got it up and running again and it's really cozy. I'm sorting through a bunch of old floppy disks and collecting photos from memory sticks in the older camcorders, but I'm not sure what else to use the system for. It runs MSDOS and 98 games fine, and I might use it for taxes too. Pic not mine.

I found a local selling an Amiga, monitor, keyboard, mouse, dot-matrix printer and software for $300, is it a good deal?

>>43079193
*Amiga 1000

I want one of these so bad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxxqFpLde88

>>43078015
How's your dad doing?

>>43079234
They come up on UK e-bay every so often. I assume they'd be even more common in the USA..

>>43079221
Unless you're in the US and want it really, really badly, don't buy it.

>>43079193
>>43079221

eugh, that's wayyyy too fucking high

$100 tops

>>43079221
>>43079193
It's not worth that much. 1000s were barely expandable and that printer is likely useless to you. $300 would probably get a decent A2000 from eBay, likely with a hdd, maybe more RAM and at least some kind of accelerator.

>>43079234

I have a 110CT with a floppy drive, dock and 250MB PCMCIA hard disk I bought for $15 from a surplus shop, they're pretty cool.

That mouse is fuck all annoying though.

I'm thinking of wiping the NT4 install off of it and putting 98 or something else on it, but I'm not sure

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>>43068944
>Not using Calmira

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>>43080541

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>>43080554
With a video card. Yay.

RIP, Double Deuce. The 386 with a ruined ISA slot. Ye were not long for this world, but at least ye saw the web.

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>>43080541

But I kind of like 3.1's interface. ;_;

pic semi-related

Is the DOS guide completed yet? What's some cool stuff to run on a CGA machine?

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>>43080614
I guess it was okay, but I tried to stay out of it as much as possible.

>>43080651

Have you been to Abandonia? If you're interested in games, there's a shitload of stuff there to run.

There's also http://www.danielsays.com/ss-gallery-dos.html which has a lot of interesting non-game stuff (but no downloads) that you can look out for on abandonware archives.

>>43080668

My thing with Calmira is that if I wanted a UI like Windows 95 I can just use Windows 95, or does running straight DOS have some advantages?

>>43080614
That old Office icon bar. I miss that.

>>43080706
Win95 ran like pissed-on shit on a low-end 386. I used Calmira mainly for novelty, but it was pretty practical, too.

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>>43080754

Oh, yeah, on a 386 that would fucking suck.

I wish my SX-16 box wasn't dead right now, I want to try installing 98 for the fuck of it to see how much it crawls.

>>43080781
Noooooeeeeessss! Double Deuce was an SX 25. I ran Win95 on a 33MHz 486, and I would run 98 on a 66MHz or better.

I miss having old computers. When I was moving, my relatives thought they were helping, and threw out all of my eighties and nineties computers.

Now I have a growing firearms collection, and let them know to never contact me for any reason ever again.

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>>43070489
>A VMS-based iMac

>>43080856

kek

I mostly only bought that for the novelty of it (my focus is on high-end PCs and workstations)

my only other SX-16 I just gave to my friend since he'd use it more than I would ran 3.x and totally crawled on it ;_;

>>43063812
>fingerless hacking gloves
ebin

Is SuSE 9.2 any good still?

This isn't really /retro/ in itself I know, but I'm the nigger who's trying to set up a Linux box to connect to from old PCs for email/IRC/web surfing with Lynx and I found a boxed copy in my shed I forgot about.

Would it be wise to just install this so I don't waste CD-Rs when I don't have to or is it total shit and would I have a much better time just putting Debian netinst on it?

>>43081805
SuSE 9.2 is nearly 10 years old. Get a more current distro. Many distros can be installed from usb flash drives now, so you don't have to waste a cdr.

>>43082319

The box I'm using doesn't support USB boot though, but I'll check anyway

>>43082319
>>43082406

Fuck me, it doesn't. ;_;

I'm trying to get it on a Precision 450.

It's currently running XP, maybe I can just virtualize it and give it serial port access?

>>43080781
95 will refuse to install on 386SXs not because it's incompatible with them, but some early SX chips had a severe bug when performing certain mathematical operations, so Microsoft decided to put a tester in the setup program to check for them.

98 won't work at all because it needs a 486.

>>43082481

I've heard stories that people could get 98 to run on an SX-16, but I'm not sure how.

>>43082544
Copy the installed version of Windows onto the drive that is to be used in the system, and GO FOR BROKE!

>>43082544
Until I see screenshots, not buying it.

>>43082550
Won't work either.

>>43081164
>my only other SX-16 I just gave to my friend since he'd use it more than I would ran 3.x and totally crawled on it

Machines under 25Mhz run Windows better in Standard Mode.

>>43080651
Anything made up to 1990 will generally support CGA, although a lot of later games look terrible because the devs cared more about EGA/VGA/Tandy by that point.

>>43082555

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_kmqKWafGU

At least 95 runs, I can't find anything on 98 (except a mention from Red Hill Guide and the comment on that video) yet

>>43082622
Of course 95 will run (crawl?) but 98 won't because it's explicitly mentioned as needing a 486.

>>43082662

I figured you were >>43082481

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>>43082606
>tfw you've actually tried Sierra SCI games on an 8088 w/ CGA

>>43082672
Reread the post carefully. I said "95 will run (crawl?)" on 386s, referring explicitly to 386DXs, not SXs which the installer won't let you do.

>>43082708
Not even with a math coprocessor?

>>43082708

yeah, I got you, but that guy is running it on an SX, or at the very least a 486SLC. It looks like everything I've found about it says you have to install it on a hard disk from a supported system and transport it over and it will run OK (but definitely not fast)

>>43082741
It was a bug in the main CPU, not the main coprocessor.

I should add that this only affected a few early 386s from the 80s, so it was kind of silly for Microsoft to block Windows 95 from installing on any SX chip.

>>43082756
>yeah, I got you, but that guy is running it on an SX, or at the very least a 486SLC. It looks like everything I've found about it says you have to install it on a hard disk from a supported system and transport it over and it will run OK

Of course because he's doing that to cheat the install program.

>>43082434
No, just grab a cd drive.

>>43082688
I also tried Indy & The Last Crusade. It ran slowly, but I was able to get to Castle Brunwald before realizing that the game becomes unplayable at that point since you have to fight the guards in the castle and it processes your moves too slowly.

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Ohai!

>>43082788

I found out how to get it to boot from a flash drive, grabbing Debian now.

>>43082829

fuckin nice

>tfw I have literally the shittiest teal model and there's nothing to run on it

>>43082838
>Debian
Perfect choice.
Debian is always the perfect choice.

I'm thinking at this point we have better retro threads here than /vr/.

>>43082829
>Playstation 2
>>>/v/

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>>43083055

>>43082997
/vr/ won't discuss anything but Doom/Quake/Nukem and 90s console games.

>>43083189
>>>/vr/1767684
>>>/vr/1779669
>>>/vr/1764810

>>43083318

Those are kind of shit if you aren't gaming, though.

>>43083318
>>>>/vr/1767684

See, that's the problem I mentioned. Their threads are just nostalgia cancer.

>>43082838

>X crashes
>segfault at address 0xb7200000

Could running more than 1 graphics card (AGP and PCI) be causing something like this?

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Apparently Apple nearly did a tablet of their own in the early 90s

>>43073777
I have a Dell Optiplex Pentium 1 from 1996 and it does have the ATX PSU.

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Alternate keyboard, no stylus pictured.

>>43083441
Multiple graphics cards shouldn't be a problem.

what does your Xorg.0.log say?

>>43082587
I've run Windows 3.1 on a 20Mhz 386SX and Enhanced Mode was pokey (Standard Mode ran pretty nice)

>>43083609
Wasn't a lot to do with it except play Chess and other silly little games.

>>43083572

I can't even get to it, keeps looping retries and it scrolls the screen too fast to get anywhere (it happens when I try to run the installer)

Is there any way to break out of it?

t. unix newshit

>>43081805
SuSE 9.2 was the last great version before the era of mp3 fuckery.

Also, Mandrake 9.2.

>>43083703

If I can't get Debian to install from USB I might be stuck on it, would I be facing any compatibility issues or is it still pretty much the same except the dated window manager?

>>43083743
You'll be using an ancient kernel, and you'll have a hell of a time getting more modern software working with the older, deprecated, and out-of-date libraries on 9.2

>>43083695
It is the install media that does this? Should be a way to launch using a text mode installer.

Been a long time since I tried Debian so I'm not that familiar with it. Try arch and crunchbang too.

Since you're getting a segfault, it might just be you having some bad RAM.

>>43083787

shit

I'm mostly looking to run stuff from a tty anyway like Alpine.

>>43083868

I think I might have figured it out for now, crossing my fingers.

>>43068420
That keyboard gave me AIDS.

>>43080706
>There's also http://www.danielsays.com/ss-gallery-dos.html which has a lot of interesting non-game stuff (but no downloads)

I remember that site. The guy went on these lengthy, ultra-autistic anti-piracy rants and how all abandonwarefags were thieving pirate scum and he had only originals of all his software.

Yeah, fuck him.

>>43084453

Yeah, fuck that nigger but that site has helped me find what I'm looking for a couple times, it was just all I could think of.

>>43084453
>downloading 30 year old software makes you a thieving pirate scum
Uh...

This thread reminds me...is anyone watching "Halt and Catch Fire?" I watched the first episode last night, and it was pretty good.

>>43084563
I'm all caught up with it. I don't think it'll get a second season.

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Have been meaning to post in here for days, you guys are speaking my language!

converting back to 90's 'puter speak...

I've been using custom-built IBM compatibles for the vast majority of my tech life, but I've been lucky enough to receive TONS of free hand-me-downs from a friend's parents who I did free computer work for when I was a kid. They're graphic artists so they've always been Macs, so I have about seven or so old PPC PowerMacs and such that I've turned into fun projects... the majority of which have no place in these threads.

Here's a PowerBook 170 though - check out that trackball! I love this guy; haven't got any real plans for it yet though. Anything fun come to anyone's minds?

Also, has anyone got a recommendation for a 56K modem? I think it would be fun to connect to a free dial up service on an old machine like this just for kicks, just to poke around. I came of age well into the days of softmodems, but I'd like something external for *nix compatibility. I had a v.90 US Robotics one, but it died at some point in the last 15 years unfortunately.

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this might seem like an odd request, but i have a spare machine that i want to use as a creative writing environment (sci fi, whatnot)
im really into fallout and i want something of a pic related
i know plenty of linux and linux command line but just using a modern distro terminal seems like bloat for this
what distro + emulation solution can i use to achieve:
old style green/yellow/orange minimalistic terminal interaction (custom colors are bonus but green is great
offline
word editing similar to wordstar, but simpler editors are also fine
any way to automate the process so that a bootup ends with fullscreen terminal ready to go

>>43084724
Just what we need, another tripfag that treats this thread as his personal blog...

>>43084750

And a Macfag at that.

>>43084750
>>43084793

just fucking filter them or auto-anonymize them with 4chan X instead of whining about it like retards, then

>>43084750
>>43084793
What a shame; you guys seemed so chill a few days ago.
And I'm not sure someone is a "Macfag" for having a bunch of old PPC hardware... it's a fun architecture to play with, and there's lots of room for average users to contribute code to the better PPC Linux distros. I do have an iPod Classic though, so I guess you're right. HUUUUGE Macfag.

>>43084802

I will, right after you go choke to death on a horse cock.

>>43084802
I didn't even notice the trip until people start complaining about it. I do this on regular forums too.

>>43084728

You could probably just buy a dumb terminal for the full experience and hang it off the system.

>>43084724
>>43084842
You probly already left but those were 68K systems IIRC, so maybe check out http://www.linux-m68k.org/

Mac OS 7 is kind of good though for productivity, but if you don't need X the above distro should be fun and decently quick for her.

We should do an IRC channel instead of this shit like they did with the cyberpunk threads. /g/ just hates tripfags for some reason even if they're not prima-donnas and are (I assume in carret's case) just using a name because they're talking about something specific and we don't have ID's here on /g/ yet.

>>43084728
Any distro. Don't install or run Xorg. I think you should be able to make the foreground colour green.

Not quite /retro/ tho. I think the suggestion by >>43084912 is better.

You can also get any old PC with MS-DOS.

>>43084929
>We should do an IRC channel instead
Someone created #/g/retro on rizon. It isn't very active. Seems like people just pop in to say hi once or twice a day.

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>>43063812
Encarta 97 works about as well as you would expect on Windows 8.1, unfortunately it uses a 16 bit installer, so no luck with 64-bit Windows. You can't just drag the files over since it installs a fuckton of files to your Windows folder and it doesn't just tell you which ones are missing. I wonder if there is a way to make a workaround. I know most people liked MindMaze the best, but this personal nutrition application is really interesting. I created a meal plan that includes Cream of Wheat, dandelion greens, raccoon meat, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cereal.

>>43085883
>Encarta 97 works about as well as you would expect on Windows 8.1, unfortunately it uses a 16 bit installer

This is quite common for Windows 9x software to use a generic installer program that was popular at the time.

Total Annihilation interestingly enough does have a 32-bit installer, but the expansion packs don't.

>>43085883
Package an MSI install on a 32-bit OS.

I'm a bit puzzled why Civilization II is still 16-bit since it was released an entire year after Windows 95.

>>43084972
>You can also get any old PC with MS-DOS.
Debian with Emacs or Nano in the frame-buffer on a Raspberry Pi would be better, cheaper, and more power efficient.
Plus, you could use the component video out to drive a lovely CRT TV.

>>43085883
I've never used that; I have run Encarta 95, but that's 16-bit so no go.

>>43085993

>doing anything except games on a CRT TV

disgusting, anon

>>43085883
That 16-color icon looks comically out-of-place.

>>43085883
I'm pretty sure you can't print anything with that either since it predates USB.

>>43086095
I hooked up my Athlon PC through S-Video and a RF modulator box through my old GeForce2 card, every time the screen changed it would flash with static. I got rid of the GeForce2 card so sadly I can't repeat this pathetic experiment, again. It did look pretty cool with DOS games though.

>>43086095
Depends on what kind of feel you're going for, and depending on the TV, it can have a higher res than most serial terminals.
But yeah, I personally don't feel comfortable using any less than XVGA or WSVGA

>>43085883
You could use VMWare ThinApp in a virtual machine to capture its installation and then have a portable version of it that may run on x64.

>>43086173
Eh? That's irrelevant because the OS handles all printer output.

Comical little fact: Windows 98 can be run in CGA mode if you have the Windows 3.0 CGA driver.

>>43088681
>tfw 2002 and still no memory protection

>>43088681
that reminds of the time i used to own a g3 imac.
i hated it. there was no way for me to do anything.
there was practically software like there is now for os x. i'm glad it was replaced

>>43088778
>there was practically *no* software like there is now for os x. i'm glad it was replaced
>dammit

>>43088778
>i hated it. there was no way for me to do anything.
The lament of every Mac owner since 1984.

>>43088807
You can check Facebook!

>>43088812
And play kiddie eduware games.

>>43088698
>>tfw 1999 and still no memory protection

>>43088833
Or 1998 or 1997 or...well, all the way back to >>43088748

>>43088826
>>43088812
They are pretty much a computer designed for 12 year olds after all.

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>>43082829
Is this SGI machines any good for home usage?

>>43088681
I find this much prettier than OSX now.

Though I respect those with a different view.

>>43089206

New thread.

>>43089209
Just for future note, why not start it at 300 posts, rather than 290?

This one will take an hour or two to 404 after hitting the bump limit anyway.

Not a complaint, just a question.

>>43089252
>This one will take an hour or two to 404 after hitting the bump limit anyway

Probably not near that long.

>>43089290
The current final thread on page 10 had it's last reply 3 hours ago.

>>43089312
Is your argument that /g/ doesn't move fast on a Saturday morning?

>>43089326
I'm not arguing, I'm just saying you could safely redirect at bump limit.

Note in my first post I said "an hour or two" as I remember from past threads it taking less time.

It's not a huge deal. I just notice that the redirect is always posted before we hit the limit.

>>43085993
People throw away Pentiums and 486-based PCs for free. an RPI can't currently beat that.

For writing plain text files, MS-DOS and an old computer is more than good enough. Don't need the brutal raw performance of a somewhat current ARM device.