Gateway 2000 P5-90 - playing Sam & Max Hit the Road
Posted by timter51@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 32 comments
I've spent a lot of time this year playing games on my Gateway 2000 P5-90 that I never got round to back in the day. I was a big point and click fan in the early/mid 90s but for some reason never played Sam & Max Hit the Road... until now! Absolutely loving it, as I knew I would. It feels good to right my wrongs of 30 years ago :)
Heavy-Judgment-3617@reddit
I do love the battlecruiser keyboard. The Gateway AnyKey, the Sun Type 7, and the Northgate Omnikey Ultra type battlecruiser keyboards were IMO the best.
The closest we have to that today would possibly be the Logitech G915 X.
tekfx19@reddit
That monitor FTW
Just_Lobster5456@reddit
Awesome setup! Im def jealous. I collect old gateway pcs . I have a 4dx2-66 with a similar case. It's a 486 with pci slots which is kind of cool. case design looks the same except it's much smaller. But That p5-90 you have is my holy grail. Along with the Gateway 4dx2-66v tower. Which is super hard to find and goes for $$$. Even yours goes for some hundreds on ebay in an untested condition. Hope to find one for a decent deal someday. I also have those same speakers. Unfortunately every pair I've bought has come with issues, or only 1 spkr worked.
Definitely be a great rig to play some doom/doom2. Since it's a pentium I'm sure quake works nice at a 320x200 resolution
timter51@reddit (OP)
Doom is on the list! Weirdly back then on my Gateway I only played Doom to create maps or download and play other peoples maps, I only actually played the single player story mode on Doom on the PlayStation when that came out in '95 (a different but still fantastic experience). I'm looking forward to experiencing the original Doom story on PC for the first time!
Just_Lobster5456@reddit
Oh cool. That's one of the coolest parts of the Doom community is they have been actively making custom levels/wads/mods since 1994. They are super good about archiving everything too. They have a FTP that must have 1000s of custom wads dating back to the 90s. Did you ever upload any of yours? I used to make them too but I was a kid so they were all just really bad lol. My peak of doom mapping was making a big room and filling it with a bunch of monsters like cyber demons, spider-demons, mancubus etc just to watch them have a big battle royale. I remember when I finally got it to work I had to run to get my dad to show him. I felt like a real computer programmer lol
Wow I'm a huge PSX doom fan myself. That's so funny that was my intro to doom as well. Well technically it was 32x doom but I don't really count that lol. I got it back in early 96 and it blew my mind with how good it was, especially compared to my 32x version or my friends copies on the snes. Some dislike it but I actually prefer the direction they went with the colored lighting and horror ambient soundtrack. The PC midi tunes are iconic, but nothing beats the PSX experience for me. But that's so cool you're going to experience doom on the PC for the first time. Are you going to be running it on this rig? I have a Gateway2000 233 MHZ Pentium MMX I installed it on and it was so cool to run it on somewhat period correct hardware. If you do play the OG Dos version I reccomend going into the Cfg file, just right click open it in notepad. From there you can adjust your mouse sensitivity (theres an in game option but it doesn't really do much) and also will let you turn on auto-run so you don't have to hold down shift the whole time.
timter51@reddit (OP)
I adore PSX Doom, it's one of my lifelong favourite gaming experiences! Aubrey Hodges' work on the OST was just something very special. Me and my brother used to go and hire out another PSX console and copy of Doom from Blockbuster, drag another TV into the room and position them back-to-back, hook the two consoles up with a link cable and play deathmatch and coop til the early hours. Looking back that was very unique local dual-screen multiplayer experience, Amazing and magical times.
There is every chance I uploaded some of my WADs back then, but I would have no idea what I would have called them or what my username would have been - I'll have to go hunting for these FTPs, I wasn't aware that kind of thing was still active! But yes, many of my earlier maps would have been massive long rooms with a load of Cyberdemons at one end and player spawn at the other end, hah, I think we all started like that :)
Thank you for the tips on config for Doom, I'm looking forward to that, I'll chuck up some photos when I get going!
Just_Lobster5456@reddit
Def agree it's an amazing experience and hodges soundtracks are phenomenal. He also did Doom64 and Quake for N64 which are really good as well. And that's so cool you actually got the link cable and got multiplayer running. I always wanted to do that so bad as a kid, but never had a link cable or knew anyone with one. Those are awesome memories though. That time in gaming was so special.
Hopefully you can maybe find some of your old wads, that would be really cool to go back rediscover your old levels. Haha that's nice to hear I wasn't the only one doing that with making doom levels.
And Np! Sounds good def will be interested to see how it turns out for you. I'm sure you'll like it a lot, there's just something special about playing it on the period correct hardware.
PapaPlaete@reddit
Great game, loved to play that, too.
dust_grooves@reddit
I miss desktop PCs, they took up a hell of a lot of desk real estate though!
apogeeman2@reddit
OMG… my exact first family setup. Same tower, same monitor, same speakers, same keyboard.
Could never get “The Executioner” (IIRC) or Lawnmower Man (came with it on CD) running, but other than that is was an Apogee DOS powerhouse!
timter51@reddit (OP)
Oh wow... I think I remember trying the Lawnmover Man game as well!! I'll have to find it on archive.org and see if I can get it running :)
cthart@reddit
That keyboard is the star of the show.
whaleyboy@reddit
My first PC (after my Amiga) was a Gateway2000 486DX2-50V in 1993...so much nosalgia seeing that case design again. Wish I could get hold of one here in the UK. And Sam & Max...what a gem of a game!
timter51@reddit (OP)
I'm in the UK as well :) Our first family PC (we came from a Speccy) was the Gateway 2000 486 DX2-66, so very similar to you! Can you remember which of the cases you had? Ours was in this same case, monitor, speakers and keyboard that I have now.
It took me nearly 3 years to piece this machine together from ebay and forums, the Vivitron came first, then in the process I went through a very yellow P5-75 (now in the loft...) and a two very yellow non-Anykey G2K keyboards before this beautiful P5-90 popped up earlier this year, I couldn't believe it. Finding an Anykey and speakers in great condition were just the icing on the cake. I think I really lucked out in finding all separate parts in great condition, like you say they are not common here in the UK.
robvas@reddit
Ahh the keyboard with the diagonal arrow keys!
timter51@reddit (OP)
It was the first PC keyboard we had in the family and I gamed on it so much it was strange for me to have to adapt to the standard arrow key layout when I moved on from the Gateway around 99/00. I had used the standard layout on PCs at school of course, but not for gaming! Going back to it 30ish years later is also very strange :D
TheJimsterR@reddit
I had no idea this had ever been a thing. Fancy!
DaveMcElfatrick@reddit
That’s a beauty!’
Privileged_Interface@reddit
Beauty!
-Outrageous-Vanilla-@reddit
Lovely
isecore@reddit
90s goodness. And those LucasArts titles are good times. My two favorites were always Day of the Tentacle and The Dig.
andreberaldinoab@reddit
Don't forget Full Throttle and Monkey Island! Never forget!
isecore@reddit
Played them too but for whatever reasons they didn't quite grab me as deeply. Still awesome classic point-and-clickers though!
SonOfSlyherin@reddit
The Dig is hands down my favorite, I’ve been preaching it’s gospel for years now
isecore@reddit
It's a fairly odd game too, since it's quite serious in tone while most other games are much more wacky. Also, awesome music!
Spattzzzzz@reddit
Dang that’s sweet: Sierra and Lucasarts games.
Never really got any better really.
n0x630@reddit
Say hello to my man Conroy Bumpus for me
SonOfSlyherin@reddit
This picture doubles as a Time Machine 💖
dxg999@reddit
The exact computer I had, although mine was the P100. Same speakers, keyboard, can't remember the mouse though.
Spend ages noodling around in Turbo Pascal on that thing, then Delphi.
Simpler times.
harrigan@reddit
Same here, I had the P120. Good times.
timter51@reddit (OP)
Nice!! I had this exact machine but it was the 486 DX2-66, same case (not common to get a 486 in that larger case), monitor, speakers and keyboard. The mouse in the photo is actually from after the G2K rebrand, I like the little cow box on it but it does annoy me a bit that it's not authentic to the computer era :) One day I'll replace it with an early 90s MS mouse to match this era, perhaps even one with the correct Gateway 2000 logo on - they do exist, but I've never found one in decent non-yellowed condition.
I've put this machine together over the past (nearly) 3 years, so happy to have found all the correct parts in such good condition, they are rare to find like this here in the UK.
dxg999@reddit
From memory, the speakers had a subwoofer power supply thingy. I recall it being very heavy. Kept those speakers over several computers after that one as they were really good (for the time).