Posted on June 9, 2021
Local Retro Machine Haul
I’m always on the lookout on local marketplaces for people getting rid of their old gear. Sometimes that means someone is digging something out from a basement just wanting it gone or even finding things on the curb first come first serve. Sometimes though you come across someone who is equally passionate about the old tech. In this case that is what happened. After responding to an ad and agreeing to a fair price I went to meet up with a gentleman who was clearly collecting and truly enjoyed the tinkering process. We chatted for quite a while and afterward I was sent home with a considerable stash of equipment!
To give a general list of things here is what we have:
- Mac G3 “Blue and White” – 300 MHz
- Mac G4 Gray – 400 MHz (not pictured above, already integrating into my setup!)
- Mac G4 “Mirror Door Model” – Not sure yet but I believe 2x ~1 GHz processors
- Compaq Tower with replaceable face plates – Celeron ~ 500 Mhz (configured with multiple OS’s using drive bay)
- Packard Bell PB 2890 – Pentium 150 MHz
- Gateway – Early Pentium 4 I think about 2.2 GHz
- 2x Apple Digital Displays
- Sony E100 15″ CRT Monitor
- Several keyboards/mice and boxes of accessories
So yeah a pretty good haul and it’ll take me a while to make heads or tails of it all. Above all everything is in terrific shape and it’s always great getting equipment from another retro afficionado!
Posted on June 7, 2021
The Righteous Click
As some of you may be familiar with the 3dfx Voodoo card Righteous 3D made by Orchid Technologies uses a mechanical relay to engage. As a quick refresher the Voodoo cards are 3D only and needed to be switched to from your normal 2D video card to work. Different card models used different methods for this but my card from Orchid uses a very distinct clicking relay to make that happen. This was covered in my recent video on the card but I decided to actually extract the clicks for separate enjoyment. Use it on your phone as a notification, play it on your computer as an hour marker or just enjoy those endless clicks. The choice is yours!
Posted on June 5, 2021
3dfx Voodoo for GPUJune
GPUJune is still going strong and I’ve focused at least one livestream on it so far with more to come. For my “regular” video entry I opted to cover the very first Voodoo card in the Righteous 3D. A card I bought brand new back in the day and still have and frequently use. There have been many iconic 3D accelerator cards through the years but I can’t think of one that was more revolutionary for me personally than the Voodoo. Seeing the smooth textures and crips edges the first time in Quake was just such a quantum leap for me when it came to 3D games. Following that 3D cards and games exploded across the PC as a gaming platform but for me that’s where it all started. So here is my entry for GPUJune.
Don’t forget to check out the official playlist for the event as well with plenty more awesome entries filling in daily. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC-GPEYjsF-jvOQHeJBY5JzL7_cxatBW1
Posted on June 4, 2021
Livestream 6/3/2021 – Voodoo 3
Since GPUJune is in full swing I opted to stream with a focus on a GPU this week. That had to start with the classic Voodoo 3 video card. In this case it’s the AGP version of the 3000D model that originally came with the Dell Dimension XPS T450 we were playing on. It’s hard to make a case for the price/performance on the Voodoo 3 cards with the current going rate but if you were to have access to or get one cheap it’s a great allrounder card. Able to handle Glide well as more agnostic standards like OpenGL and Direct3D it’s a very nice option in most scenarios for mid to late 90s gaming. With nice 2D output and good DOS compatibility it may be one of the best cards for overall use. Are there more powerful ones to pick that are cheaper today? Absolutely. But again if you get one for the right price it’s a terrific card.
For the stream we cycled through some great games from that era and quite a few people dropped by perhaps enticed by the GPUJune event. I thought it was a blast so expect this machine to make more appearances during future livestreams. Check out the replay below.
Posted on June 3, 2021
The Joys of Defrag
Remember spinning disks? If you have moved on from retro computers or even use modern SD card solutions for your vintage equipment it may be mostly a memory at this point. Honestly personally I’m phasing out spinning disks as they die (except for my server storage solution can’t beat price/space on that yet with SSDs) but as I was preparing the machine for the stream tomorrow it was a bit sluggish. After I installed all my games on it I decided to defrag and boy did that bring me back. The disk in the machine is a 12 GB unit and it’s well… loud! So think back to when you sat down to watch this glorious screen and listen to that churning. It’s still a tranquil experience.
