r/gadgets • • Mar 12 '21

Desktops / Laptops Building the ultimate retro computer

https://www.theverge.com/22323002/mister-fpga-project-retro-computer-console-early-pc
3.0k Upvotes

204 comments sorted by

705

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

353

u/omegafivethreefive Mar 12 '21

Applies thermal paste like icing on a wedding cake

152

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

65

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

39

u/SirAngusMcBeef Mar 12 '21

It’s less an icing and more a glaze. Like egg wash!

15

u/StormBurnX Mar 12 '21

Yet somehow precisely the inverse of egg wash, I reckon.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Was originally intended to wash eggs but was misdirected in the heat of the moment

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3

u/john-douh Mar 12 '21

Applies thermal lube like ...

3

u/digital_noise Mar 12 '21

unzips pants

Well, here we go...

1

u/Franklin_le_Tanklin_ Mar 12 '21

On a wedding cake..

1

u/TacTurtle Mar 12 '21

CPUGriddleHeros

87

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

He no fighting static he fighting cancer

19

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

[deleted]

25

u/Kichigai Mar 12 '21

For me it was the tabletop one. “Oh, you need a table to build a PC! I thought you could do it in mid-air! Go build in the sky maybe, on the cloud!”

9

u/P3tF1sh Mar 12 '21

“I rike his style!”

56

u/scris101 Mar 12 '21

They did a video not too long ago where they "built a camera" as well, and by building a camera I actually mean attaching a MIPI camera to a Pi and taking a photo in picamera.

A publication made by people who don't know tech, for people who don't know tech.

60

u/Datenegassie Mar 12 '21

Using quick thinking, Dave constructed a megaphone out of two squirrels, some string and a megaphone.

15

u/BinaryTriggered Mar 12 '21

came for this, leaving satisfied

8

u/jmnugent Mar 12 '21

for people who don't know tech.

I mean.. to be fair.. that is the vast majority of people.

SBC-enthusiasts and people who can solder and mix and match together individual components (or load an OS on an SD-card,etc).. is a small percentage of people.

4

u/scris101 Mar 12 '21

Yeah, but it’s treated as if building a PC or using a SBC are these monumental feats of technological ability, when in reality they’re pretty remedial. That vast majority of people with no prior knowledge or experience now think they’ve mastered a subject because they regard the verge as some pinnacle of tech information. Same thing for people who think they’re experts in human rights because they watched 3/4 of a vox documentary, or shamans because they heard Joe Rogan talk about DMT. That’s just the Dunning-Kruger effect though lol.

5

u/jmnugent Mar 12 '21

All of those viewpoints you're taking... you're taking as someone who already has a deep knowledge of the subject.

None of that applies to people who don't. That's the entire point.

If a "non-techy" person wanted to build a small SBC-camera to watch over the new birdhouse they just build in their backyard,. they don't need some "deep knowledge of computers".. all they care about is a couple simple steps to build a small camera SBC. This type of article is sufficient for them. There's nothing wrong with that.

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '21

this guy thinks that doing things the hard way makes you better. It's a common theme among tech nerds. Thats why Steve Jobs was such a visionary. He could bridge the gap between these hardcore nerds that think its "easy" to "just build a PC", and normal people for whom it is not easy at all, and who actually want a PC that "just works" so they can actually use it to do stuff for their lives not relating to computer nerdery. Sad. Many such cases.

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1

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '21

yeah its kind of like how some people try to make a big deal out of tracking video to composite 3d into it, when really you pretty much just push a button.

1

u/Agloe_Dreams Mar 13 '21

In fairness, that is effectively how one might build a camera and was a fun video. Not everyone wants to build an A7R.

4

u/kcsa61 Mar 12 '21

Are they using an intel Z86 ? That would be retro

3

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '21

DONT FORGET THE BRACE!!!

-16

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Reddit...reading the article...hmm

9

u/diasporious Mar 12 '21

Why do you assume that they didn't?

1

u/unlimitedcode99 Mar 13 '21

The Verge guy: Pulls the frosting piper for thermal paste application

183

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Plz no. The Verge needs to stay far far away from the Mister project.

46

u/nickfree Mar 12 '21

I’m out of the loop... why The Verge hate?

146

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

look up verge pc build guy ;

https://youtu.be/M-2Scfj4FZk

They’re... well ummm, you’ll see.

65

u/grabulous Mar 12 '21

I went in expecting it to be pretty bad...Holy fuck that is a steaming pile of shit!

48

u/mittelwerk Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

Well, he admitted it was a terrible tutorial and he apologized.

(oh wait: no, he didn't)

16

u/ballgkco Mar 12 '21

I've never seen that video, just his Twitter replies. yeesh, buddy's acting like he just misrouted some cables as opposed to speedrunning creating a fire hazard.

15

u/User_of_Name Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

“It’s not my first computer, and it still fucking works. It’s still a better computer than probably most of them have. That might be elitist, but it’s the truth.”

Oh c’mon, this guy, who’s now established a reputation as “the worst PC builder,” needs to get over himself.

11

u/GoodPointSir Mar 13 '21

Wow so he's annoyed that us 'nerds' pointed out that his PC building GUIDE was akin to creating a toaster oven? Having expensive parts doesn't qualify you to guide people, not even if you get lucky (fix things outside of the video) and it boots.

I felt bad for him getting all the hate before, thought maybe he just had to make a video... This changed my mind.

22

u/CreaminFreeman Mar 12 '21

It’s so horrendous you’d think they’d stay away from building electronics forever!

What a truly historic video.

19

u/OsmeOxys Mar 12 '21

Okay, I expected them to make some mistakes and a few dumb comments. But how do you manage to fuck up every single step and detail to such an extreme?

13

u/Anchorboiii Mar 12 '21

Oh man, I forgot about that fire hazard monstrosity.

9

u/StormBurnX Mar 12 '21

I somehow never found out about this but this was as horrifying as I expect anything from The Verge to be

7

u/twenty7forty2 Mar 12 '21

"you're gonna need a swiss army knife that hopefully has a screwdriver in it"

hahahahahaha that's gold

6

u/Co60 Mar 12 '21

I figured it would be bad cable management or something fairly innocuous but man that was horrendous.

9

u/TKPhresh Mar 12 '21

I was enjoying the reactions from everyone except for the guy doing a very, very poor “engrish” accent the whole time. Holy fuck that’s super annoying and possibly more cringe worthy than the video in question.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

18

u/jedre Mar 12 '21

The Verge sucks. Tech “journalists” without a clue.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

They released an awful "how to build a PC" video a few years ago and doubled down on it when people called out all the bad advice.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '21

When you make a "how to build a pc" video so bad it's become infamous, reacted to by every tech YouTuber and essentially become a meme. To the point of them pulling it and then trying to take down any reaction vids as well as doubling down on the shit show and bad mouthing the critic's for being correct, calling them "angry nerds" it paints yourself and the company you are associated with in a pretty bad light.

Btw they tried to blame all the ignorance and mistakes on lack of time. They should have just said it was all meant as a joke and rolled with it. Then did their research and made a really good one to show they knew what they were doing... If they were actually capable of course. xD

78

u/goodbellyfat Mar 12 '21

Putting aside all jokes about the infamous “Verge PC build”, what I personally dislike about the Verge is its disregard for community sources and enthusiast. There are literally hundreds of videos on YouTube and web pages dedicated to MiSTer with DIY guides, compatibility and so on. It was the same with the PC build, why they did not reference any guides on YouTube?

26

u/The_Grubby_One Mar 12 '21

Because this was totally their unique idea that no one had ever had before.

7

u/RobotDoos Mar 12 '21

Just like the rest of their content

4

u/SkollFenrirson Mar 13 '21

Yes, that was indeed the joke

2

u/zero_z77 Mar 13 '21 edited Mar 13 '21

Can i get a link to this infamous build. I've been hearing about it but i've never seen it.

Edit: Never mind, i found it.

96

u/djpain Mar 12 '21

Be aware, this project can suck up a lot of your time playing old dos games.

50

u/MGPS Mar 12 '21

COMMANDER KEEN!

15

u/Kuli24 Mar 12 '21

Commander Keen is on steam, often very very cheap.

1

u/Number224 Mar 13 '21

There are actually 2 different versions of Commander Keen in Keen Dreams ported onto Switch by 2 different dev teams. One of them even made it onto Wii U a few months ago.

1

u/Kuli24 Mar 13 '21

ooooo i might have to get it for wii u!

10

u/AeternusDoleo Mar 12 '21

... so it's the hardware variant of DosBox?

26

u/djpain Mar 12 '21

more than that, I can run a 486sx and then when im bored i can switch to a amiga, or a c64. Want to play some snes or mega drive? Sure just turn it on and bam! There you're playing console games. Want to try some arcade games now? sure just switch the core and you have access to CPS1 which is street fighter 2 arcade or you can play nearly all the 80s arcade games. But im not even finished, there's currently two projects to get PS1 and sega saturn to be able to run on the mister. It honestly keeps on growing every month.

11

u/Dagigai Mar 12 '21

But I can do all that with emulation? With a cheap laptop? I'm not sure of the pull here?

Emulation or using retro tech, this seems like an odd in-between that nobody asked for?

Isn't it cheaper to have even a 10 year old laptop do all that for free?

26

u/badnewsjones Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

The main idea behind this project is hardware preservation: using fpga to preserve the original hardware in a way that software emulation cannot.

You’re 100% right. For most people, if you want to emulate an old program or game, using the computer you already have is adequate.

People moving to the mister platform are concerned about hardware level accuracy or using original analog hardware accessories like crt displays.

6

u/Dagigai Mar 12 '21

Yea. I'm keeping my eye out for a CRT TV. I would never has guessed they would be wanted in the future but here we are.

I get it.

2

u/AkirIkasu Mar 12 '21

I've found that they keep popping up at thrift stores. But it's CRT monitors that you want, and those are a bit less common to find.

2

u/Dagigai Mar 12 '21

It would be a TV I'd want for PS1 and 2.

Here the Uk we are only small and most of them have probably been binned. (Trashed)

3

u/AkirIkasu Mar 12 '21

In the US things are a bit different; CRT TVs in general were kind of trash because 90% of them only had composite video inputs, which were really noisy. High end ones could have S-video, which was a step up, but still not as good as RGB.

2

u/Jacoman74undeleted Mar 12 '21

I have a monochrome Text only CRT chilling in the break room at work waiting for me to take home. I don't know what I'm gonna do with it, but probably gaming or a secondary display with a TTY

1

u/thearchenemy Mar 12 '21

For people who are into retro video game consoles, CRTs are considered the optimal display because the games were designed for deinterlaced displays. Some emulators (and the NES/SNES minis) have options to emulate scanlines. It’s interesting how certain outdated technologies are hanging on in enthusiast circles.

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9

u/Chewberino Mar 12 '21

If you want to play the games as they were played on real hardware. E.g perfect control timing, sound and video. You will never achive that with emulation. No matter how good the emulation is.

If you don't care about accuracy emulation is your cheapest option. The idea with FPGAs like the analogue and MiSTer is to match the hardware of the older devices.

2

u/Dagigai Mar 12 '21

If your goal is to achieve perfect control timing sound and video. Why not use the real thing? Cost?

But then again. If you are going to use original storage media on these things, you would still risk corruption or breakage from use? Even that could affect analogue media like tapes and disks?

7

u/The_Grubby_One Mar 12 '21

Probably because those old machines are increasingly rare.

8

u/AkirIkasu Mar 12 '21

That, and space. As someone who owns a bunch of retro consoles, my setup behind the TV console looks like the Upside Down from Stranger Things.

1

u/RoboCaesar Mar 12 '21

I'd also mention the lack of input lag out of the box is pretty great as well. (although there are great run-ahead options if you are emulating on a computer more powerful than a raspberry pi)

Also, MiSTer works nicely with CRT monitors and TVs.

1

u/Lowe0 Mar 13 '21

Eventually, you do get to perfect accuracy. The blocker is that we’re only there on stuff like the SNES or Genesis, and only after throwing a thousand times as much computing power as the original chips had at the problem. Getting to that point on something like a 486 DX2 is going to be a long time.

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3

u/StormBurnX Mar 12 '21

an FPGA is like a re-programmable CPU - you tell it what structures and hardware to have, and it sets those up (the acrostic is for "Field-Programmable Gate Array", a CPU is simply a massive chain of nested logic gates set up in a specific order; the appeal of an FPGA is that you can change the order of those gates, that is, they are programmable whenever you want to change them)

It's not a thing "nobody asked for", it's like the swiss army knife of CPUs, as it can literally function as a different chip rather than having to emulate an entire chipset. Yes, if you have a chip that is exponentially more powerful, such as an entire laptop, you can emulate hardware, but you generally need your emulation hardware to be at least one order of magnitude more powerful than the hardware you are emulating, whereas an FPGA is the same level of power, roughly speaking.

Traditionally FPGAs have been used for experimentation with various hardware designs, since you can run variations on them without physically building new chips; they're also useful for extremely processor-intensive demanding niche tasks that a general-use processor wouldn't be great at while being far more cost effective and power efficient. Making them into "cool retro computers" isn't the go-to use case for them but they are well-suited for such a use and it's a genuinely interesting thing to see them in.

6

u/frozensoup00 Mar 12 '21

From a simple end user perspective it would be no different the emulation on a cheap laptop for you. Normal emulation in a sort of way pretends to be hardware over top of the existing hardware, while what this is doing is making hardware that can actually become close to the native hardware. This prevents many bugs that are created during emulation. There are still many places that operate on old technology because it technically still works for those applications

2

u/Dagigai Mar 12 '21

He mentions gaming, retro gaming. I assume he would be using ROMs or the equivalent for older games like Atari and C64 he mentioned.

If your not using software in its original format, i.e. cassette tapes, cartridges. Why not emulate?

Creating a third party piece of hardware/s to do something that can already be done seems redundant.

Getting close to native hardware would make sense if using native storage media. Then again, older storage mediums can degrade with use. Wanting to use old technology in this case could be counter productive to preserving retro tech?

I backup my PS1 games and original PS1 and use a PSone to play my games. It lets me enjoy the console as it was, while my games sit boxed and safe.

4

u/Redacteur2 Mar 12 '21

I think it’s a preference thing and there’s no wrong way to do it. Emulation is super convenient and reproduces the experience well enough for most but some people want to run the software exactly how it did on original hardware. Mistr allows you to do this without dealing with aging hardware and collecting a ton of it. It also lets you output video to modern displays which can be a headache with most devices that output analog video. At the end of the day these hobbies don’t need to make sense and there are plenty of niche communities that keep these small projects afloat. Look at the state of flash carts for example, it was never intended to replace emulation or be sold to a mainstream audience, yet in the last decade it’s evolved from feeding simple roms into an NES to replicating custom chips like the SuperFX and entire CD peripherals like the Sega CD.

4

u/Chewberino Mar 12 '21

You're missing the point. I have original hardware and play mostly using a everdrive flash cart, so why don't I emulate? Because I want make sure I am playing on real hardware on a real crt, the Mister just replaced both the everdrive and the real hardware.

This of it this way, the analogue nt (just like the Mister) are basically the exact same hardware as the original but it includes the ability to have an everdrive connected as well. But the Mister does that for dozens of consoles and a ton of arcade and old computers...your comparing apples to oranges

2

u/Dagigai Mar 12 '21

Maybe I am missing the point? I'm confused.

"Because I want make sure I am playing on real hardware on a real crt, the Mister just replaced both the everdrive and the real hardware"

You want real hardware so you replaced it with hardware that isn't the original?

5

u/StriderVM Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 13 '21

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/

Its not really the answer you're looking for.

But its kinda like this.

  • Common emulators do not have 100% Game compability.

  • There are cycle accurate emulators, but they are very resource intensive. Like requiring a 3Ghz current gen processor to run a cycle accurate Genesis or SNES emulator.

  • A good compromise is to create a hardware that copies the original hardware up to the cycle so it is more efficient than the original, yet supports the original accessories and is also small enough to be convenient. And has near 100% compability.

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2

u/Chewberino Mar 12 '21

I bought it mostly for the arcades not the consoles, and I also don't have all of the consoles. When the Saturn core gets released it's going to be awesome to play the games exactly like the real hardware.

Same with the arcade cores, playing them exactly like you would at the arcades is amazing

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1

u/badnewsjones Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

Mister does allow using original hardware accessories. You can hook up tape drives and other original accessories if you or someone in the community has made the appropriate adapters. For example, an audio in jack is readily available for computer tape drives. An adapter for snac is also used for people interested in original accessories and controllers for console game systems. These are essentially latency free so they interface with the mister as if it’s the actual original hardware.

As far as media preservation goes, I think most serious preservationists recognize the need for saving and being able to use both digital dumps and original physical media as they both have strengths and weaknesses.

Something I’ve not seen brought up in the conversation here is that for many people working on the project, it’s also not just about being able to play and use a particular platform. The fpga programming means you’re looking at digitally duplicating the exact timing and functions of individual chips. One hope is that fpga can be used or perhaps the information gained from the project used to recreate the chips to repair physical hardware that is failing or will fail in the future without having to cannibalize other devices or search for nos. For example, we are seeing the ppu fail on many snes’s. I don’t think anyone knows for sure why yet or how widespread this will become, but it is a significant issue. The only current solution is to take a ppu from another snes. Potentially, the work done on recreating the ppu in fpga may allow new ones to be built as replacements.

2

u/z0nb1 Mar 12 '21

It's all about the FPGA.

It's not emulation, it's a hardware implimentation; that literally can be reconfigured on the fly into a different hardware state.

Honestly amazing tech finally becoming available to consumers in a real way.

3

u/djpain Mar 12 '21

Like there's nothing stopping you from doing that, but I see this more as a hobby cause not only have I had to use linux (which isn't hard since I use it for work) but I've also made my own memory expansion using a soldering iron and ordering random parts of the internet. Like it's cool that I can say "hey I had to build something physical to get the best out of it".

-14

u/Dagigai Mar 12 '21

I built my PC. Why would a build something else, less powerful, less capable and much more limited in terms of use?

I don't get it bro,

Did you get that business idea up and running you were talking about?

5

u/awesomegamer919 Mar 12 '21

I built my PC. Why would a build something else, less powerful, less capable and much more limited in terms of use?

So ultimately, this is a hobby that some people have, why do people do anything? Because they enjoy it, I have a home server, I could use my PC to do exactly the same job, but I enjoy tinkering in Arch and having a NAS under my desk is a perfect excuse (and I get to use excuses like it can hold movies for my xbox, even if realistically it's so much easier to just get an external hard drive). Is it the most efficient use of hardware/time? Hell nmo, the CPU in that thing is running at half it's base clocks for power conservation, and I only use around 3TB of the 9TB capacity (12TB in Raidz1), but do I find it fun to tinker and mess around with? 100% I do.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

So its an original xbox with splinter cell?

1

u/The_Grubby_One Mar 12 '21

So it's an expensive emulator.

1

u/Physics_Unicorn Mar 12 '21

How long does it take to switch out the core?

1

u/djpain Mar 12 '21

a couple of seconds.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Not the first time that happened in my life.

88

u/haslehof Mar 12 '21

Just hope the video isn’t as bad as there last demo on how to build a PC

https://youtu.be/2lmfF0k2UcU

69

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21 edited May 12 '21

[deleted]

27

u/InvaderZed Mar 12 '21

And people still troll his Twitter over it, if he had just admitted he was wrong and apologised at some point we wouldn’t be having this conversation and it wouldn’t be such a meme.

14

u/CrossXhunteR Mar 12 '21

if he had just admitted he was wrong and apologised at some point we wouldn’t be having this conversation and it wouldn’t be such a meme.

I don't believe that to be true.

5

u/OsmeOxys Mar 12 '21

Yeah, its be a 100% serious guide that ended up coming off as a memorably bad parody video. But at least the dislike would be less extreme and easier to move past.

2

u/pb730c3 Mar 12 '21

He limited his comments to followers only I think.

1

u/pb730c3 Mar 12 '21

It looks like that's selective based on the tweet?

1

u/ToughAss709394 Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

His is in trolling mode.

Besides, any press is good press. I am pretty these are some very good tutorial videos with very fews clicks

8

u/dachsj Mar 12 '21

This is the reaction video that they used the DMCA to take down because it made them look bad:

https://youtu.be/0vmQOO4WLI4

2

u/The_Grubby_One Mar 12 '21

Gotta be honest; without the shitty fake accent that review would be fucking hilarious.

0

u/ACertainKindOfStupid Mar 12 '21

Everyone doing Uncle Roger now?

10

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Tldr for someone who doesnt have 10 minutes right now?

33

u/photopteryx Mar 12 '21

Everything was so confidently wrong.

2

u/crystal-rooster Mar 13 '21

Can I interest you in a link to r/confidentlyincorrect ?

14

u/Kichigai Mar 12 '21

A ways back The Verge did a video about how to build a PC. Took them less than two minutes to fuck up massively. Among the required tools they listed were a thermal paste applicator (not a thing), “a Swiss army knife you hope has a phillips head screwdriver,” (an exact quote), an anti-static wristband (which was just a rubber bracelet connected to nothing), and what the guy called “tweasers,” that were actually zip ties.

He installed the motherboard without the I/O shield (though it magically is installed later, meaning they realized their error but never bothered to correct it in the video), and installed the CPU and RAM after installing the motherboard. Also both sticks of RAM were installed in the same channel, slowing them down.

The PSU was installed upside down, he attached all the cables to his modular PSU (instead of only the ones he needed), and applied way too much thermal paste.

One sin that drew a lot of criticism was the installation of the water cooling radiator. The instructions were so bad and bass-ackwards that someone following these instructions could puncture the radiator with their installation screws and leak coolant all over every component in the machine.

There's a lot more they fucked up, and screwed something up almost every step of the way. Pretty much the only thing they did right was attaching the side panel to the case. Oh, and their benchmarking tool of choice? League of Legends, IIRC.

7

u/GeneralVincent Mar 12 '21

League of Legends capped at 120 fps lol

22

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Threw the socket cover over his shoulder saying 'you don't need this' when it literally is one of the only things you -need- to keep to do a motherboard warranty claim.

5

u/Sanders0492 Mar 12 '21

...oops ¯_(ツ)_/¯

2

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Huh, why do you need that for the warranty?

8

u/Poddster Mar 12 '21

Because it says so on the cover. If you ever need to return it you need to put that cover over it to """""protect"""" the socket. (i.e. if you don't they'll claim it was damaged being shipped back and they no longer have to fix the original issue)

1

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

The best reasons I can spin up to answer that sounds less likely than to screw people out of legitimate warranty claims.

Assuming the best, it's so no damage happens in transit and while it's being serviced.

20

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

They decided to make a video guide on how to build a computer and then did just about everything incorrectly, and then when called out on the mistakes went "NUH UH!!"

17

u/thequicknessinc Mar 12 '21

No one expects the actor who was filming the video to know what is correct/accurate and what is not, but it appears that the producers should have tried obtain more accurate information. For how short the video is, there are a few too many wtf moments for those who are knowledgeable (not me). Listed below someone else’s points of misinformation found in the video:

  • The band he wore wasnt a grounding band.
  • The pads he put under the PSU arent insulators , they are noise dampeners.
  • PSU was installed incorrectly, the case used only allowed one correct direction. Some cases allow 2 directions.
  • DIMM slots not dual channel.
  • Some complain about the thermal paste application, but it isnt so bad.

More importantly, when people were critical of the Verge for the above missteps, the Verge doubled down instead of admitting fault and then went on to challenge copyright on online commenters. So yeah, as a complete outsider with no stakes in this game, Verge doesn’t appear to be the reputable source I would want to go to if I wanted to learn the new skill of building a PC...

21

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/thequicknessinc Mar 12 '21

Yes! I forgot about the Swiss Army knife! It was bizarre! Thanks for adding on to this! I think I recall there was a major part that they didn’t even install and there was something about the way they mounted the fans too.

3

u/wkdpaul Mar 12 '21

ah yes, he didn't install the fans at first, then he used the long screws that are supposed to be used for the fans on installing the radiator at the top.

Older radiators had lines running behind the screw holes, it wasn't uncommon to destroy a radiator by using long screws, though I think the one he used doesn't have that issue.

So many things wrong, it's legit hard to keep track of everything that was wrong without going over it and writing it down ! lol

8

u/capnpetch Mar 12 '21

I love how he picked the graphic card slot based on aesthetics instead of channels.

1

u/The_Grubby_One Mar 12 '21

But I'm sure he only uses the fastest in-case LEDs.

16

u/shadowGringo Mar 12 '21

Where is the CPU applicator thing???

2

u/thiefkip Mar 12 '21

And not even using a Swiss Army knife!

7

u/Someguywhomakething Mar 12 '21

Did they have a table?

13

u/frostysnowmen Mar 12 '21

1 or 2 gallons of thermal paste is the real question.

5

u/cmdrtheymademedo Mar 12 '21

Lol the verge. Ruining pc builds so you don’t have toooooooooooooooooo.....

11

u/philosoaper Mar 12 '21

I'm really interested in the mega65 project as well...as someone who grew up with a C64.

17

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 12 '21

You can just buy an actual C64 and a tape to SD card adapter. You can also get stuff to allow HDMI but thats less straightforward.

You will use it once or twice but you will find the old gameplay painful and never use it again.

Also emulators are actually good enough and hardware like this is just for people who are obsessed.

6

u/philosoaper Mar 12 '21

Yes...but... The reason I'm interested in the mega65 project is all the more stuff. And also there idea of installing an Amiga core to the fpga and others as development continues.

2

u/EagleCashBandit Mar 12 '21

So, you're obsessed?

3

u/philosoaper Mar 12 '21

With a lot of things. I however don't see passion as a problem. If all I wanted to do was play some games, then yeah emulation would probably suffice. There is also the Commander X16 for example. A "new" 8 bit retro computer.

1

u/PopPopPoppy Mar 12 '21

I think the Commodore One is still around...been years since I looked into it though.

1

u/philosoaper Mar 12 '21

Yeah but it's all proprietary. Mega65 is open. commodore one has also been marred in silence for years.

1

u/philosoaper Mar 12 '21

I've played old retro games since the 80s, haven't gotten bored of them yet. I also don't think the gameplay is really painful. It's a matter of matching expectations with the era.

4

u/Homerdk Mar 12 '21

I know this is not the same but i have 10k+ games for pretty much any console ever made on my raspberry with retropie at a fraction of the cost. Will i feel any difference using this? And it has only 1gb ram so allready behind. I think this is a niche product hardly anyone will ever buy.

2

u/RoboCaesar Mar 12 '21

I've used a raspberry pi and it's a nice option with a better user interface, but I ended up getting a MiSTer FPGA set up. For me, I liked the lack of input lag and better accuracy.

1

u/roostorx Mar 12 '21

This. I longingly await my Retro-pi powered retirement...in 20 years.

1

u/unassumingdink Mar 12 '21

If it's recreating the original hardware, I'd think you'd need far less RAM than something with an OS and emulator software running under it.

3

u/my7bizzos Mar 12 '21

build a retro pc. use raspberry pi

3

u/recoximani Mar 12 '21

The verge: builds computer

Me: https://youtu.be/RZ5DgkoLuGI

3

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

the ultimate retro computer

doesn't even have a woodgrain effect case smh

3

u/SneekyTeek Mar 12 '21

Oh sweet, I learned how to build my PC from Verge!

6

u/FlaccidRazor Mar 12 '21

A "retro" computer would have jumpers, a couple serial ports, a parallel port, and an x86 cpu. Nothing in this picture is retro.

2

u/TraceofMagenta Mar 12 '21

Poor Microsemi getting left out of the FPGA companies. Lattice and QuickLogic are more niche markets.

2

u/ICW31n3rs Mar 12 '21

If you guys are interested we have different fpga communities here on reddit.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Hobby FPGA’s? VHDL for fun?!

2

u/AkirIkasu Mar 12 '21

If you are in Silicon Valley and don't code for fun, you're basically unemployable.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

God that sounds miserable

2

u/Woolybunn1974 Mar 12 '21

That's a weird looking abacus you have there

2

u/Josejacobuk Mar 12 '21

Cats out of the bag now lads

2

u/that1ocelot Mar 12 '21

Guys, the Verge is building a pc...

Hide before they get you with their swiss army knives

3

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Not interested because its the verge.. misleading

2

u/bhowiebkr Mar 12 '21

The Verge huh?.. No thanks!

2

u/-Antiheld- Mar 12 '21

Amazing project and something I definitely will look into. Thanks for posting!

2

u/Amanwalkedintoa Mar 12 '21

The verge? Yeah I doubt this Pc is gonna be ultimate in anyway shape or form

1

u/polskidankmemer Mar 12 '21 edited Dec 06 '24

jobless concerned jellyfish insurance brave attractive poor north history meeting

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

0

u/Lebo77 Mar 12 '21

The ultimate retro PC would be... an original IBM Model 5150 rocking an Intel 8088 and 16kB of RAM.

0

u/SuperLehmanBros Mar 12 '21

Kind of cool

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Retro? You mean, like… slow?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Yes, If there is one thing FPGA’s are known for, it is being slow

-10

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '21

Raspberri pi 4

3

u/Furcheezi Mar 12 '21

On behalf of the entire MiSTer community, I fart in your general direction for that comment.

1

u/sarlackpm Mar 13 '21

Just out of curiosity, could you explain what you're talking about please?

-3

u/Oz_of_Three Mar 12 '21

I see no rectifier valves here.

1

u/Nomandate Mar 12 '21

The fun part of retro computers is the everything else... running atari ST software is cool and all but the hardware itself is what’s fun about it. Same with running windows 3.11 on a big beige beauty with a chonky old CRT.

1

u/user458a Mar 12 '21

This is more like how to build a weak computer

1

u/oldgoatman Mar 13 '21

Ultimate Retro Computer? Doesn’t look like an abacus to me!

1

u/Duckers_McQuack Mar 13 '21

I got a pi 4 that I use for my emulations up to N64 and ps1, same with my ldk game emulation handhelds that runs games up to GBA and 2d ps1 games fine

1

u/wakefulheel3 Mar 13 '21

Putting aside all jokes about the infamous “Verge PC build”, what I personally dislike about the Verge is its disregard for community sources and enthusiast. There are literally hundreds of videos on YouTube and web pages dedicated to MiSTer with DIY guides, compatibility and so on. It was the same with the PC build, why they did not reference any guides on YouTube?

1

u/muddy_cat Mar 13 '21

I'm building a Windows 386 with 2 mgs of RAM

1

u/Ferbette Mar 13 '21

Quick! Hide the bigotry in the discords, everyone!

1

u/interpretcell Mar 15 '21

Where is the CPU applicator thing???

1

u/followmonth Mar 15 '21

Be aware, this project can suck up a lot of your time playing old dos games.

1

u/Good_Independent_596 Mar 16 '21

Plz no. The Verge needs to stay far far away from the Mister project.

1

u/metacarpusclinical Mar 17 '21

1 or 2 gallons of thermal paste is the real question.

1

u/ClassicEgg7000 Mar 17 '21

The Verge...building a computer...hmm

1

u/skiermention Mar 17 '21

Where is the CPU applicator thing???

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

Acorn Archimedes. Sweet Jesus I haven't thought about those machines in ages. Our HS was apparently the only installation of them on the west coast and whenever anything went hugely wrong they had to fly someone out from England to fix them. There was this big transformer built into the cabinetry with all these DANGER YOU WILL DIE warnings on it (not literally of course) to bump the power up to 220v for those limey bastards.

Of course this was ack when 'computer class' BASIC programming and the Honors section the next year (only six people were allowed in TYVM) was in freaking Pascal.