I've been thinking about doing this for awhile. Just buying the cheapest old, used parts that are still in decent condition and building a fully functional computer with USB & LAN capability but using the big old beige case (bonus if it has a "turbo" button).

How far back do you think I could go and still have Ethernet capabilities for networking to a cable modem?

I'd probably load it with windows 98 or 3.1 for the nostalgia part but dual boot with some basic linux distro so it would have at least some modern capabilities. I'd probably have to look for stuff on ebay or thrift stores...too bad there's no such thing as a PC graveyard.

Any thoughts? (other than it being a stupid waste of time)

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-AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (Barton) @ stock speed<br>-DFI nFII Ultra Infinity (Phoenix AwardBIOS 11/27/2003)<br>-ATi Radeon 9600XT 128mbDDR<br>-512mb Infineon PC3200 RAM @ 334MHz<br>-160GB WD & 40GB Maxtor IDE HDDs<br>-Lg DVD RW<br>-Black dig. thermo case & Vantec LED fans w\ front speed control

try aiming for windows 98 second edition, (i think i have a few keys and the discs floating around)
mainly cause win 98 was a little more tolerant of some configurations, and it may be easier to get compatible parts,
you can go for a real old PCI/ISA mobo with only a keyboard and parallel ports, and use add in Ethernet and USB cards, or a soundblaster card.

you going to run an old web browser on it? or play some good ol games?

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Hit it with a Hammer.
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 @ 3.8 ~ 4 Ghz (Cooler Master V8 Heatsink)
Graphics: 2 x HD 5770
RAM: 8 GB (standard clock: PC3-1333)
Motherboard: ASUS M4A78T-E (790GX)
Sound: ASUS Xonar DX
Case: CM 690 (with custom paint and a 800W PSU)

Agreed. 98SE. Maybe a Radeon 9000 or 9200, Athlon XP Barton or PIII... and make sure the case is beige

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ASRock M3A785GMH/128M
Phenom II X4 925c2 @ 2.80GHz (95W)
OCZ Platinum PC3-1333 2x2GB 7-7-7-21
WD5000AADS
Raidmax RX-500AF
Check it out.

if you just wanted as older hardware as possible, but a fresher O/s (rather than win 98 95 or linux) you could try "Windows fundamentals for legacy pc's"
(basically windows XP stripped down so much itll run on real old hardware)
or even try putting windows 8 on old hardware, as it seams to be a lighter install than win7,

edit: you may find that windows fundamentals was used in some ATM machines or arcade machines, as its pre stripped down so it takes less configuration to be more secure or run games reliably.

-------------------------
Hit it with a Hammer.
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 @ 3.8 ~ 4 Ghz (Cooler Master V8 Heatsink)
Graphics: 2 x HD 5770
RAM: 8 GB (standard clock: PC3-1333)
Motherboard: ASUS M4A78T-E (790GX)
Sound: ASUS Xonar DX
Case: CM 690 (with custom paint and a 800W PSU)

Bumblebee - that's interesting. I had never heard of that before. I always just figured that those ran on some Windows Embedded distro. Time to head to Wikipedia to see what exactly the differences are!

-------------------------
ASRock M3A785GMH/128M
Phenom II X4 925c2 @ 2.80GHz (95W)
OCZ Platinum PC3-1333 2x2GB 7-7-7-21
WD5000AADS
Raidmax RX-500AF
Check it out.

Its when banks get a new system for all their machines, the new ones may use windows embedded, whereas to keep the old hardware working smoothly with the new system, they used to use Windows fundamentals for legacy PC's (though this was when banks were upgrading the ATM's to XP, where their old ATM's were still running pre-XP O/S's.

Fundamentals has lower system requirements than Embedded, and does essentially a similar job. (take an O/S, and strip it down to the basics)

From the top of my head I think Fundamentals was based on XP embedded, but stripped down more so it'll work on PC's that may of ran Win95 or so.

Edit:
After looking around the XP-Fundamentals is able to boot on its own and run more things like XP than what embedded can, (but embedded uses less HDD space) the ram and CPU requirements are similar,
newer versions of Fundamentals (like the Win7 version) is designed for thin clients,


-------------------------
Hit it with a Hammer.
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 @ 3.8 ~ 4 Ghz (Cooler Master V8 Heatsink)
Graphics: 2 x HD 5770
RAM: 8 GB (standard clock: PC3-1333)
Motherboard: ASUS M4A78T-E (790GX)
Sound: ASUS Xonar DX
Case: CM 690 (with custom paint and a 800W PSU)

Edited: 09/17/2012 at 07:26 AM by Bumblebeepee

is there no ATM love for linux?

I'm sure there are ATM's that run Linux, or even a bespoke system based around the Linux kernel, (ive seen more ATM's running windows that have crashed, so there's probably more windows based, or the Linux based ones haven't crashed as much... haha)
but I think we're getting a little off topic for the thread,
I wouldn't mind seeing how Win8 would run on some old 90's hardware,

-------------------------
Hit it with a Hammer.
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 @ 3.8 ~ 4 Ghz (Cooler Master V8 Heatsink)
Graphics: 2 x HD 5770
RAM: 8 GB (standard clock: PC3-1333)
Motherboard: ASUS M4A78T-E (790GX)
Sound: ASUS Xonar DX
Case: CM 690 (with custom paint and a 800W PSU)