Re: Hardware Follies: Defeated by the Disk

On Tue, 27 May 2025 10:53:12 +0200, H1M3M <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote:

>
Looking at at the motherboards manual, supposedly there's some USB
capability, but only exists as a non standard pin header.

Project98 uses a customised 440BX chipset made for an IBM machine (or,
at least, it has an IBM-branded BIOS). Some 440BX motherboards have
internal connectors that can be used for USB expansion, but this one
doesn't (cheap, IBM, cheap!). But even if it did, I don't have any
spare USB headers (and no empty expansion blanks) so it wouldn't do me
any good if the motherboard wasn't so limited.

My retro PC is
a Pentium 200 MMX from 1997, so not the greatest choice for a retro machine.

That depends on what you want from the machine. It would make an
/excellent/ Windows 95 computer and late-era DOS gaming. But you'd
feel it chug on any game even a few years older.

I've got a 400MHz Pentium II and it's good for most games up to 1999
or mid 2000 (although part of that is because the video card is
somewhat limited. I love my Voodoo 3 and have no intention of
replacing it, but it was behind-the-curve even when it was released.

I did attempt to install a PCI USB card since I'm running out of PS/2
mouse and keyboards, but...
- It does not deliver enough power for an optical USB mouse. I ended
buying the most barebones Genius ball mouse. 2 buttons, no wheel, but
with a manufacture well past 2000, so it may have been made for people
struggling with too many buttons and gizmos. brand new.

LOL. That's one underpowered USB port (but I'm not surprised, given
the era of the hardware. A lot of manufacturers cheaped out when it
came to USB).

One thing I discovered when building the Project98 box was that I
don't even /own/ a PS/2 mouse anymore; I've a couple serial mice, but
everything else is USB. Fortunately, I /do/ have a USB-to-PS2 adapter
;-)

-Although I did manage to get it to read a pendrive, it would become
extremely unstable with anything else.

That might just be the OS. Even Linux had problems with USB memory
sticks, and I /still/ sometimes struggle with Windows98SE getting to
recognize some thumb-drives. Some drives are extremely sensitive about
USB version number and power supply too.

- I had to remove the network card to install the USB one. That will
give you an idea of how cramped things are inside. Two of the case's
back bays are taken by the Serial, PS/2 and parallel ports, A 3dfx card
next to the (Non vesa compliant) S3 trash, and a big ass ISA Sound
Blaster AWE card. There's just too much inside.

Same. As much as I grumbled about it back in the day, the fact that
modern motherboards have so many features built into them actually
makes expansion easier now, because you don't have to add three or
four cards just to achieve basic functionality.

Although I do have a completely superfluous TV-tuner card that I could
remove if I /really/ needed the space. I mostly keep it in there for
the 'neato' factor (and in case I ever want to hook up an old console
to the computer for some reason).

I guess the best option would be grabbing a Pentium II or III, but the
prices have gone up too much. I'm still not happy witht he current
available options. Dosbox and dosbox-X rarely get the pixel aspect
ratio right, I have never gotten 86Box to play nice with the mouse speed
and sound, and I am not sure VMware workstation works great for gaming.

I've never been a real stickler with pixel-size or even aspect ratios,
so DOSBox has been more than good enough for me. I use it entirely for
playing all my DOS games (well, minus the tiny handful --one or two
out of thousands-- that don't play nice under emulation).

But emulation is still lagging behind for games from the 96-2001 era
(the Win9x years of gaming). If it is not compatibility, its
performance, and even a neatly configured 86Box setup is still
inferior to actual hardware.

There's an added advantage too, to using old hardware. We had a few
cooler days and I find that just running the old hardware warms up the
room /just enough/ to take away the chill. ;-P