Project Twentieth Century: Planning

As I may have leaked on my latest podcast, I am attempting to rebuild an old computer so I can relive the 1990s. I want to install Windows 98 on it, and play some old games on it from time to time. I don't plan on using it any more than that (maybe a perverse desire to run other things from the time). I had some stuff lying around, and I need to buy some more.

When my uncle died about two years ago, I was able to salvage two computers. One case had an Athlon and a few drives (CD, hard, floppy). The other had a Pentium II and quite a few drives (CD, floppy, and multiple HDs). I had tried to do this when I originally got them, and I think I got as far as to install Windows on the P2, but then it died.

Due to some weird nostalgia trip of late (cause unknown), I have been wanting to finally do something with them. I have determined that the video cards probably died. The Athlon no longer shows life. The P2 turns on, but I have no video signal. I have determined that the Athlon runs (ran?) at 800 MHz, and the P2 is 300 MHz with a 66 MHz FSB.

I want to really get the P2 running, since it is the older machine. I hope that it is from a nice era between Windows XP and DOS where DOS stuff still works, but the machine overall still has a hint of modernity (like AGP and DirectX). It is also the slower machine, which can help certain aspects where things were not programmed with an awareness of Moore's Law.

The first thing I realized I needed I got last, which is OK. I have bought a RAGE 128 card off Ebay. Ironically, that is the same (or almost the same) kind of video card that came with a computer that I helped buy in 2002. After being griefed long enough by it, I destroyed it (around 2005 or so) after I upgraded to a All-In-Wonder 9600 XT.

I also wanted to get a new power supply. Luckily, I am aware that there was quite a change in PSUs around 2004 or so. It was about that time that Pentium 4s were popular, along with their electric hogging tendencies. It seemed like the whole PC industry realized that it was better to power most everything off the PSU's 12 volt rail, as opposed to the 5 or 3.3 volt rails, as had been the case up to then. I needed to get a power supply that supplied more amps to the other rails (as suitable for this vintage hardware), as opposed to the 12 volt one. There's apparently standards: ATX12V 1.x have heavy 5/3.3V rails; ATX12V 2.x have heavy 12V rails. I bought a ATX12V 1.something one.

When checking out a manual for the motherboard, I noticed that the 512 MB sticks of RAM I had are probably too far ahead of this machine's time. To be safe, I bought 2x 128 MB sticks. I know from experience that Windows 98 is OK with 24 MB; it should be thrilled with 256.

If the P2 still decides not to work, I still have a Duron CPU plus motherboard at my parents house, and I should be able to get that running with these (except RAM maybe) if this steadfastly refuses.

Once this is all working, I want to play Lode Runner, SimCity 2000, Death Rally, StarCraft Brood War, EarthSiege, and a few others. I probably have some more lying around, but that's a start.

But all of this would not be an exact 20th century experience. I have a 15" or so CRT lying around that I plug into my server, on the off chance I have to do something that serious to it. I have a friend that has several 17" or so Dell CRT monitors just lying around his house, and I might try one of those out too. I also ordered a ball mouse and plain keyboard. Oh yes: no optical mouse sensors here, I'm going all in! If I can find any crappy "multimedia" speakers (perhaps ones that hang on the monitor), I'll get those too. I suppose it wouldn't be complete without dial-up internet, but I'm willing to let that one slide, especially since I don't have a landline.

Things should be here next week, and I'll keep you posted.

Since you've made it this far, you might be interested in reading:

Screenshot of the Windows 98 Second Edition desktop, showing evidence of a Pentium II 300MHz with 256MB RAM. — Project Twentieth Century: Resurrection

There comes a time in every young man's life to remember his past. Though others may mock him and claim that it wasn't that long ago, he still holds it dear. It may even be desirable to reclaim relics of that past before they become lost, rare, or financially unavailable. And so it is.

Photo of my two new monitors, next to Twentieth Century. — So Few Monitors

It's been almost 5 years since I made any major changes to my main rig. I'm still rocking that Ryzen 1800x, and that surround sound system. I upgraded from 32 GB to 64 GB RAM soon after building it, so it's ready for serious server things, and playing with RAM drives is fun sometimes. I recently got a breathtaking MSI RX 6800 Gaming X Trio 16GB. My old Acer monitors were still going fine, but 4K is the hot new stuff. I have the mindset that if I'm computing but not looking at a monitor, I'm computing wrong, so monitors are important. (That's why I despise RGB LEDs on literally anything, why I use black monolithic computer cases, and why I use unlabeled, unlit keyboards.) So should I go 4K, or go high refresh rate? Why not both?

Some time ago, I asked a friend if I could borrow a few games to play on Twentieth Century. Even though he was born in the latter 90s, he's a big fan of 90s games from id and Blizzard. He presented a few Quakes and WarCrafts. I tried playing WarCraft 1, but a few missions in, I got annoyed by the lack of build queues and a 4 unit select limit. I got a bit further in WarCraft 2, but sometimes ran out of resources before getting an army off the ground. Back in the bad old days, I had downloaded and played the WarCraft III demo quite a bit, and I remember liking it a lot better. While the base Reign of Chaos game installed and ran fine on Twentieth Century, the Frozen Throne expansion refused to install, complaining about hardware requirements, even though it ostensibly met them. So I installed these on my main rig, and this article is about the originals; not about the new Reforged remaster.

And now for another game from Twentieth Century. Fallout is a fairly old game that every other game nerd seems to be continually high on. And by "old game", I mean "game franchise". I wonder how many of them have actually played the first one.

An EarthSiege2 screenshot, showing combat — EarthSiege2

Twentieth Century is starting to show real returns on my investment. I can honestly say that I'm starting to enjoy it, and its being all that I wanted it to be. Unfortuantely, there seems to be a lack of USB ports. They tend to come in handy when I have all the ports used up and want to get a screenshot off it.

Screenshot of Papers, Please, showing a multitude of documents and a man with killer sideburns — Papers, Please

Papers, Please is a bureaucrat simulator where you man a border checkpoint in a fictional totalitarian country during the late cold war. Gameplay mostly involves examining people's passports and other entry documents and calling 'gotcha' on them. Otherwise, you let them through if you can't find anything or you're lazy.