For the last two days I've been tinkering with my "legacy computer". One I built around 2001 which at the time was considered "state-of-the-art" in a number of ways. Running on an Asus motherboard, with a whopping 1.5 GB of memory. At least back around the turn of the century.,,lol. Able to run Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows 98SE on a once-powerful Intel 2.4Ghz Pentium IV cpu. I even put in a bulky but working removable IDE hard drive, along with a then shockingly big yet removable disk - in a 100MB Iomega zip drive along with a floppy drive and DVD burner. And a most necessary piece of hardware for anyone gaming back then, a 16-bit Soundblaster Pro audio card with a joystick port.
With a blazing Nvidia GeForce 3 Ti200 video card. (Blazing back then). But the weak point of this system at the time was that I chose to get one of those really cool LCD monitors. Back then most of the ones produced weren't at all conducive to gaming, but fine for basic productivity apps. The Sharp monitor still works reasonably well, though it's anything but "sharp" like the trade name. Especially with a 16 ms response time compared to most current LCD monitors that have as fast as a 5 to 1 ms response time for much better animation/movement across a screen.
Yet the worst aspect of using such a slow LCD monitor was the reality that back then virtually all the Windows games I had to play were designed based on a CRT monitor, which could display any resolution with relative clarity. However my then state-of-the-art LCD monitor could only optimally display anything at a fixed resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels. And back then very few games could accomodate that resolution. So for the most part, my chershed combat flight simulations all displayed relatively poorly at 640x480 or even 800x600 or 1024x768 resolutions. I quickly lamented throwing out my old CRT. Just another consideration that left me distancing myself from games in general.
Back to the present. Two days ago, this computer sat in a closet, as I concluded my 20+ year old Antec 550 watt power supply had finally died. I mean the whole system was cold. No power at all getting to the motherboard or anything else. So in a bit of frustration I just put it all away, lamenting how difficult it may still be to find a 20-pin ATX 2.0 power supply. Yes, yes, yes. For working on a system this old I forgot "Occam's Razor". That the simplest explanation may be the most plausible one. That two days ago I decided to take this computer out of the closet and prepare it for a new power supply, as I managed to find one on Amazon that should fit the bill at a surprisingly reasonable cost.
In taking a look at it all, for some reason I ended up staring at the CR2032 cmos battery. Suddenly having a glorious epiphany that I didn't recall ever experienced what might happen with a computer if such a long-life batter were to run out of power. Esepcially over 23 years! So I went into "toy box" and sure enough, had one CR2032 battery still in its original packaging. Only a few years old. I replaced the battery on my Legacy Computer, being highly skeptical that it would magically boot up like all was well. Yeah...right.
But it did just that. It was never the Antec 550 watt power supply, although I'm still amazed it still runs like a champ.
So, I've been preoccupied with making little improvements here and there, and cleaning it up to make it oddly appear almost brand new again. But it's completely cut off from being online, and stripped as much as possible to make the most out of gaming on Windows XP SP3.
Though the sad part of this story is an old one. That at some point in time in building all my computers, I've always had a "legacy" one that eventually went- and stayed in the closet. When only on a day or two each year, I'd experience the nostalgia of using a computer from "yesteryear". And quickly getting bored of old, slow technology involving some very difficult parts to find today. I may attempt to switch to a newer, but quieter cpu fan. But even in this fabulous shape, odds are that it will end up in the closet in the near future. So for now I'll set it up where I do other hobbies, and for a time get caught up on some Quake III action, along with some flight sims- a customized version of Red Baron 3D and Il-2 and European Air War.
In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you some pics of this old, but relatively new-looking Windows XP system. Note a complete lack of old-style ribbon cables. I found some long ago that were only ribbons at the connector, and all wrapped in a cable. Very nice...as those traditional ribbon cables could suffocate the insides of such a computer, though these put out very little heat back then.
And to think I almost made the decision to dump this thing into the trash....
With a blazing Nvidia GeForce 3 Ti200 video card. (Blazing back then). But the weak point of this system at the time was that I chose to get one of those really cool LCD monitors. Back then most of the ones produced weren't at all conducive to gaming, but fine for basic productivity apps. The Sharp monitor still works reasonably well, though it's anything but "sharp" like the trade name. Especially with a 16 ms response time compared to most current LCD monitors that have as fast as a 5 to 1 ms response time for much better animation/movement across a screen.
Yet the worst aspect of using such a slow LCD monitor was the reality that back then virtually all the Windows games I had to play were designed based on a CRT monitor, which could display any resolution with relative clarity. However my then state-of-the-art LCD monitor could only optimally display anything at a fixed resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels. And back then very few games could accomodate that resolution. So for the most part, my chershed combat flight simulations all displayed relatively poorly at 640x480 or even 800x600 or 1024x768 resolutions. I quickly lamented throwing out my old CRT. Just another consideration that left me distancing myself from games in general.
Back to the present. Two days ago, this computer sat in a closet, as I concluded my 20+ year old Antec 550 watt power supply had finally died. I mean the whole system was cold. No power at all getting to the motherboard or anything else. So in a bit of frustration I just put it all away, lamenting how difficult it may still be to find a 20-pin ATX 2.0 power supply. Yes, yes, yes. For working on a system this old I forgot "Occam's Razor". That the simplest explanation may be the most plausible one. That two days ago I decided to take this computer out of the closet and prepare it for a new power supply, as I managed to find one on Amazon that should fit the bill at a surprisingly reasonable cost.
In taking a look at it all, for some reason I ended up staring at the CR2032 cmos battery. Suddenly having a glorious epiphany that I didn't recall ever experienced what might happen with a computer if such a long-life batter were to run out of power. Esepcially over 23 years! So I went into "toy box" and sure enough, had one CR2032 battery still in its original packaging. Only a few years old. I replaced the battery on my Legacy Computer, being highly skeptical that it would magically boot up like all was well. Yeah...right.
But it did just that. It was never the Antec 550 watt power supply, although I'm still amazed it still runs like a champ.
So, I've been preoccupied with making little improvements here and there, and cleaning it up to make it oddly appear almost brand new again. But it's completely cut off from being online, and stripped as much as possible to make the most out of gaming on Windows XP SP3.
Though the sad part of this story is an old one. That at some point in time in building all my computers, I've always had a "legacy" one that eventually went- and stayed in the closet. When only on a day or two each year, I'd experience the nostalgia of using a computer from "yesteryear". And quickly getting bored of old, slow technology involving some very difficult parts to find today. I may attempt to switch to a newer, but quieter cpu fan. But even in this fabulous shape, odds are that it will end up in the closet in the near future. So for now I'll set it up where I do other hobbies, and for a time get caught up on some Quake III action, along with some flight sims- a customized version of Red Baron 3D and Il-2 and European Air War.
In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you some pics of this old, but relatively new-looking Windows XP system. Note a complete lack of old-style ribbon cables. I found some long ago that were only ribbons at the connector, and all wrapped in a cable. Very nice...as those traditional ribbon cables could suffocate the insides of such a computer, though these put out very little heat back then.
And to think I almost made the decision to dump this thing into the trash....
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