***Vintage PC Technology Mega Discussion Thread***

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raspberrypiguy

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May 8, 2017
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I am still on my first computer. I am new to computers and I use a Raspberry pi 3 as a 'daily driver'. I feel so spoiled as it is way faster than all those other computers. I do enjoy retro games though and am fascinated by older tech. I have ran windows 95 in a virtual box before and honestly it was not so bad. I want to run ms dos on my pi. I already have dos box and have experimented around with wasteland and doom. I would like to have a 486 as my dad had one.
 

raspberrypiguy

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May 8, 2017
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Ha I just bought more PI's for stuff. One for a game boy Color and the other for a lunchbox. Then I can have access to DOS, 95, 98, 2000, XP all for lunchtime enjoyment in a VM.
 

g-unit1111

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I've never used Raspberry Pi. I've been curious about them but I don't really know much about them. Is there anything I can look at to find out more about them?
 

Math Geek

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rasberry pi has whole magazines dedicated to them. they are basically ARM chip powered set-ups similar to a mobile device. not a gaming set-up but plenty strong enough for surfing, office work and streaming video. casual mobile games would also work.

think they run on a stripped down linux build. i think the Remix OS people were working on getting that compatible as well. would bring android to a nice cheap pc. not bad for ~$30

here's the homepage for them with tons of info www.raspberrypi.org
 

LoganPage7

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Oct 19, 2016
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I just recently got a Pentium III card processor based Dell Optiplex GX110 with 64 mb of ram. I instantly went to work adding a Geforce 2 graphics card an upping the ram to 190 mb. I also replaced the crappy Dell sound card with a SoundBlaster Live! card. I installed Opera 10 on it and now I can do fairly snappy modern internet browsing on it. It's running Windows 98 and is being used for retro games like Frogger CD, Tropico Mucho Macho Edition, and The Game of Life CD. I also got a system with the first celeron processor (also a slotted chip) and 32mb of ram. I'm going to leave the hardware of this on alone but put DOS v6.22 and Windows 3 on it. I am very excited and if anyone reading this has any advice tell me. Thanks for reading!
 

g-unit1111

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Nice. I kind of wish I still had my Windows 98 PC. What's the cost of a PC like that? And you can still find CRT monitors right?
 

Math Geek

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crt monitors are getting harder to find. but thrift stores are still a good source for them. been so long now since they have been sold though that even that source is drying up with no new stock coming in. first couple generation of lcd screens are easy to get now as folks donate their old ones as they upgrade to newer models.
 

g-unit1111

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And I hear they are very popular among graphic designers because they have sharper color contrast than the LCDs do.
 

g-unit1111

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Yeah I'd be curious to know if 4K and 144Hz have trumped that old talking point about monitors.
 

g-unit1111

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Heh, I found my mini disc player a couple of weeks ago, I have one similar to this:

Sony-MZR55-MiniDisc-Player.jpg


And I also found my copy of Pearl Jam's Ten on mini disc:

pearl-jam-ten-mini-disc-rare-380ae4797c18ada95f756b4ebf1efcf7.jpg
 

g-unit1111

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Now that's old school! :lol:

recall what the format was for those players? was a precursor to the mp3 but i don't recall

I think it might have been FLAC but I also don't remember. I remember when USB 2.0 first started showing up, Sony offered USB data transfer cables for some of its' mini disc players but I don't think my model was one of them.
 

Math Geek

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never owned one of those but had some friends that did. was neat but not something i had to have. now if it was able to have 100 songs on a small disc like that, then i would have been first in line for one. but only a single cd still left me with a bunch to carry around. true they were smaller but still hated having to carry extras around to keep a good playlist available
 

brian.h.schaefer

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Aug 23, 2017
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Well lets see. The first computer I built when I was a kid had a ATI 9800 Pro. Remembering back that thing was an awesome step up in graphics. I believe i also upgraded that PC during the good ole days of AMD. The Athlon 64 days.
 

macmanmatty

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Aug 5, 2017
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I once owned an apple IIGS made from stone and it wasn't even Y1K compliant. But man that thing sure ran games fast I was able to get to oregon via the oregon trail game in under 3 months, and printing a document with it's old ribbon printer only took 8 minutes! All programs were run on 5.5" or 3.5" floppys.
 

sirstinky

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Aug 17, 2012
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You're right! The old CRT monitors, especially the high-end ones (Sony's are nice), actually had really nice contrast and sharpness compared to modern panels. They are still desirable in some circles, if not the nostalgia of owning vintage tech.
 

LoganPage7

Commendable
Oct 19, 2016
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I got everything for free. I got three of the old dells and the old emachines along with the original crts, mice, and keyboards. I sold two of the dells with their respective accessories and made $300. My school had them pushed away in a cabinet in the band room.
 

g-unit1111

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I kind of wish I still had mine - I had a 21" Optiquest CRT that took up almost my entire desk space. But it went bust several years ago and I replaced it with an Acer flat screen - which I still have. And the funny thing - the Optiquest monitor cost $750, and the Acer 1080P cost $250.
 

sirstinky

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Aug 17, 2012
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Wow, I had a 19" CTL flatscreen and I thought that thing was HUGE. Weighed about 30 lbs and was every bit of 23" long. It goes to show how advancements in technology have brought prices down. In 2007 or 2008, I remember an Extreme version of the Core 2 Duo was like $700. Now that chip is slower than a $60 Pentium chip that uses less than half the power. The i7-990X of 2011 was a $1000 chip, required a really expensive X58 motherboard, cooler, and RAM, but 2 years later was slower at some tasks than an i5-3570K that could run on a $70 motherboard 8)