My first OWN computer...

keropi · 18 January 2005, 13:01

Well OK, it is not an amiga, but an IBM pc... this is what got me into computers around 1990... I still have it, and I surely do not intend to throw it away, as it works flawlessly...

Yep, a good old 386sx IBM PS1/Pro ... when I got that beast of the time, all my friends had 286 machines... and the VAT those days for computer stuff in Greece was the double, 36% !!! They were regarded "luxury products"

But that was one mean 386sx@20 ... It reminds of amiga motherboards, all stuff mounted on the board, and a riser providing 3 ISA slots... also a 387sx@20 FPU was fitted... 2MB or RAM soldered on board, and later I purchased another 2MB simm... but those were not normal SIMMS, they were 72pin (like on 486 not 386, all others I knew took 36pin modules) and they had parity! Like I was going to run a server or something... after the memory upgrade, win3.1 got released (at least I had a copy of them) and it was time to replace the on-board TI 512kb VGA, with a CL5422 1MB VGA... I really liked the VESA modes and somewhat speed increase
That thing had everything custom-made! The floppy drive was special, it had no power-connector and used a different cable! also you could not mount a normal cd-rom, as it had to be one of IBM's slim models... I had to make a hole in the front plate, and chop the power wires in order to connect my own cd-rom externally...

that was pretty lame, but it worked excellent!
here are 2 pix of my favorite machine:

Later I replaced a lame soundblaster compatible sound card, with the BEST card I ever had... a YAMAHA SOUND EDGE SW20-PC... soundblaster pro compatible, 2MB of yamaha wavetable rom samples, 128kb of SRAM for loadind your own samples and finally, a beautifull sound DSP, fully programmable in 4 modes, to add whatever effect on the sound in hardware... not like the lame sblive/audigy dsp's... it is not on the pictures, 'cause it takes too much space, and u see nothing else

I later put it on my 486/66 Zenith Z-Station pc, and was playing DOOM with General MIDI music + SBpro FX... again all my friends were jealous

I had such great times with it...
And if anyone wonders why I wrote all that useless stuff, is because today I powered-up my ps1/pro, and cleaned it... I got sentimental....

PS. don't flame at my little pc... if you do, then

18 January 2005, 13:12

Nice (different) post. I certainly won't bash it. Certainly a much nicer job can be done of giving a PC a thorough clean than many hardware and I imagine it's certainly the most easy (cheap) retro hardware to repair - even replacing like for like parts if you're nostalgic.

But it is strange how few people get attached to PC's. Maybe it's because all of the internal hardware is so easily interchangable, the case is interchangable etc....

And also because PC is rather generic - it is not identifying to make any statement or say anything. If IBM has managed to patent their original PC so it couldn't be cloned then maybe today things would be different. Amiga would probably rule the roost

and there'd be boards for IBM PC collectors.

keropi · 18 January 2005, 13:16

Well, I think that pc's are so well spreaded, noone really cares about them... I always change 2-3 stuff on mine per year, and almost every second year comes a new m/b + cpu ... nowdays everything changes so quick... but also averyone gets attached to his/her 1st machine, be it a pc or amiga or atari or whatever.... I will never forget the magicall time I spent on mine ... times were a lot nicer back then...

Fred the Fop · 19 January 2005, 08:30

Keropi, this is a very nice post. I think you will enjoy this site! I love DOS games. I played them happily on Tandy clones. Though the machines were pretty simple by today's standards, they nonetheles had their complications.

http://www.oldskool.org/

Mods: This deserves to be placed in a Nostaglia or such forum. Too good to be off topic.

keropi · 19 January 2005, 08:39

there is a nostalgia forum? I would have created the thread there if I had seen it... Strangely, but when I look and the pics of my ps1, I feel very calm... maybe perhaps it reminds me of those beautifull years...
Now, I'll check the site fred...

Amiga1992 · 19 January 2005, 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by keropi

there is a nostalgia forum? I would have created the thread there if I had seen it...

Yes, I'll move it so it is stored forever

I will follow up with pictures of my very own first computer, which I still have and works perfectly! Let's make this a trend, I like it

keropi · 19 January 2005, 19:33

nice, let's see more and hear stories of the past!

SilentBob · 19 January 2005, 21:00

Hehe, yeah, a 386sx was considered a luxury around here back in 1990. Most of my friends who had a PC had 286s (one person had a 386dx, a monster machine with 4MB RAM and 105 MB harddrive), and they were in 90% of the cases their dads PCs, but claimed as their own. I asked my old man to get a PC, but he thought it was all a waste of time and money. So I muddled through with my trusty ol' A500, and bought upgrades for it on every occasion (few and far in between). :P

My first comp was a ZX Spectrum 48k though. It died back in 1987 after two years of service, where the remains are is unknown.

keropi · 21 January 2005, 15:00

Old-faithfull running TurricanII pc

the initial/setup screen:

In-game screens:

with super-extra smooth scrolling ofcourse

Amiga1992 · 21 January 2005, 16:17

Never played that version, it's the official one? looks swell.

keropi · 22 January 2005, 13:37

keropi · 24 January 2005, 12:16

After having tons of old pc games (1990-2000) I decided to build the ultimate retro-gaming pc...

I will use the following hardware form one of my older pc's (I have learned a lesson: NEVER throw out or sell old hardware) :

Diamond Micronics C400 m/b (intel440BX)
PentiumII 400Mhz
64MB RAM
Voodoo3 AGP 16MB (or maybe like the old days, a s3 8MB agp + 2xVoodoo2 SLI

IF I get them cheap since I sold mine years ago)
6.4GB or 20GB Hard Disk
Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA sound card
and for OS win98se

I remember I was running many older games when on a similar setup this was my 2nd machine, only a little TSR called prot200 was needed for some games, because of the cpu's mhz... or perhaps I'll use a spare pII@266Mhz cpu...
Anyone has any remarks/pointers on this?

keropi · 24 January 2005, 13:05

Hey, here is a GREAT prog for dos machines: GAME WIZARD PRO

the best way to describe it is: Software Action Replay +more

This little proggie, actually helped me to crack a couple of DOS apps/games, the most memorable being Scitech Display Doctor , which added extended VESA modes/supports to certain vga chips... Another interesting option was to "freeze" a prog/game and restore it later... just like savestates on an emulator! and it worked fine 90% !

Here are some mondatory screenshots:

the initial screen:

the main menu! full of features!

the extra-cool memory editor!

Did I mention u could go to DOS-SHELL while you were in ANY program? VERY usefull...

lpopman · 24 January 2005, 23:56

hehe, I remember game wizard pro. used it to train doom just because I could

nice little app..

Fred the Fop · 25 January 2005, 08:12

I need to set up a real Dos box. Turrican II does not work on the Dosbox emu

keropi · 25 January 2005, 08:31

tIIpc is very demanding on the enviroment it runs... if u setup a real DOSbox, just load HIMEM.SYS (no emm and other managers) and your soundcard drivers only...

gimbal · 25 January 2005, 09:15

Did Turrican 2 use protected mode (it shows dos4/gw when it boots)? If not it would have been hell to load soundblaster drivers AND have enough conventional memory left to run the damned game... I know I had major problems with Dune 2 because of that, it required somewhere near 620kb of free conventional memory to do extended sounds (voices, explosions, etc.). That was just crazy.... Of course, Dosbox has no problems with that

Shame T2 doesn't run in Dosbox (the setup crashes with all kinds of weird graphic tearing happening for me), but why play the pc version when the Amiga version is way better

And there is also a Windoze port with the Dos gfx if I'm not mistaken.

keropi · 25 January 2005, 09:27

nope, t2pc does not use protected mode, it uses flat mode... that is conventional+XMS only... it is not that difficult to run it on a real machine, u need ~580kb conventional mem and 2MB XMS.... very easy to achieve that...

ah, and 620kb of free conventional mem is not a big deal too... IF u use IBM's PC-DOS 6 or 7 , MS-DOS is not as good as PC-DOS IMHO in terms of tools and mem management... get PC-DOS now!

Zetr0 · 09 October 2007, 14:48

a cute little pc you have there....

If only i had kept my bomb-proof 386!... I end removing the innards in this desktop for my A1200 conversion.... it was perfect size.... (after removing the bloody enormous PSU!

Alas... in the early years I never had any "close" moments with a PC, they have always been formal, either through work / study never really gamage until much much later.... by which time theres no respect for the hardware as such because you know in 12 months time it will be more than obsolete!

although this is resurrecting a very old thread so call me thread necromancer! but if you are still interested in 2 SLI configured Voodoo 2's.... PM me.... i may be able to help

blade002 · 09 October 2007, 14:59

As much as we are Amigians, I've got a soft spot for the time when the 386/486 came into play. I never owned a PC back then, but it still had some wonderful games and it really was a blisteringly fast system housing those CPU's.

In ACE i used to read Amiga game reviews ( surprise surprise ), but i was also interested in reading about the latest PC game, of which there were many that i would have loved to have been able to get my hands on, but i really could only afford having an Amiga at the time.

Like some others have said. A very nice post

18 January 2005, 13:01	#1
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	My first OWN computer... Well OK, it is not an amiga, but an IBM pc... this is what got me into computers around 1990... I still have it, and I surely do not intend to throw it away, as it works flawlessly... Yep, a good old 386sx IBM PS1/Pro ... when I got that beast of the time, all my friends had 286 machines... and the VAT those days for computer stuff in Greece was the double, 36% !!! They were regarded "luxury products" But that was one mean 386sx@20 ... It reminds of amiga motherboards, all stuff mounted on the board, and a riser providing 3 ISA slots... also a 387sx@20 FPU was fitted... 2MB or RAM soldered on board, and later I purchased another 2MB simm... but those were not normal SIMMS, they were 72pin (like on 486 not 386, all others I knew took 36pin modules) and they had parity! Like I was going to run a server or something... after the memory upgrade, win3.1 got released (at least I had a copy of them) and it was time to replace the on-board TI 512kb VGA, with a CL5422 1MB VGA... I really liked the VESA modes and somewhat speed increase That thing had everything custom-made! The floppy drive was special, it had no power-connector and used a different cable! also you could not mount a normal cd-rom, as it had to be one of IBM's slim models... I had to make a hole in the front plate, and chop the power wires in order to connect my own cd-rom externally... that was pretty lame, but it worked excellent! here are 2 pix of my favorite machine: Later I replaced a lame soundblaster compatible sound card, with the BEST card I ever had... a YAMAHA SOUND EDGE SW20-PC... soundblaster pro compatible, 2MB of yamaha wavetable rom samples, 128kb of SRAM for loadind your own samples and finally, a beautifull sound DSP, fully programmable in 4 modes, to add whatever effect on the sound in hardware... not like the lame sblive/audigy dsp's... it is not on the pictures, 'cause it takes too much space, and u see nothing else I later put it on my 486/66 Zenith Z-Station pc, and was playing DOOM with General MIDI music + SBpro FX... again all my friends were jealous I had such great times with it... And if anyone wonders why I wrote all that useless stuff, is because today I powered-up my ps1/pro, and cleaned it... I got sentimental.... PS. don't flame at my little pc... if you do, then Last edited by keropi; 24 January 2005 at 13:09.

22 January 2005, 13:37	#11
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	yep, it is the licensed conversion from rainbow arts... a pure dos-mode game (c)1995

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18 January 2005, 13:12	#2
Jim Posts: n/a	Nice (different) post. I certainly won't bash it. Certainly a much nicer job can be done of giving a PC a thorough clean than many hardware and I imagine it's certainly the most easy (cheap) retro hardware to repair - even replacing like for like parts if you're nostalgic. But it is strange how few people get attached to PC's. Maybe it's because all of the internal hardware is so easily interchangable, the case is interchangable etc.... And also because PC is rather generic - it is not identifying to make any statement or say anything. If IBM has managed to patent their original PC so it couldn't be cloned then maybe today things would be different. Amiga would probably rule the roost and there'd be boards for IBM PC collectors.

18 January 2005, 13:16	#3
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	Well, I think that pc's are so well spreaded, noone really cares about them... I always change 2-3 stuff on mine per year, and almost every second year comes a new m/b + cpu ... nowdays everything changes so quick... but also averyone gets attached to his/her 1st machine, be it a pc or amiga or atari or whatever.... I will never forget the magicall time I spent on mine ... times were a lot nicer back then...

19 January 2005, 08:30	#4
Fred the Fop flaming faggot Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Versailles Age: 55 Posts: 2,808	Keropi, this is a very nice post. I think you will enjoy this site! I love DOS games. I played them happily on Tandy clones. Though the machines were pretty simple by today's standards, they nonetheles had their complications. http://www.oldskool.org/ Mods: This deserves to be placed in a Nostaglia or such forum. Too good to be off topic.

19 January 2005, 08:39	#5
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	there is a nostalgia forum? I would have created the thread there if I had seen it... Strangely, but when I look and the pics of my ps1, I feel very calm... maybe perhaps it reminds me of those beautifull years... Now, I'll check the site fred...

19 January 2005, 19:33	#7
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	nice, let's see more and hear stories of the past!

19 January 2005, 21:00	#8
SilentBob Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Norway Age: 49 Posts: 246	Hehe, yeah, a 386sx was considered a luxury around here back in 1990. Most of my friends who had a PC had 286s (one person had a 386dx, a monster machine with 4MB RAM and 105 MB harddrive), and they were in 90% of the cases their dads PCs, but claimed as their own. I asked my old man to get a PC, but he thought it was all a waste of time and money. So I muddled through with my trusty ol' A500, and bought upgrades for it on every occasion (few and far in between). :P My first comp was a ZX Spectrum 48k though. It died back in 1987 after two years of service, where the remains are is unknown.

21 January 2005, 15:00	#9
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	Old-faithfull running TurricanII pc the initial/setup screen: In-game screens: with super-extra smooth scrolling ofcourse

21 January 2005, 16:17	#10
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,645	Never played that version, it's the official one? looks swell.

24 January 2005, 12:16	#12
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	After having tons of old pc games (1990-2000) I decided to build the ultimate retro-gaming pc... I will use the following hardware form one of my older pc's (I have learned a lesson: NEVER throw out or sell old hardware) : Diamond Micronics C400 m/b (intel440BX) PentiumII 400Mhz 64MB RAM Voodoo3 AGP 16MB (or maybe like the old days, a s3 8MB agp + 2xVoodoo2 SLI IF I get them cheap since I sold mine years ago) 6.4GB or 20GB Hard Disk Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA sound card and for OS win98se I remember I was running many older games when on a similar setup this was my 2nd machine, only a little TSR called prot200 was needed for some games, because of the cpu's mhz... or perhaps I'll use a spare pII@266Mhz cpu... Anyone has any remarks/pointers on this?

24 January 2005, 13:05	#13
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	Hey, here is a GREAT prog for dos machines: GAME WIZARD PRO the best way to describe it is: Software Action Replay +more This little proggie, actually helped me to crack a couple of DOS apps/games, the most memorable being Scitech Display Doctor , which added extended VESA modes/supports to certain vga chips... Another interesting option was to "freeze" a prog/game and restore it later... just like savestates on an emulator! and it worked fine 90% ! Here are some mondatory screenshots: the initial screen: the main menu! full of features! the extra-cool memory editor! Did I mention u could go to DOS-SHELL while you were in ANY program? VERY usefull...

24 January 2005, 23:56	#14
lpopman Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Coventry / England Age: 53 Posts: 37	hehe, I remember game wizard pro. used it to train doom just because I could nice little app..

25 January 2005, 08:12	#15
Fred the Fop flaming faggot Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Versailles Age: 55 Posts: 2,808	I need to set up a real Dos box. Turrican II does not work on the Dosbox emu

25 January 2005, 08:31	#16
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	tIIpc is very demanding on the enviroment it runs... if u setup a real DOSbox, just load HIMEM.SYS (no emm and other managers) and your soundcard drivers only...

25 January 2005, 09:15	#17
gimbal cheeky scoundrel Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Spijkenisse/Netherlands Age: 42 Posts: 6,919	Did Turrican 2 use protected mode (it shows dos4/gw when it boots)? If not it would have been hell to load soundblaster drivers AND have enough conventional memory left to run the damned game... I know I had major problems with Dune 2 because of that, it required somewhere near 620kb of free conventional memory to do extended sounds (voices, explosions, etc.). That was just crazy.... Of course, Dosbox has no problems with that Shame T2 doesn't run in Dosbox (the setup crashes with all kinds of weird graphic tearing happening for me), but why play the pc version when the Amiga version is way better And there is also a Windoze port with the Dos gfx if I'm not mistaken.

25 January 2005, 09:27	#18
keropi . Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Ioannina/Greece Posts: 5,040	nope, t2pc does not use protected mode, it uses flat mode... that is conventional+XMS only... it is not that difficult to run it on a real machine, u need ~580kb conventional mem and 2MB XMS.... very easy to achieve that... ah, and 620kb of free conventional mem is not a big deal too... IF u use IBM's PC-DOS 6 or 7 , MS-DOS is not as good as PC-DOS IMHO in terms of tools and mem management... get PC-DOS now!

09 October 2007, 14:48	#19
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	a cute little pc you have there.... If only i had kept my bomb-proof 386!... I end removing the innards in this desktop for my A1200 conversion.... it was perfect size.... (after removing the bloody enormous PSU! Alas... in the early years I never had any "close" moments with a PC, they have always been formal, either through work / study never really gamage until much much later.... by which time theres no respect for the hardware as such because you know in 12 months time it will be more than obsolete! although this is resurrecting a very old thread so call me thread necromancer! but if you are still interested in 2 SLI configured Voodoo 2's.... PM me.... i may be able to help

09 October 2007, 14:59	#20
blade002 Zone Friend Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Australia Age: 50 Posts: 2,616	As much as we are Amigians, I've got a soft spot for the time when the 386/486 came into play. I never owned a PC back then, but it still had some wonderful games and it really was a blisteringly fast system housing those CPU's. In ACE i used to read Amiga game reviews ( surprise surprise ), but i was also interested in reading about the latest PC game, of which there were many that i would have loved to have been able to get my hands on, but i really could only afford having an Amiga at the time. Like some others have said. A very nice post

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