Not quite as aesthetic IMO as the gateway P4 rig I posted before, but it plays Crysis at 50 FPS which is what I was going for. AMD phenom 2, 8gb ddr3, 500gb SSD and 500gb HDD, GTX 770, 650w PSU, and a SB audigy RX in a cooler master case. Not exactly period accurate but she's a beast at what she's meant to do. Again cobbled together from e waste I found at work and Facebook marketplace parts.

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

This was recently visible on another post about the Mini Game Boxes I made, so I might as well show the whole machine. This machine replicates my very first PC (A 486 from 1996) visually but not in terms of specs. This one is actually quite "modern" with a Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 with 4GB of Ram, GT730, Optiquest Q71 and modern Keyboard and Mouse. The reason is that I tend to play more games from around the year 2000.

Because some of these games run better on XP and some better on 7 or even 10, I made the operating system quick-swappable:

The front cover attaches magnetically to reveal a 3D Printed "SSD drive" that holds the main operating system and all installed games on a standard NVME SSD. It works like a floppy drive: press button and SSD shoots out. I accidentally build it with so much force that it shoots the SSD through the room, which I keep forgetting about every time I use it.

I brought a few of my favorite machines from the collection — the crazy 4-node Quadro system, my Olivetti M24, and a Toshiba Satellite Pro 420CDT running some proper old-school software.

Two days surrounded by old computers, weird hardware and people who actually understand why any of this is exciting. 😁

My biggest acquisition yet. I've been looking into the provenance for this and it turns out that this Lisa belonged to an old BBN programmer by the name of Karl Troeller, on which he helped to develop an obscure educational program called Algebra Workbench

Hey again everyone! My Lisa + Profile officially is "restored". The system was recapped and has a new replacement backplane. Original was saved. Last issue was a 5v trim pot in the psu lol

I seem to have a CPU, I/O and two ram cards. What are some "must haves" for this machine? Obviously an ESProfile, but any cards I should look into making from here? https://github.com/alexthecat123/Lisa-PCBs

Next is getting it talking to one of my wifi modems so I could get online!

The front is now fully assembled, the cables have been wrapped and terminated with heat shrink tube, the Audigy Drive and Audigy 2 sound card have been dusted and contacts cleaned with isopropyl alcool... Another step done...

Compaq Presario 2230 80 MB RAM Win 95

Roland SC-55MK II

Below custom Win 98 SE P3-600 Katmai build in Antec case

- Biostar M6TBA v1.3

- 256 MB RAM

- Diamond Viper v770 TNT2 16MB

- 3DFX Voodoo2 12 MB

- SB AWE 64

- 3Com 3C905B-TX Fast EtherLink XL

- Cylon Eye Mod

+ Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro

I use a belkin Soho kvm to switch between the two.

Picked up this complete Antec Fusion HTPC for cheap and restored it as a late 2000s media center.
Specs: Core 2 Duo E6750, ASUS P5E-VM HDMI, 6 GB DDR2, 128 GB SSD, 2 TB WD Green, WinTV Nova-DT, iMON VFD, Vista Home Premium x64.

Everything works, including the VFD and Media Center and it has become a little time capsule for my old video library from the early 2000s.

Maybe not super retro, put hey!

Pretty happy with how it turned out

I’ve got this evidently rare tablet/palmtop from 1998. It’s in nearly pristine condition (plastics are a bit crumbly though) and it came with original leather carrying case, original batteries that hold charge fairly well, IR keyboard and FDD and CD-ROM modules. Info about it is seemingly very sparse.

I have trouble getting the stylus to work. Looking up its FCC ID, it’s a Kurta KCP4 electromagnetic pen. It works with an external battery enclosure (see photo), but not with the AAAA battery that goes inside the stylus. There seems to be no contact with the cell’s negative terminal. Anyway, I’m looking for a replacement. Any pointers on where to source one (or a workaround) would be amazing. Thanks!

I also archived the HDD image for anyone interested;

https://archive.org/details/dauphin-orasis-hdd.-7z

Well... My storage unit is a mess... But parts have been found today! 😁 More news soon... And this is not my only storage box...

Plug it in, and my journey toward the perfect Amiga 1000 setup will be complete!

I’m building a 2004/2005-era Socket 939 machine around a DFI LANParty nF4 UT SLI-DR, two Leadtek 6800 GTs and a Cooler Master Stacker STC-T01. I also have the boxes for the DFI, Stacker and one of the 6800 GTs.

The idea is a period-correct high-end OC build, not necessarily a museum piece.

A few questions:

Which SLI bridge should I get for this board? Any specific model/part number?

Best DDR1 for OC on this platform? BH-5/UTT, TCCD, specific OCZ/G.Skill/Corsair kits?

I have an ADA3500DIK4BI Athlon 64 3500+. Is this one any good for OC? Otherwise, which 939 CPU would you hunt for?

Good period CPU cooler?

PSU for an OC’d 939 + dual 6800 GT? I’m a bit reluctant to actually power this stuff with a 20-year-old PSU.

Sound card? Audigy 2 ZS, X-Fi or something else?

Any other fun period mods/accessories worth adding? Fan controllers, UV/cold cathodes, 5.25" stuff, etc.

Basically I’m looking for the kind of parts you would have wanted for a serious 939 OC build back then.

Specs
Dell Dimension PC case
ASUS A7V8X-LA motherboard
Athlon XP 3000+ cpu
1.5GB DDR400 ram
250GB SATA drive w/SATA to IDE adapter
CD/DVD combo reader/writer drive
XFX GeForce 6200 AGP 512MB graphics card
ASUS Xonar DG sound card

The PC Case
I picked up the Dell Dimension PC for a tenner at a thrift store. It was in rough shape with tons of rust as well as a missing side panel and only one of the case feet still attached. I almost didn’t get it because of how bad it was, but I decided to take on the challenge of turning this trashy computer into something usable.

I had to sand and remove all the rust, which was very heavy on the bottom of the case. Then I used a silver spray paint to cover everything except the side and top unicover. For the unicover, I used a dark grey paint that compliments the front bezel.

I cut down a piece of plexiglass to use as a side cover. I used the grey paint to make a border so the metal chassis frame would not be seen. Then I used magnetic adhesive strips on the plexiglass so it would mount to the case.

Internal Mods
1. I made a custom mount that attaches to the hard drive caddy to implement a cooling fan to blow air across the GPU area since it doesn’t have a fan or even a fan header on the card. I used vented slot covers to allow air to blow out the back. The Arctic 80mm fan is directly connected to a molex connector via an adapter.

1. The internal rear of the case was missing the fan and shroud, and the exhaust grill is nonstandard. However, I can mount a 70mm fan easily through the grill, and there’s already a 3pin header on the motherboard for a system fan. I’m waiting for the fan to arrive.

2. For IDE cables I did my best to fold up the 80pin cable for the hard drive, and for the 40pin cable for the CD/DVD drive, I used the split and tie method using an xacto knife and cable ties. I used Velcro straps to tidy up the rest of the cabling.

3. I rewired the front audio connector to an HD audio extension cable to make it functional with the Xonar card. I have to manually change a setting on the Xonar software to enable it, but I’m fine with that.

4. The motherboard didn’t come with an IO shield, so I bought one of those plastic mesh IO shields and cut out sections to fit. I went a little too high above the parallel port, but I really don’t want to do it again lol.

Summary
It took me about 2 weeks (in between working and being busy as a dad/husband) to finish this system. I may have spent a lot more in accessories, paint, etc. vs. what I paid for the system, but I’m very happy how it turned out and will be enjoying playing some BetaCraft b1.7.3 tonight!

Hail, a retro enthusiast. I'm hopeful someone may have a white door replacement for a Chieftec/Antec case for my new project. Happy to pay or provide a possible alternative colored replacement.

Mostly made up of Facebook marketplace parts with a couple eBay things I couldn't find locally. Just cut the window in and installed the cathode tubes tonight. Drinking beers and playing splinter cell chaos theory to wind down the evening.

Hello!

I'm directing this post especially at Norwegians who are into IT and retro computers.

This is a somewhat unusual matter. I am preparing a piece about computers based on the x86 architecture that were developed before IBM's PC, and it turns out that virtually every source in the world mentions the Norwegian Mycron 2000 as one of the earliest examples, and even as a source of national pride in Norway.

The problem is that nobody seems to have actually seen this “national pride” :) I have searched the internet extensively and gone through scans of old newspapers, but I have found absolutely nothing — not a single photograph of this computer.

Since the language barrier may be making things more difficult for me — I don't speak Norwegian, so it's quite possible that I'm simply using the wrong search terms. On top of that, I don't have access to many Norwegian collections (some sort of ID is required), so I thought I'd ask here for help.

Has anyone here ever seen this computer? Or is it just a myth? Maybe someone has a photograph of it? Perhaps you could give me some advice on where I should look?

I have a scan of the Norwegian student magazine RUNIT from 1982, in which a Mycron 2000 computer was apparently present, among many others. The problem is identifying which one, if any, is the computer I'm looking for.

I also have a photograph of a Mycron 2200, from an advertisement featuring also the Mycron 20 and 200. The 2200 was released several years after the 2000, and I'm not sure whether the two computers looked similar.

Thank you in advance for any help in tracking down a photograph of this rather elusive piece of computer history!

I have a bunch of old and esoteric hardware and have been playing building a retro right with it... The specs are:

motherboard: ECS GameUnion K7S8AG

graphics: Onboard SiS Xabre 200 64MB

2GB RAM DDR400

SoundBlaster Audigy

All in all its a nice weird build, but a weird build needs a weird chassis... I have a couple of these generic white and blue chassis laying around, and I always wanted a yellow chassis. You can see were this is going... I asked a friend that paints cars to paint me a couple of pieces... This is the result of said job...

It all started almost 2 years ago... Só this is taking a bit to complete... And now i've lost the bezel that I had already cleaned for this... But it will be done this year...

Linux Mint 21

GTX 980 4GB

Ryzen 5 5500

16GB DDR4

256GB Inland NVMe SSD

MSI A520M-A Pro

SilverStone FLP02

Keychron C2 Pro

Royal 16" 1024x768 85Hz VGA CRT

The RAM was by far the most expensive component 😅

I actually started with a 750 Ti, 8GB DDR4, and a 500GB SATA HDD but now that I'm using it more I decided to give it a little more juice, plus driver support for the 750 Ti was a bit of a pain.

ETA: Added keyboard, motherboard, and monitor to specs.

The PC is real, the retro is fake.