Does anyone keep an ancient computer for the sole purpose of playing old games?

[Richard Bruns]

I am seriously considering this. Before I left home for my year of studying abroad, I replaced my parents´ vintage 1995 Hewlitt Packard with the newer computer I was using at school. I will order a better computer when I get back to the states, and the old computer is currently resting unused at home. It still runs perfectly well, and my parents would still be happily using it if I hadn´t given them the newer one.

Since XP got rid of compatibility mode, I am worried that some of my old favorites will not run on my newer computer. Even if I can emulate DOS, there are several problems:

Integrated soundcards. Old games insist on using seperate soundcards, and if the PC has the sound integrated into the motherboard I have to play games like Master of Magic with no sound.

High processor speeds. This ruined X-COM on my newer computer. All the graphics ran too fast and looked wrong.

So I was thinking of taking the older computer to school and using it as a gaming platform, while my new computer does the normal computer stuff. Does anyone else do something like this? It seems kind of backwards, I know.

[aaglo]

Yes. Of course. These new PC's are too fast / otherwise incompatible with older games.
Like the new digital sound blaster on my new pc. It makes buggy/funny sounds to some games. And another issue - no matter whatkind of boot-disk I make, the memory is insufficient for older games - like MOM...

[muxec]

I know that "Kings Bounty 2" does not properly works on fast comps.

[Heresson]

Sort of. I have my old atari and would never throw it out
for that reason - another thing is that I can't play it even though I have it.

[GePap]

Damn the endless march of technology! And it is also too bad that all thse punk kids nowadays have no clue what great game they missed. Because of this no one would get the brilliant idea of coming out with revised versions of our favorite older computer games to play on these new machines.

The old computer my family has died, unfortunitelly. the oldest machine I have, my current one, runs on wins. 98, which is already too much for colonization, MOO and civ 1. Pity.

[Sikander]

I still have every computer that I have ever owned:

PC / AT 12 MHz
P 2 350 MHz
P 3 600 MHZ
P 4 2.26 GHz

[Lars-E]

I have a Commodore 64 in the attic. I even bought a floppydisc and a taperecorder for it - years after C64 was old news.

I found out it's possible to play those old C64-games on the PC with an emulator. So I finished Maniac Mansion which I never did on C64.

What I'd like now is to use those old C64 joysticks on my PC. An interface has to be developed for that purpose. Sadly the engineers at my church who do stuff like this had no time.

[MariOne]

Well, I still should have a C64 with external tape unit, in a drawer somewhere (bought for Xmas '84).

The XT (8088, 640Kb RAM, HD upgraded from 10Mb to 20, yes Mb not Gb, 12" amber phosphors monitor, bought around end '85), was brought at her seaside home by my mother, I dunno what she thought to do with it and don't want to know.

The 386dx40 (with "I think" 16Mb RAM & 400MbHD) still lies in a corner of my room, under some cardboards and some old junk... Bought I think in '92

My current computer could soon be tagged vintage, if not ancient...
PII 333 192Mb Ram 10GbHD ATIXpert@Home SBAWE64...
Bought in early '98...

So, I don't keep the 386 for playing, because the PII333 with Win98SE is already old enough.

BUT.

As I had problems to properly configure the EMS memory under Win98 (either in DOS-session window or in DOS-mode) to run old games, even on htat PC I resolved to....

...make a true DOS 6.22 partition, ONLY to play MoM and Machiavelli the Prince on it (and an old "strategy - spaceadvanture" mixed game that I never completed, Alien Legacy).

Even under DOS (windows, sessions or true partitions), there is a tool made to slow your PC enough to make them playable.
It's called "moslo" iirc, you should find it searching on the web, without it it would be impossible for me to play Elite even on the PII333....

[Richard Bruns]

So it seems that I´m not alone. Old computers are still in service.

Originally posted by MariOne
Even under DOS (windows, sessions or true partitions), there is a tool made to slow your PC enough to make them playable.
It's called "moslo" iirc, you should find it searching on the web, without it it would be impossible for me to play Elite even on the PII333....

I would strongly advise against the moslo program. That thing completely crashed my PC when I tried it, forcing me to reinstall the OS. I was using it to try to get the old Ultima games to work.

[MariOne]

Thanks for the heads up, R.B.
I of course want to disclaim any bad intention on my part when I suggested it.
I used it sometimes to get back playing Elite, and never observed the slightest problem or bad collateral effect with it.
I must have been lucky, of course I had not access to reviews about such a minor tool, and could not know that it can cause serious problems on systems different than mine (or maybe does it depend from the game you start with it?).

[Rex Little]

I still have a PC with a 5X86 processor (pre-Pentium) that runs only DOS--no Windows, not even 3.1. I use it for Colonization.

[Weltraum Amy]

I still have my old P133 with 32MB Ram and DOS 6.1. It's nearly impossible getting games like Syndicate or MoM (Monkey Island, too) work on WinXP...

[Juggler]

an old 486pc with win3.1. I keep it for old dos games and some other classics (prince of persia, dynablaster, civ1 etc.) playing these is still lots of fun

[Jac de Molay]

still have every computer that I have ever owned:

Same here. In fact I've been looking for games for my 1989 MacIntosh SE which I still use to write and keep a journal.

[Father Beast]

Thrift stores

I've been thinking about going around to the thrift stores and scouting for old computers. You have to do some digging, because some of them have them and some don't, but between a handful of old PC's I should be able to get something working...

I've had mixed results with moslo. it has never crashed the system, but often doesn't work, or work right. like in Ultima II, trying to land the spaceship is almost impossible. at full speed the terrain is going too fast to control, and with moslo on, the terrain still spins by too fast, but the screen updates are slowed down, making it even worse.

i even have at least one game which refuse to slow down at all under any slowdown program.

for slowing down, the more radical, and effective solution, is to enter the bios and turn off the internal and external cache. that works for every slowdown problem I've tried.
Just, for goodness sakes, DON'T LET IT LOAD WINDOWS WITH THE CACHES DISABLED. I did that once and had to wait 10 minutes for it to load so I could shut it down.
then my daughter tried loading the sims, and I was stuck for a half hour....