Latest one day project....sorta

[ProfessorProfessorson]

This will probably only interest maybe one or tow of you but anyway, contrary to the popular belief of the select few, the chosen girls of fail, I do actually stay quite busy with different projects. I make it no secret that I love old pc hardware, let alone new stuff. Typically any craigslist trolling or whatever other lulz is done while waiting for benchmarks to finish up on other systems I have built, etc, when I am sitting here at home. It gets boring watching 3D Mark 99 run for the 1200th time, or installing Windows 98 for the umpteenth time, so you have to keep busy somehow while doing so. Anyway, that brings me to this. Finally had time to get my 3DFX build back together during sunday evening and most of monday. Originally I was using a Jabil Kadoka Slot A board with a Athlon 900mhz Quoth had nabbed me a long while back (actually he nabbed me a Slot A 850 and 900mhz both during a run at a pc parts store near him). That board and the 900mhz Athlon were a good pair when running with a SoundBlaster Live and a Voodoo 5, but, really a bit of overkill for Glide specific titles as far as the Voodoo 5 is concerned, unless you want FSAA specifically.

After a bit of use I broke that system down and packed parts away, and sold off the V5. I had a Monster Fusion Banshee waiting to be used, one day..... I always loved the Banshee ever since I first owned one. They scaled well with faster cpus, which was never reflected in the original reviews done for the cards, since back then they benched them with lowly Pentium II and PIII processors on Slot 1 boards. Some of the manufactures also sold the cards overclocked right off the bat, which was rare at that time. Anyway, finally got out the parts to do the rebuild from my legacy parts closet. Ended up wanting to go with a Sb 128, Aka Ensoniq Audio PCI, because its Dos support is solid, but it had issues with the Kadoka. So I went with a far far faster Asrock K7VT2 and Athlon XP 2400+ combo. The system is now up and running flawlessly, and can be viewed on the link below.

[nat]

I've owned only Macs for almost ten years now, but I've been considering putting together an old Pentium or somesuch to use as a DOS box for running old games.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Yeah I have been building and refurbishing older systems for Dos/Win 95 and 98 use to sell. The stuff is kinda in demand now and not easy to set up. Some of the better Socket 7 boards that only use ISA and pci slots can really fight you on the later 128-bit gpu driven grafx cards and certain audio cards, so you need to choose your parts wisely. I have a ton of spare parts,etc I had stowed away over the years. I actually need to get to work on refurbing a K6-2 NEC tower soon to list for sale, but before that I need to finish up a Slot 1 Pentium II tower to list too. This system I just did was for my games that use 3DFX mainly. The only reason I even wanted to tack on Dos audio support was for a few Dos titles that have Glide modes. I already have a main system I use for normal Dos and old Direct X titles, consisting of a K6-2, PCI MX4000, Awe 32 pnp, and 128 mb ram which I will do a video of if I get the chance. On that one I can run stuff out via S-video to a small tv I have nearby if I want. Some of the really old Dos stuff when run on a normal tv actually looks a bit better then in VGA, especially the arcade port stuff. As far as mac stuff, I dont mess with that. I had picked up a old Mac prior I considered using for old games. This was a few years back when I did. Ended up giving it to Quoth09 to use. I also came across a batch of new sealed Quake 1 copies for Mac once that I got for a buck each. Sold them all on ebay for between 15-20 bucks a pop, because at the time they were considered rare. Now I don't think anyone gives a f*ck about the Id stuff on Mac. I dont think it goes for much at all.

[PunkicCyborg]

you should press the enter/return key every so often

[ProfessorProfessorson]

You should for me. I'm lazy.

[blueraven]

Lol. Makes me want to play X-Wing with the full-keyboard of commands again.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

I basically play X-Wing with a Gravis pad and Keyboard combo. I do have a older gameport flight stick I could use too though I guess if I cared to hook it up.

[nat]

I used to own a Gravis Pad, used that thing for years. It still worked the last time I used it but that was, uh, like 12 years ago. I haven't seen it in many many years, I suspect it probably got lost during one of my moves since then. That thing was top notch.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Yeah old controller wise, besides the flight stick, I have two Gravis Gamepad Pro USB pads, a Interact Propad 6, and a Gravis Destroyer GamePad.

[Arkhan]

awww no MT-32?

That is my preferred way to play crap in DOS.   Ultima don't sound right without it.

and, yeah, trolling the internets is a good way to fill the void when somethings building/installing/rendering/etc.  I do it alot,

That or playing PCE.

[SuperDeadite]

awww no MT-32?

That is my preferred way to play crap in DOS.   Ultima don't sound right without it.

and, yeah, trolling the internets is a good way to fill the void when somethings building/installing/rendering/etc.  I do it alot,

That or playing PCE.

But the later DOS games, Doom, Duke 3D, were all on SC-55.  Which is why I love my CM-500.
MT-32 and SC-55 in one box.  Hell yes!

[geise]

I've owned only Macs for almost ten years now, but I've been considering putting together an old Pentium or somesuch to use as a DOS box for running old games.

Just get Dosbox for your mac.  That's all you need.  If you have a decent Mac it will run perfect.  No need for a whole extra pc tower.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Anything I run DOS wise the AWE 32 handles quite well on its own music wise, so I cant complain. Probably the only thing Id play that uses MT32 well enough is Dune and a couple others. I dont really care for the Sierra library of titles, Might and Magic, Ultima, etc, so I wouldnt get much use out of it. I considered nabbing a Yamaha DB50XG to mess around with a SB16, but not really sure its worth the hassle. For the curious, the SB PCI 128, etc, all that rebadged Ensoniq AudioPci stuff supports Soundscape in Dos. The cards are well rounded for handling any of the mid 90's Dos titles, however FM playback is horrible, so you wont be doing any Megarace 1 on that card.

I've owned only Macs for almost ten years now, but I've been considering putting together an old Pentium or somesuch to use as a DOS box for running old games.

Just get Dosbox for your mac.  That's all you need.  If you have a decent Mac it will run perfect.  No need for a whole extra pc tower.

Dosbox has flaws, and its kinda just nice to actually set up and use real hardware. Its part of what makes the hobby fun.

[geise]

Yeah I agree it's more fun of a hobby on real hardware.  I'm just saying if you don't have aPC and are using a Mac it might be easier to get a quick fix using DosBox for Mac if you're only wanting to play certain games.  If I had a crap ton of old games already, then yeah I'd just put together an old computer if I had all the parts.

[Necromancer]

For the curious, the SB PCI 128, etc, all that rebadged Ensoniq AudioPci stuff supports Soundscape in Dos.

Heh.  This brings back fond memories of the full length ISA board stuffed in my 486 back in the day; that thing was just too damn big to not be awesome.