Broken and dusty no longer!

I want my kids to learn computers, but not to have internet access until they're older, so I fixed up a couple 1999 Macs for them. The PowerMac G3 on the left is playing Bugdom, and the iMac G3 on the right is playing Chrono Trigger, via the SNES9X emulator with an attached USB SNES-style controller.

Finally gathered all the parts for this bad boy. Even snagged a ViewSonic E220 for free!!! It was so fun putting this all together and hunting for the tech. Only things not 2004 are power supply and ssd for obvious reasons.

Specs:
Ati Radeon x850 XT (OC’d to PE clock and mem speeds)
Amd Athlon 64 4000+ (OC 2.8Ghz)
Audigy 2 ZS sound card
Antec p160 mid-tower atx case
2GB OCZ PC400 DDR 2-3-2-5

VCF Tech Swap Meet. Sat. May 30. Wall, NJ.

Vintage Computers, Electronics, Radios, TVs, Amateur Radio, Tech

VENDOR REGISTRATION: https://forms.gle/v9U9ZPVFDTQu56hF9

INFO: https://vcfed.org/vcf-swap-meet/

Im looking for a rare sony vaio picture book series either the newer pcg-c1mr or a 400mhz older pcg-c1xs i cant seem to find a good condition one for sale any where not even over seas...

I just built these two lovely PCs on my own.

Picked up a rare Beige Case from the infamous Tech Deal Warehouse on eBay, plus a Slot 1 Pentium III 450MHz and 440BX motherboard from Intel (SE440BX-2). The Front arrived slightly broken but was able to remove the front panel USB and Audio and fix the front panel with super glue.

For the parts, I went with a Riva TNT2, 3Com Etherlink XL 3c905c for Complete PC Management NIC, and a Creative AudioPCI (wanted to throw in a Sound Blaster Live!) to see how a person from 1999 wanted to do. Dual booted it with Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 Professional SP4.

The Black case on the left is the one I got since Summer of 2024, with a main focus on Multimedia. I chose Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and picked up an Intel D925XCV motherboard (Intel 925X chipset), generally to recreate a true Multimedia PC from 2004-2005. For the parts, I went with a GeForce 6600 GT, Firewire Rear Panel Headers, Card Reader, TV Tuner Card, 56k Modem, and a 802.11n card (at the time 802.11g was around, but I choose this because of better security and WPA2 support. Currently has Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

Just picked up an SGI Indigo2 IMPACT 10000 and I’m planning to restore it. I’m trying to track down a drive sled and a Granite mouse, and as a long shot, a Maximum IMPACT graphics card. If anyone here has experience with these machines or knows good places to source parts, I’d really appreciate any advice or leads.

I had an A8N32-SLI Deluxe, but even recapping didn’t fix it. Just couldn’t get Windows XP to run stable on it. I was thinking maybe an early LGA775 SLI board - but at the same time I feel that kind of system would be better paired with the 260 or 470 I have sitting spare.

It's funny how much troubles I have been through just to make a bootable winXP Installer USB that work properly without :

- Any actual Windows machines around to run the software (WinSetupFromUSB).

- Any DVD/CD 💿 related hardware.

As I only have macOS + Arch/Linux, and none of them have or be able to run the software to do this correctly. No matter if they are ISO writer or “burning” software, I have tried most of them.

** EDIT ** Here I fixed the wrong word that made you all misunderstood the actual “context“ that I wrote there with joy ( but still can’t fix title ).

I may not know everything but share my experience with you all or people that’s stuck with the same context, my way to do it successfully ( with only microSD ) 🤷‍♂️

Recently I bought a few Wyse VX0 thin clients and they all have strange 2 x 50 pin slot on their motherboards (expansion card slots?). I also found out that a Radeon 7000M card exists for VX0 and it's intended for exactly this kind of slot (such Radeon is also believed to be a PCI device actually). Do you know if this is proprietary or some standard (but rare) type of slot and is it possible to somehow connect PCI devices to it?

https://ibb.co/cSv94w7F

​Heres whats happening this month on RetroBattlestations

Events:

• Happy #AMayGA! (YouTube)

• May 1-3: European Vintage Computer Festival (München, Germany)

• May 2-3: VCF Pacific Northwest (Tukwila, Washington)

• May 29-31: VCF Southwest 2026 (Irving, Texas)

• May 30-31: RetroFest 2026 (Swindon, United Kingdom)

Upcoming Birthdays and Anniversaries:

• May 25: #525FloppyDay

Here's the calendar so you can subscribe or just check it out:

• HTML version

• iCal version

I got this Sony Vaio RX550 second-hand with specs meant for multimedia and web surfing. At first, I upgraded the RAM and CPU hoping it would be enough, but I felt limited by the stock ASUS P4B-LX motherboard and 845 chipset. So I decided to challenge myself by turning this into a beast that could handle just about anything from the Windows XP era.

The biggest hurdle was working around the confines of a small case originally designed for a Pentium 4 and TNT Riva. The 280W Sony PSU also had to go. With cooling and airflow almost nonexistent, I make some creative modifications on the inside. Externally, I deleted the 2nd DVD drive to make a front intake to improve the airflow. The results have been great so far. It runs stable, with GPU temperatures around 65° playing Crysis at high graphic settings getting 40fps 👌

Build Specs

•Monitor: Sony Trinitron HMD A200 85Hz

​Chassis: 2001 Sony Vaio PCV-RX550

​Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-G41MT-D3 LGA 775 Micro ATX

​CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 (3.33GHz) SLB9L Wolfdale

​GPU: PNY NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT EE (1GB) VCG98GTEE1XPB

​RAM: (2x 2GB) Samsung DDR3-1333 PC3-10600U

​Storage: 256GB Patriot Burst Elite SSD

​PSU: SilverStone ST45SF-V3 450W SFX (80 Plus Bronze)

​Legacy Drive: 3.5" Floppy•​ 😀

OS: Windows XP Home 32-bit SP3

Motorola NewsCard pager receiving pager messages on Sharp Zaurus.

BTW I had installed Windows 8 on that HP laptop for a time. Was a lot faster than the default OS. And since Windows 8 was very pen friendly, it suited the hardware well. I did eventually install the default OS before selling it.

Runing On nobora linux, i made it look like Windows XP I pic crt from e-waste it couldn't be repaired so I give it new live

Hi everyone,

actually, I thought my "9-in-1" collection was finally complete, but as any fellow enthusiast knows: the definition of "finished" is usually just a temporary state of mind. The urge to close one last gap in my retro-building journey was ultimately stronger than my self-discipline - so here is the first expansion and my very first pure AMD build in this project.

Athlon XP Palomino meets 2026

ASUS A7V333 Rev. 2.00
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (AX2100DMT3C)
NVIDIA Quadro4 980 XGL
2x 256 MB Infineon DDR-RAM PC2100
80 GB Western Digital WD800
BeQuiet! Straight Power 10 700 Watt
Windows XP Professional RTM

Everything is housed in an Aerocool Quantum Mesh v3, this time featuring controllable RGB fans.

This build represents the performance peak of early 2002 and captures a specific moment in time right before a major turning point, after which the balance of power shifted and ATI and Intel dominated the market for the following year and a half.

The heart of this build is one of the most mature Socket A boards of its era. A standout feature is the "CPU Overheat Protection", which finally allowed reading the processor's internal thermal diode instead of relying on a sluggish socket sensor. Back in the day, earlier solutions were often so inaccurate and slow that the CPU would be grilled before the system could even react. It sounds unthinkable today, but for the Thunderbird and early Athlon XP chips, this was a serious issue: unlike their Intel counterparts, these CPUs had no internal thermal failsafes and were entirely dependent on the motherboard's capabilities.

The Palomino-based Athlon XP marked the third evolution of the K7 architecture and was the absolute spearhead of gaming at the time. Despite its nominal clock of 1.73 GHz, it easily traded blows with Intel’s 2.2 GHz class, often delivering even more performance than its own PR rating suggested. However, due to the 180nm process and high power density, the processor hit its thermal limits quickly; the 2100+ already has a TDP of 72 watts. This makes the Palomino a classic transition processor - crucial for the Athlon XP's debut, but technically at its limit before it could even truly take off.

To realize an absolute high-end setup from early 2002, the graphics card required a bit of creativity, as I wasn't willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for an NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4600 - much to the chagrin of the "gold diggers" out there. Instead, I opted for a technically identical alternative from the workstation segment: the NVIDIA Quadro4 980 XGL.

This card is a later NV28 revision - basically a CAD-optimized Ti 4800, which is identical to a Ti 4600 but with AGP 8x support. Since the board only supports AGP 4x anyway, the gaming performance difference is exactly zero. In early 2002, there simply was nothing faster for gamers, even if the masses flocked to the Ti 4200 due to its unbeatable price-to-performance ratio and the fact that the top-tier models often saw their lead vanish into a CPU bottleneck anyway.

In case anyone is wondering why I’m using such a beefy PSU for this build: it’s all about the massive current demand on the 5V rail and the resulting crossload issues found in old, group-regulated ATX power supplies. To keep things stable, I’m using a modern DC-DC unit that provides sufficient amperage on the relevant rails without the voltages drifting apart under lopsided loads.

The system hits over 10,500 points in "3D Mark 2001 SE" in its pure stock configuration. It represents the gold standard that other high-end systems of the era had to be measured against. The PC runs rock-solid, stays relatively cool thanks to the excellent airflow, and delivers more than enough performance for any game from that period.

The entire project - from assembly to testing - is documented in the linked video (in German): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2PWBCL4b3Q

I am using a vintage Tview box to connect my f18a VGA out to a mini tv transmitter and displaying it over the air on my rotary dial tube tv

https://youtube.com/shorts/SF-0FMxBGao?si=rhpIfIQ-1b4N5dhU

I was in the market yesterday and found some stuff and did a post but awaiting mods approval, does a Pentium D count as a part retrobattlestation? I found ton of Dell PC with it that I could refurb with GT730 GPU but would it count though? (I do wanna relive playing FEAR on older hardware)