Here is a group shot of all my Desktop PC's. The two empty cases on the top will soon have AMD boards in them, a Socket 939 and a socket AM2
Posted by johnvosh@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 18 comments
1st Row: Gateway Select 400, Gateway ATXSTF OXN Select 1000, Gateway 2000 SP6-400
2nd row: Custom Built Athlon XP 2500+, Custom Built AMD Athlon/Duron system
3rd row: Empty will be AMD Socket AM2 system, Dell Dimension XPS T700r, Dell Dimension XPS B866
4th row: Empty will be AMD Socket 939 system, Mind Computers P4, Mind Computers P4
5th row: HP Pavilion Phenom II X4, Dell XPS 630i
6th row: Compaq CQ2302F Intel Atom, HP Prodesk 600 G1, Lenovo Thinkcentre M92P, IBM System x3200 M3
7th row: Dell XPS 8940, Custom i5 4th gen
Calm_Apartment1968@reddit
I love the blue one too. I had one like that in black for a long time, but gave it up to a friend after the next build. Kinda sorry I did, because that was a better case than most which came after it.
PS: Your power utility must LOVE you.
johnvosh@reddit (OP)
At one point, not in my current place, but my previous place, I did keep all of my old systems plugged into the wall. I did that for a few months and noticed my power bill had gone up a bit. It is actually crazy how many watts some of these systems use in power off/standby mode. I don't do that anymore!
Calm_Apartment1968@reddit
It's amazing, since most of those shown were manufactured after the 'Energy-Saver' tech was promoted. Between 1997 & 2001 I ran a small shop building custom towers on the side. At first I kept a row of every old model I could get my hands on, and ran mostly just screensavers on them, as well as some old apps. It helped people paying thousands to see how much better their 'new' tech I was building for them compared to the old.
Everything from Commodore64 to early MAC (before hard drives) Ti99, Sinclair, Tandy 1000, and TRS-80. Most of those cost over $2k new, so when I charged them the same price for a Pentium 90 which did 40,000 times more processing per second they wouldn't haggle over the price.
After just 3 months I had to turn them all off, unless I had a customer in the shop because of those costs.
It did teach me to choose the most energy efficient hardware.
I shut the shop down upon realizing it put me in a higher tax bracket, but those days were fun. Now AI has gone and tossed all that effort in the IT industry out the window.
jf7333@reddit
This is so cool
Pasi123@reddit
One of the empty cases looks like one of those cheap cases which were made to look like Nokia phones. I think that one was inspired by Nokia 8850 but isn't as close as some other ones
gen_angry@reddit
That blue chieftec dragon case :)
I had one just like it back in 2003-2005 with an Opteron 180 and x1950 Pro. Had an AMD64 logo etched on the glass side panel.
Sweet collection.
VivienM7@reddit
If I had ever imagined retrocomputing would become a thing, I would never have gotten rid of my Dell T700r. Fabulous machine, but I just couldn't imagine in 2010 or so that the machine that soured me on 98SE would... be desirable a decade later as a retro 98SE system.
One question - why not any much older systems? e.g. socket 7/DOS type stuff? Have you had good luck doing older stuff on PII-era ISA machines?
johnvosh@reddit (OP)
I grew up in the 90's... Our 1st home computer was a C64, then we eventually got a PC with Windows 98SE & a Pentium 166 which I would later upgrade. Then I moved to a K6-2, then to Athlon XP. The Gateway Select 400 actually has a AMD K6-2 550 MHz with socket 7. For me, DOS gaming wasn't really a big thing, it was more windows games. I didn't really use DOS, the oldest I had used was Win 3.1, but otherwise everything was windows. In from around grade 4 (it could of been a bit earlier) until grade 7 we had Apple computers in the school (The B&W built in screen ones, then eventually the pizza box ones). By the time I got to high school (grade 8-12), they were using 98 then XP.
VivienM7@reddit
Okay, fair enough. My story is a bit different I guess - Mac guy until early 1995 when my dad decided we should get a 486 and go DOS/Windows, spent 7 months in DOS/Win3.11, got Win95 on Aug. 24, 1995. My first Windows machine that (particularly in hindsight) wasn't a mediocre forgettable piece of junk was my Dell T700r 5.5 years later. Did the 95/98/98SE/2000 (greatest OS over)/XP/Vista/7 path like most others my age.
But I guess because I only had about 7 months of actual DOS experience (plus a bit at school), I don't have a ton of nostalgia for it, but more... curiosity. Never experienced DOS stuff on a good system. Never really played with DOS games that much.
So that's why trying to acquire a late-DOS-era system has been high on my bucket list for a while... and they're hard to find.
DeepDayze@reddit
Ohh I had that Dell case but in black. Heavily modded it for side fans and a fan in the top plus to take standard ATX mobos.
DeepDayze@reddit
Now THAT's a LAN party!
lheckler77@reddit
I guess im just getting old. These seem like current PCs in my brain lol
Xe4ro@reddit
Oh that grey Chieftec case is the one or similar to the one my XP pc had back in the day. Still looking for that one to rebuild that PC but I never see it on ebay \^\^
johnvosh@reddit (OP)
That is actually an Antec Performance II SX1040BII (I actually have the box for it!). It has an Athlon XP 2100+, 768MB DDR266, Asus A7V333 rev 1.04, Radeon 9600 Pro, Windows XP
Xe4ro@reddit
Here https://ibb.co/7xg2NVq6 from the inside and https://ibb.co/prbNpKh6 from the back. Any idea what case this could be?
Xe4ro@reddit
Oh maybe I'am looking for the wrong case then. I'm kinda going by an old saved page of the order on Alternate which might show the PC I ordered back then xD.
ICQME@reddit
Love the blue one
johnvosh@reddit (OP)
It is my original Chieftec Dragon Case from around 2002. It went from me to two other family members then back to me. Luckily I put the Gigabyte motherboard sticker in it and rebuilt the system. It has a Athlon XP 2500+, 2GB DDR400, Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 Rev 1.0, Sound Blaster Audigy SB 1394, ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9800 Pro, Windows XP