Dude this is so cool! I want to make a setup like this so I can stay up all night long playing old 90s games. I remember I used to play these games until I fell asleep and then right when I woke up I would hop on my computer again and turn the volume down low so my parents didn't hear me playing again. Nostalgia
*Gaming Retro:* If I may suggest, when you upload a video about a specific computer, would you mind listing it's specs in the video description (memory, cards, et cetera)? If someone was curious, or wanted to build their own, they'll have a better idea of what to consider.
I also had a DX2-66 Mhz back then as a child. In the beginning this machine was absolutely awesome, but compters aged so extremely fast back then. It was very sad when my friend with a DX4-100 was able to play games like Diablo or Wing Commander III while I wasn't :)
This computer looks like a brand new pc in a showroom or computer shop during the early 90s... I really loved that era. I still have many computer shops' price list as i regularly checked how the price is going down month by month and to hunt for the best price / value computer on the market! :) Suddenly, Cyrix came with their 486 DX2 66 CPU which was much cheaper then the Intel and the AMD version and i bought it around early '95. Same year, the 1.2 GB Seageta Barracuda finally reached an affordable price. How big storage capacity was back then! I could not belive it.
What a beautiful machine. They key hanging from the key lock is an especially nice touch! I’m currently rebuilding my long-lost gateway 486 dx2-66v tower. Looking forward to finishing it and loading these awesome 90s games again!
My first computer was 486 DX2 66 when I was 13. I knew all of the stuffs and games you showed. I realized that I completely forgot Transport tycoon but I instantly remember as soon as I heard the MID sounds and the saw the MICROPROSE logo!
10:25 - these were the most beautiful pixels I have ever seen. Thank You for that video and a huge throwback to times when there was no 4K, no 60fps, no internet and consoles were for kids while PCs for MEN! I'm 1983 by the way ^^
Awesome compilation! The 90's were so transformative for the PC gaming industry. CD ROMs, scanners, super early digital cameras, BBSs, ONE GIGABYTE hard drives, the list goes on! I still remember installing a STB Powergraph 64 and seeing 'real' 3D for the first time. Sure there was the Nintendo64 and PlayStation but... there was just no comparison in quality between PC and Console. Great game list by the way! I'd like to suggest MechWarrior 2 and StarTrek TNG A Final Unity to your list.
@@WedgePee Today you're fine for about 5~7 years, if you get high end components and aren't just trying to push more pixels for the heck of it. Back then we're talking like 100~200% faster every two years, whereas today we're more like 25~50% faster after 5 years. Tablets and phones are a different matter though. They're generally designed to be replaced every couple years.
@@WedgePee Yeah, fair enough then. I have a couple Nexus 5s that are from around the same time as well. Halfway decent for leaving on the charger (only one of their batteries is still usable for more than 10 minus of charge) and watching streamed shows for my daughter. Cheers.
The original Warcraft was one of my first PC game buys ever in 1994 for my brand new DX2-66. In fact, it was my first RTS game ever since I've never played Dune before. Unfortunately, around 10 years ago, I cleaned up the attic and threw so much nice retro stuff away, including the original game package. You have no idea how much I regret that today.
The golden age of computer games, started on the C64 around 1985, to Amiga from 1987 and to PC from around 1992. It stopped around 1996. Basically 85 to 96 is the golden age of computer gaming.
You go'that right man. Further, at the time, you'd to struggle in order to make them work properly, by soft- or hardware tweaking. Nowadays even a little punk can run a game/software on modern pcs, simply by tapping on an icon...
I don't give anything about "golden age". I myself grew up with a C64, but honestly... most of the games for the C64 were just a total crappy experience. Although this was my first computer, I can't really be nastolgic about these games because they are just so crappy. Yes, on PC there were many great titles in the 90s. Or on SNES. But there were still many many great titles released all the years after up to this day, also some of the greatest games all time (for me the Dark Souls Series, Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, Mario Galaxy/ Odyssey and many others). I don't think that there really is something like the golden age. We tend to remember thesese time with nostalgic feelings, only remebering the great stuff but blending out all the terrible games. Yes, there were times where game companies were more experimental than nowadays, but this didn't only lead to good games. It also lead to tons and tons of trash. Today we wouldn't enjoy most of the games we played back then, because they were just not as good and we know much better games today. Of course there are exceptions of truely timeless masterpieces.
My favorite Dos game was Executive Suite. Very simple word game, but still fun. I also got into programming in Basic on my Commodore Vic 20 and later the 486. I got onto Aol 1 0 dial up internet on my 486! I rebuilt everything in the late 90's with a new motherboard and guts. Was my computer until mid 2000's. I ran my internet business on that PC through 2005.
Loved this nostalgic trip, had a similar system back in the day, actually searched google on DX2 66 as that was what I remembered I had and then watched your vid, cheers mate!
Nice rig man! I also appreciate that you used an actual hard drive in there instead of the CompactFlash alternative. Keeping it true to retro parts from the 90's!
Oh, yes. I love under monitor power centers, with their neon lamp rocker switches. My 486 DX was a 40 MHz machine; pushing the turbo button reduced it to 16 MHz, slow enough for some of our 8088-1 games, but not slow enough for others (while some games didn't use this for timing, rendering them unplayable until emulation came along). Sadly, my 486 was scrapped, along with my Vendex Headstart LX-CD (the 8088-1). I still have my P5, though it needs its sound card repaired/replaced, along with the monitor.
Start to play with PC on 1994 with a 486dx2 66 Ms-Dos 5.0 & Windows 3.1 system. Syndicate the first title I fell in love with, than Doom, Heretic and Myst on Windows 3.1. Glorious days❤
Same story here! My parents bought me Olivetti M4 machine which was the intel 486 DX/2 66 MhZ with I think 4MB of RAM and like 80 MB of HDD capacity. I upgraded the RAM later to 8MB and got the NEC CD-ROM and remember how I was amazed with the speed and the capacity of it's medium compared to the HDD and the 1/4" floppy drive I had at the time. Damn, the memories! I used to play Civilization with my brother for days and nights until one day my uncle took the keyboard from us for a week because we just didn't sleep at all 🤷🤣🤣🤣
Definitely the golden era of PC gaming in my opinion. I had a 486sx 33 with 16mb of ram it was just when people were craving more power than what the home consoles could provide and parents were buying family computers so naturally there was a fairly high demand for pc games and a lot of unique developers stepped in to fill the demand which gave us many unique and exciting games not to mention Doom. Great video,
My 486 dx2 66mhz came with 4mb RAM. I saved up a whole year to buy another 4mb RAM so I could play Need for Speed. Even then it was only playable at 320x240
Golden Era of PC gaming was a big stretch! From the 386 / 256 color VGA / VESA / Soundblaster era (1992) all the way to the mid 2000's. The Insane CPU advancement of the 386 to the 486 and then Pentium 1 / 2 / 3 and Athlon / 64, and the 3D accelerator revolution of the mid to late 90s. It was an exciting decade. Everything went to shit in the mid 2000's when corporations bought everything out and switched focus from cutting edge to consoles.
My first PC was a Pentium 60 in 1993 and I played the heck out of games like X-Wing, Sim City 2000, and of course Doom. I still pine for those days and that's why I have waaaaay too many retro PC's now. Nice build, very clean!
It was absolutely _intoxicating_ being a young teen with only a modest family computer and then going over to friend's house where he and his brother had 2 powerful computers going with head-to-head Command & Conquer in 1995. I was completely entranced with the gameplay, strategy and military power at my fingertips. Westwood really pioneered it all with Dune 2 and then C&C and Blizzard with Warcaft 2 and Starcraft. Great times.
I like it.. brings back memories.. in 1994 i had a DX2 66 then later in the 90s i got an Intel branded 486 DX4/75 which i overclocked to 100mhz with a decent VLB video card and 24mb ram.. It actually ran Quake at a playable frame rate along with the original GTA and Windows 98SE ran well.. Was one of my favourite PC'S I owned, many hours of fun
I keep a 400mhz P2 PC that is almost solely dedicated to playing Doom 2. Admittedly overpowered but I love the aesthetic of playing on a CRT with an original ISA soundcard. #guiltypleasures
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Back in the 80s and 90s, a lot of game developers made a lot of historical based strategy games as a lot of kids (and history nerds) loved those types of games as it was educational and immersive as to what actions what you want to take as a ruler or shift to an alternative history of how the civil war ended. They made really good games back then.
Yes, because of the limited technology then it spurred more creativity on game play instead. And then there was the other branch of games - those who made breakthroughs on how to tweak and get the most out of the technology of course.
Oh, yes. I love under monitor power centers, with their neon lamp rocker switches. Sometimes a couple of inches makes all the difference between looking directly at the screen versus looking from an odd angle. My Headstart LX-CD (8088-1) was a sturdy desktop IBM compatible, so we put the monitor on top of the case, but the under monitor power center made it the perfect height.
@@GamingRetro Me too, especially Age of Empires 1/2 DE and Starcraft BW remaster. Sim City would be great, although the experience is so good as it is.
yea, in DOS, TibDawn and RA1 dont have background on right panel (building / training) 😀, another title: XCOM Ufo Defense n XCOM2 Terror From The Deep, a bit dissatisfied with XCOM Enemy Unknown.
OMG... My first computer was an IBM 5051 with yellow monochrome monitor, installed a sound card... I still remember having to address the sound card in the cfg file... then start it in the bat file... Those were the days... when we had a computer issue, we could fix it so easily.. now every program is 200 trillion lines long ... Nice ol' system ya got there. Love that someone is keeping them alive.
Glad they changed from IDSPISPOPD to simply IDCLIP. I hate it when lost souls get trapped behind a wall, so I'm also glad _DOOM_ doesn't penalize us for using cheats, unlike _Rise of the Triad_ or _Blood._ I don't know if _Duke Nukem 3D_ has a cheat penalty. _Descent_ has a cheat penalty, but I only use it to locate energy stations on the full map, so as long as I remember to reload a saved game immediately after using the cheat, it won't penalize me for peeking.
I got my first PC around the same time, 486sx 25mhz, just months before the DX/2 series came out. Was kicking myself a bit for not doing more research ;) But the system was still great for that amazing era of games.
President Poopface. I would have come up with better parody name for a politician, like President Schwindle, or even borrowed Skroob from _Spaceballs._
Awesome video I to loved this time in computer DOS days. I to have a Focus 2001Keyboard and bought it because it was clicky and always reminded me when I learned to type on a typewriter and hearing it click let me know I was hitting the correct keys. My problem is I lost the dust cover but still have the 2 plastic holder peices still installed in my keyboard. Oh well maybe I will get a new cover someday lol. Thanks for the video I love this retro goodness. Now I got to get my AMD 5x86 133 finally built. Great stuff!!!!
at 12 years old i got an old 486DX4 with the same golden cooler from my school with win95. connected my beefy 466mhz celeron to the 486 via serialcable (ethernetcard was still not common these days at private computer!) and played a lot of age of empires and doom with my friend after school! good times.
I had an AST Adventure 4066d all in one, same DXII 66, 8mb Ram, 4x CD-ROM, 13 in. SVGA. I played so much Warcraft 2, Doom, Terminal Velocity, Wacky Wheels, Star Trek 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites, Diablo 1, Starcraft 1. It came with Windows 3.1 which we upgraded to Windows 95. I miss having to edit the autoexec.bat and config.sys files. I had to edit to allow 1 MB of Expanded Memory to play Star Trek Judgement Rites. I miss these days sometime!
There are 2 games which I like very much during the mid-90s. It's the Stellar 7, and Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion and I used to play both of those using 386 and 486 computers.
great stuff..the first pc i had back in the day (around 1991) was actually a 486 dx2 66mhz-based pc with a soundblaster (don't remember the model though), a quickshot graphics card, a 520mb HDD and didn't even had a cd-rom drive yet.. spent countless hours experimenting around windows 3.1 and msDOS 6.22 , learning my way around things without anyone pointing out what to do.. for a freshly turned 8yo kid, it was mesmerising and to this day (now turning 37), i still revisit those old DOS games every other week (like 1986 version of digger, commander keen 4, cosmo, c&c , lemmings, lotus 3, etc....).. great to see someone not letting our nostalgic sides die off.. keep on charging , keep doing this great work. greetings from portugal
@@arncht6507 I "hear" you but actually it really was around that time.. late 91 or at the most, 92..i remember i was 8YO at the time but, then again, it could be sometime along 92.. either way, it was great for the time
I first discovered _Command & Conquer_ at my cousin's house, and couldn't get enough of it. I eventually learned how to bait the AI, and exploit just about everything the AI opponent did (I preferred to steal the AI's buildings and vehicles rather than destroying them). The one time I tried playing against a friend over a dial-up modem, I got my ass handed to me; however I tried to adapt to his strategies, it felt like I was always 2 steps behind.
@@Christopher-N I just used the cheats for it. But your method sounds like fun. I have forgotten most of the game I just remembered playing it in CAD class and auto shop.
This was the first PC I bought and played Dune 2 on it. Win 3.1 and DOS. Now have a windows 11 Pc with RTX 4070 on it .. can’t afford the 4090 as I’m not hard core gamer! Back then in 1994, I was one lucky one to have early SB 16 sound blaster card and with 4 Mb of RAM (later upgraded 8 Mb) and yes, Command and Conquer was a real hit in 1995-1996 period. Had a hard time getting my hands on it!
Great tower you 've got there! You should have built a VLB system. PCI 486 socket 3 motherboards were common from late 1995 to early 1997, for the DX4 cpus for both Intel and AMD and especially the 5x86. Anyway. I have built my 486Dx2 of my dreams with a VLB motherboard, Spea V7 Mirage P64 S3 864 2MB VLB video card, PT627B dual ide multi I/O VLB, ESS1868F with midi daughterboard (Dreamblaster X2), QDI motherboard and 32 MB RAM. I used an i486Dx2 and later I installed an AM486Dx2 enhanced with 16kb cache. It's good even using Windows 95B version. Many people back on 1995 were using Windows 95 on a 486Dx2 cpu. It runs great and you can play DOS game easily.
I believe a VLB setup ran much faster on 486s, particularly the video card as VLB was designed for it 486 architecture and VLB connects directly to the CPU.. I've seen comparison video on here showing equivalent PCI video card scoring way lower than the VLB... Also I ran Windows 98SE on my DX4/100 with 24Mb RAM back in the day and it ran fine.
@@mrbrad4637 fastest cards for PCI are indeed, S3 Virge, S3 Trio64 V+ / V2 etc... Also Ati Mach 64 are good, later Rage and Rage II, but they are less compatible in DOS games, than S3. So overall S3 is better pick. Very fast, and with best image quality are Matrox cards, Millennium 2, or Mystique (first accelerators). But they have also issues in some DOS games. So S3 Virge DX is best of all for 486 card, almost fastest, great compatiblity in DOS, and also, some 3D acceleration, actualy, very few 3D games can be played with Virge under 486 at playable rate anyway, Problem with S3 Virge architecture is, that it doesn't contain Triangle setup, so it is very CPU demanding card, it will need basically at least Pentium 150, to be fully utilized. So ironicaly, even better pick is voodoo2 for 486. That card have best CPU scaling, sqeezing out most FPS, when CPU limited. It scales even more well than voodoo1. So best pick for 486, is S3 Virge DX with voodoo2 accelerator. You'll get much performance of this combination, when CPU limited, also 2D part of Virge DX is one of the best.
Brilliant game selection, those were some of my favourite as well. I loved playing red alert two though on Westwood online over 56K which where I lived, I would get 28.8 max.
I was fortunate enough to have gotten a Dell Dimension XPS Pentium 90Mhz PC in Nov 94. If I had waited until summer 1995 I'd have had a slightly more powerful and better PC, but you couldn't keep up with the speed at which the hardware was improving in that decade. The same holds true for somebody who forked out some serious bucks on a PC in mid 96. By mid 97 somebody would have spent the same amount of $$$ as you had a year prior and landed themselves a significantly better and faster PC. Come around the same time 1999, I got my hands on a Time Machines PC that came with an AMD Athlon-K6 II processor, 19GB HD space, onboard GFX chipset and If my memory serves me correctly 256MB of Ram which I later doubled the following year. I couldn't keep up with the costly demands of PC Gaming and around circa 2007-08 I'd throw in the towel and start playing browser based games instead lol
Started on a 386dx then went to a pentium 100 & eventually o/c'd to 133 with better cooler if i recall. This was it in-between. Sweet retro rig brother.
Nostalgia! The dawn of multiplayer gaming. So many nights we gathered and played Warcraft2 , C&C, Doom, Quake, Starcraft, Descent, Hexen, etc. I didn't have a 5.25 on my DX2 though. It was kind of outdated already. Yeaaah I played Simcity 2000 aswell. First CD-rom game I ever bought.
Nice system. Certainly a proper case for a 486 build. Some generations of 486 run hotter than the sun but still manage to function properly. DX2 chips usually did not come with a fan, some like Cyrix did have a heatsink. Fan will be extra noise from the case. The front is made for a case fan and that would be sufficient air flow over the CPU if you are concerned about heat and still want to keep the noise down.
Sorry for two comments... I have to adress why I would go for something else, hardware wise. Using S3 cards on a 486, then I would use a VLB solution. When we are dealing with PCI cards and 486, then they are the best if you load up Univesa. However the catch is that you loose some memory when doing so. So the best choice is to find a card that are vesa compliant out of the box. That is why I choose a CL-5446 for a 486-PCI system. Ultimately because 5446 and S3-Virge325/Trip64v+ (with univesa) performs the same on a 486. So going for a 5446, you can save some memory for the same performance. It is only when you go past a Pentium-133/166 that you get a better solution with S3. Plus the image quality is more soft on 5446 and more sharp on S3. In other words, the 5446 gives a more vintage feel to the image. CL cards on VLB are crap, compared to something like an S3-805. Inferiour performance and vertical stripes on the CL cards. If you use LCD monitors. All in all. I use S3-VLB on my 486-dx2-80 VLB machine. I use CL-5446-PCI on my 5x86-133 system. S3-Virge325 on my Pentium-166. And my ISA-Only 486-dx33 uses an ET4000-ISA (Prodesigner-II card) that is the only ET4000 that I have seen, that have no vertical stripes on a LCD monitor. Regarding sound, then I much more prefer a non creative with real OPL chip and a Dreamblaster daughterboard.
These were the lowest end of my time in computer sales. DX 4/100 was next and then came PENTIUM and showcased its power through uses of CD ROM, specifically Encarta 95.
My first 33/66mhz was simply tossed in the garbage (bad me) around 2k. I miss it. Starting it sounded like my grandparents groaning to get out of bed any Winter's morning. Charming, really.
I remember when I a dual 486dx2 I had the fastest out of all my friends in the mid 90s dam computers are so cheap now. I still remember my windows 98 key code. 10/100 network work hub playing doom C&C red alert StarCraft doom miss those days
Got loads of old dos stuff thank goodness for dosbox I have some nice old hardware et6000 g card, harddisc controllers building a PC a mix of old and early 00's.
I had a terrible slow 486-SLC-33Mhz. The SLC 486's were basically a 386 with some 486 extensions. Doom ran at sub 10fps, had to reduce to window and run in pixel doubling mode just to get a smooth framerate. Alone In The Dark 2 was also quite sketchy. It handled older DOS games such as Elite 2, 4D Sports Driving, Test Drive 2 etc but after six months I persuaded my parents to buy a 486-DX2-66Mhz CPU and the difference was incredible. Everything was silky smooth after that. I even overclocked it to 80Mhz and added an extra 4MB EDO RAM before I retired the computer for a Pentium 100 (Quake reasons...).
Had a P100, and never had a 486, but built one recently for DOS. It's just a tad underpowered on a DX66 compared to what I was used to, so I'm bringing it up to 100MHz with an overdrive chip. It's not Pentium level, but close enough. For retro windows there's a different setup on a P3. Transport Tycoon wise - that's the first game I put on when testing a new soundcard, just to see what the MIDI's like. GUS version by far is the favourite.
I've got parts sitting behind me to build like 20 of these machines lol, some good rare pieces too. Been building one, all VLB, Tseng graphics, original SoundBlaster (have Pro2, 16, AWE32 and AWE64s), all the good stuff :D
This is hands down, one of the greatest things ive seen. Any tips for someone who does not know computers all that well, to obtain something like what you have setup!?
Hi great video nice gaming pc I noticed you have a cd rom 3 and a half and 5.25 floppy drives can you tell me how you got them connected all together and what cable you used
This setup is so sweet, I’ve been looking for this exact kind 486 66 with the digital MHz readout, flip I/O switch and NOS tower case and 5.25 floppy drive and of course the turbo button! Even on eBay can’t find anything this good. Would you consider building one just like this that I could buy?
The problem is finding the case... I've only seen two of these on eBay and any case with a turbo button and display is getting a bit rare these days (and expensive).
That's the problem I have been running into. Do you have the make and model for the case so I can keep an eye out for it? It's the same as I had as a kid but I was dumb and don't have it anymore
Dude this is so cool! I want to make a setup like this so I can stay up all night long playing old 90s games. I remember I used to play these games until I fell asleep and then right when I woke up I would hop on my computer again and turn the volume down low so my parents didn't hear me playing again. Nostalgia
*Gaming Retro:* If I may suggest, when you upload a video about a specific computer, would you mind listing it's specs in the video description (memory, cards, et cetera)? If someone was curious, or wanted to build their own, they'll have a better idea of what to consider.
I also had a DX2-66 Mhz back then as a child. In the beginning this machine was absolutely awesome, but compters aged so extremely fast back then. It was very sad when my friend with a DX4-100 was able to play games like Diablo or Wing Commander III while I wasn't :)
This computer looks like a brand new pc in a showroom or computer shop during the early 90s... I really loved that era. I still have many computer shops' price list as i regularly checked how the price is going down month by month and to hunt for the best price / value computer on the market! :) Suddenly, Cyrix came with their 486 DX2 66 CPU which was much cheaper then the Intel and the AMD version and i bought it around early '95. Same year, the 1.2 GB Seageta Barracuda finally reached an affordable price. How big storage capacity was back then! I could not belive it.
Oh God hearing the motherboard POST beeps and the HDDs chugging / spinning up is the absolute pinnacle of nostalgia for this 90s kid...
What a beautiful machine. They key hanging from the key lock is an especially nice touch! I’m currently rebuilding my long-lost gateway 486 dx2-66v tower. Looking forward to finishing it and loading these awesome 90s games again!
gateway lol....awesome...
My first computer was 486 DX2 66 when I was 13. I knew all of the stuffs and games you showed. I realized that I completely forgot Transport tycoon but I instantly remember as soon as I heard the MID sounds and the saw the MICROPROSE logo!
10:25 - these were the most beautiful pixels I have ever seen. Thank You for that video and a huge throwback to times when there was no 4K, no 60fps, no internet and consoles were for kids while PCs for MEN!
I'm 1983 by the way ^^
Awesome compilation! The 90's were so transformative for the PC gaming industry. CD ROMs, scanners, super early digital cameras, BBSs, ONE GIGABYTE hard drives, the list goes on! I still remember installing a STB Powergraph 64 and seeing 'real' 3D for the first time. Sure there was the Nintendo64 and PlayStation but... there was just no comparison in quality between PC and Console. Great game list by the way! I'd like to suggest MechWarrior 2 and StarTrek TNG A Final Unity to your list.
90’s PC gaming was one hell of a era. So many games that would make you go out and buy a home computer.
I loved the look on old computers and the Amiga 500 / 1200.
Magical times. And the games were awesome
I remember that area, and the technology was accelerating fast at that time.
You'd almost have to buy a new computer each year to keep up.
Not unlike today, eh?
@@WedgePee Today you're fine for about 5~7 years, if you get high end components and aren't just trying to push more pixels for the heck of it. Back then we're talking like 100~200% faster every two years, whereas today we're more like 25~50% faster after 5 years. Tablets and phones are a different matter though. They're generally designed to be replaced every couple years.
@@WR3ND I was talking specifically about Apple products.
I have an iPad Mini from 2014 which I still use for games from time to time.
@@WedgePee Yeah, fair enough then. I have a couple Nexus 5s that are from around the same time as well. Halfway decent for leaving on the charger (only one of their batteries is still usable for more than 10 minus of charge) and watching streamed shows for my daughter. Cheers.
I remember probably ever month clock speeds were increasing. I remember when mhz turned into ghz.
90s truly were the best of everything.
No
@Gaming York no when you idealse your youth you became a vieux con as we said lol
@Gaming York my first computer was an amstrad cpc 464 , in 90 i had an amiga 500 but i like it now and i am impatient to know the future rtx 4000
80-90...👋
@@yussef961 yes.
The original Warcraft was one of my first PC game buys ever in 1994 for my brand new DX2-66. In fact, it was my first RTS game ever since I've never played Dune before. Unfortunately, around 10 years ago, I cleaned up the attic and threw so much nice retro stuff away, including the original game package. You have no idea how much I regret that today.
Man thats cool...That is the golden age my techno brother!!
The golden age of computer games, started on the C64 around 1985, to Amiga from 1987 and to PC from around 1992. It stopped around 1996. Basically 85 to 96 is the golden age of computer gaming.
You go'that right man. Further, at the time, you'd to struggle in order to make them work properly, by soft- or hardware tweaking. Nowadays even a little punk can run a game/software on modern pcs, simply by tapping on an icon...
@@francescopatruno5809 Yup. They do not know the joy of physical jumpers and dip switches. 😁
I agree with you.
I don't give anything about "golden age". I myself grew up with a C64, but honestly... most of the games for the C64 were just a total crappy experience. Although this was my first computer, I can't really be nastolgic about these games because they are just so crappy. Yes, on PC there were many great titles in the 90s. Or on SNES. But there were still many many great titles released all the years after up to this day, also some of the greatest games all time (for me the Dark Souls Series, Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild, Mario Galaxy/ Odyssey and many others).
I don't think that there really is something like the golden age. We tend to remember thesese time with nostalgic feelings, only remebering the great stuff but blending out all the terrible games. Yes, there were times where game companies were more experimental than nowadays, but this didn't only lead to good games. It also lead to tons and tons of trash. Today we wouldn't enjoy most of the games we played back then, because they were just not as good and we know much better games today. Of course there are exceptions of truely timeless masterpieces.
@@Thunderbird1337 In what country did you grow up?
My favorite Dos game was Executive Suite. Very simple word game, but still fun. I also got into programming in Basic on my Commodore Vic 20 and later the 486. I got onto Aol 1 0 dial up internet on my 486! I rebuilt everything in the late 90's with a new motherboard and guts. Was my computer until mid 2000's. I ran my internet business on that PC through 2005.
Oh my gosh the DX2 66, SMARTDRV!!!! beautiful!
This brings back memories of this computer. I had one back in the 90's too. Nice video.
Loved this nostalgic trip, had a similar system back in the day, actually searched google on DX2 66 as that was what I remembered I had and then watched your vid, cheers mate!
Hey thanks for reviewing my gaming pc!
Nice rig man! I also appreciate that you used an actual hard drive in there instead of the CompactFlash alternative. Keeping it true to retro parts from the 90's!
This is excellent. I'm glad to know I'm not the only weirdo who chases down NOS parts for these old builds.
Oh, yes. I love under monitor power centers, with their neon lamp rocker switches. My 486 DX was a 40 MHz machine; pushing the turbo button reduced it to 16 MHz, slow enough for some of our 8088-1 games, but not slow enough for others (while some games didn't use this for timing, rendering them unplayable until emulation came along). Sadly, my 486 was scrapped, along with my Vendex Headstart LX-CD (the 8088-1).
I still have my P5, though it needs its sound card repaired/replaced, along with the monitor.
Would 16 MHz be too fast for King's Quest or Space Quest ?
Start to play with PC on 1994 with a 486dx2 66 Ms-Dos 5.0 & Windows 3.1 system. Syndicate the first title I fell in love with, than Doom, Heretic and Myst on Windows 3.1. Glorious days❤
Same story here! My parents bought me Olivetti M4 machine which was the intel 486 DX/2 66 MhZ with I think 4MB of RAM and like 80 MB of HDD capacity. I upgraded the RAM later to 8MB and got the NEC CD-ROM and remember how I was amazed with the speed and the capacity of it's medium compared to the HDD and the 1/4" floppy drive I had at the time. Damn, the memories! I used to play Civilization with my brother for days and nights until one day my uncle took the keyboard from us for a week because we just didn't sleep at all 🤷🤣🤣🤣
Definitely the golden era of PC gaming in my opinion. I had a 486sx 33 with 16mb of ram it was just when people were craving more power than what the home consoles could provide and parents were buying family computers so naturally there was a fairly high demand for pc games and a lot of unique developers stepped in to fill the demand which gave us many unique and exciting games not to mention Doom. Great video,
My 486 dx2 66mhz came with 4mb RAM. I saved up a whole year to buy another 4mb RAM so I could play Need for Speed. Even then it was only playable at 320x240
Golden Era of PC gaming was a big stretch! From the 386 / 256 color VGA / VESA / Soundblaster era (1992) all the way to the mid 2000's. The Insane CPU advancement of the 386 to the 486 and then Pentium 1 / 2 / 3 and Athlon / 64, and the 3D accelerator revolution of the mid to late 90s. It was an exciting decade.
Everything went to shit in the mid 2000's when corporations bought everything out and switched focus from cutting edge to consoles.
My first pc had those specs. Oh, the good ol' days.
My first PC was a Pentium 60 in 1993 and I played the heck out of games like X-Wing, Sim City 2000, and of course Doom. I still pine for those days and that's why I have waaaaay too many retro PC's now. Nice build, very clean!
Pentium 60 is super rare
That's one fine looking system you have there ... top-notch hardware. Really enjoyed that one.
Wow keyboard cover is nice!
It was absolutely _intoxicating_ being a young teen with only a modest family computer and then going over to friend's house where he and his brother had 2 powerful computers going with head-to-head Command & Conquer in 1995. I was completely entranced with the gameplay, strategy and military power at my fingertips. Westwood really pioneered it all with Dune 2 and then C&C and Blizzard with Warcaft 2 and Starcraft. Great times.
I like it.. brings back memories.. in 1994 i had a DX2 66 then later in the 90s i got an Intel branded 486 DX4/75 which i overclocked to 100mhz with a decent VLB video card and 24mb ram.. It actually ran Quake at a playable frame rate along with the original GTA and Windows 98SE ran well.. Was one of my favourite PC'S I owned, many hours of fun
People using pcs in 1992: office, web browsing, copying files, work
People today using 1992 pcs: GAMING ON DOOM2
I keep a 400mhz P2 PC that is almost solely dedicated to playing Doom 2. Admittedly overpowered but I love the aesthetic of playing on a CRT with an original ISA soundcard. #guiltypleasures
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Back in the 80s and 90s, a lot of game developers made a lot of historical based strategy games as a lot of kids (and history nerds) loved those types of games as it was educational and immersive as to what actions what you want to take as a ruler or shift to an alternative history of how the civil war ended. They made really good games back then.
Yes, because of the limited technology then it spurred more creativity on game play instead.
And then there was the other branch of games - those who made breakthroughs on how to tweak and get the most out of the technology of course.
I love those PDU monitor stands, they get the screen up a little higher and give you outlets to plug your setup into.
Oh, yes. I love under monitor power centers, with their neon lamp rocker switches. Sometimes a couple of inches makes all the difference between looking directly at the screen versus looking from an odd angle. My Headstart LX-CD (8088-1) was a sturdy desktop IBM compatible, so we put the monitor on top of the case, but the under monitor power center made it the perfect height.
What a nice rig. Both C&C 1 (Tiberian Dawn) and Red Alert 1 are currently being officially remastered by EA. Good times ahead!
Exciting stuff... I'm enjoying all the remastered stuff too. Now if only they'd remaster SimCity 2000...
@@GamingRetro Me too, especially Age of Empires 1/2 DE and Starcraft BW remaster. Sim City would be great, although the experience is so good as it is.
yea, in DOS, TibDawn and RA1 dont have background on right panel (building / training) 😀,
another title: XCOM Ufo Defense n XCOM2 Terror From The Deep,
a bit dissatisfied with XCOM Enemy Unknown.
OMG... My first computer was an IBM 5051 with yellow monochrome monitor, installed a sound card... I still remember having to address the sound card in the cfg file... then start it in the bat file... Those were the days... when we had a computer issue, we could fix it so easily.. now every program is 200 trillion lines long ... Nice ol' system ya got there. Love that someone is keeping them alive.
thank you for bringing those great memories back to life
21:05 Doom 2. Lot of memories. IDDQD, IDKFA
Glad they changed from IDSPISPOPD to simply IDCLIP. I hate it when lost souls get trapped behind a wall, so I'm also glad _DOOM_ doesn't penalize us for using cheats, unlike _Rise of the Triad_ or _Blood._ I don't know if _Duke Nukem 3D_ has a cheat penalty. _Descent_ has a cheat penalty, but I only use it to locate energy stations on the full map, so as long as I remember to reload a saved game immediately after using the cheat, it won't penalize me for peeking.
Must be a sweet feeling to rebuild the perfect gaming computer you wanted as a kid
Great setup, pristine condition! Those speakers are really beatiful. Many thanks for sharing.
Man you must have started out with PCs at the exact same time as me because I agree with you 100%.
I got my first PC around the same time, 486sx 25mhz, just months before the DX/2 series came out. Was kicking myself a bit for not doing more research ;) But the system was still great for that amazing era of games.
OMG soon as I heard that first track in the Command & Conquer soundtrack... that's nostalgia right there.
Awesome system and games. And I agree that the Transport Tycoon's OST is just as impressive as the game itself.
President Poopface. I would have come up with better parody name for a politician, like President Schwindle, or even borrowed Skroob from _Spaceballs._
Can we get this guy 486 likes? Only two more left.
Awesome video I to loved this time in computer DOS days. I to have a Focus 2001Keyboard and bought it because it was clicky and always reminded me when I learned to type on a typewriter and hearing it click let me know I was hitting the correct keys. My problem is I lost the dust cover but still have the 2 plastic holder peices still installed in my keyboard. Oh well maybe I will get a new cover someday lol. Thanks for the video I love this retro goodness. Now I got to get my AMD 5x86 133 finally built. Great stuff!!!!
Thanks, hope you find a new dust cover! You can find them reasonably cheap on eBay every once in a while.
at 12 years old i got an old 486DX4 with the same golden cooler from my school with win95. connected my beefy 466mhz celeron to the 486 via serialcable (ethernetcard was still not common these days at private computer!) and played a lot of age of empires and doom with my friend after school! good times.
I did the same. Would get my parents to lug my tower PC to my mates house and we would set up a Doom 2 deathmatch.
I had an AST Adventure 4066d all in one, same DXII 66, 8mb Ram, 4x CD-ROM, 13 in. SVGA. I played so much Warcraft 2, Doom, Terminal Velocity, Wacky Wheels, Star Trek 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites, Diablo 1, Starcraft 1. It came with Windows 3.1 which we upgraded to Windows 95. I miss having to edit the autoexec.bat and config.sys files. I had to edit to allow 1 MB of Expanded Memory to play Star Trek Judgement Rites. I miss these days sometime!
There are 2 games which I like very much during the mid-90s. It's the Stellar 7, and Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion and I used to play both of those using 386 and 486 computers.
Great video and lovely system, thanks for uploading.
Thanks! Very happy to share.
great stuff..the first pc i had back in the day (around 1991) was actually a 486 dx2 66mhz-based pc with a soundblaster (don't remember the model though), a quickshot graphics card, a 520mb HDD and didn't even had a cd-rom drive yet.. spent countless hours experimenting around windows 3.1 and msDOS 6.22 , learning my way around things without anyone pointing out what to do.. for a freshly turned 8yo kid, it was mesmerising and to this day (now turning 37), i still revisit those old DOS games every other week (like 1986 version of digger, commander keen 4, cosmo, c&c , lemmings, lotus 3, etc....).. great to see someone not letting our nostalgic sides die off.. keep on charging , keep doing this great work. greetings from portugal
It should be later than 91.
@@arncht6507 I "hear" you but actually it really was around that time.. late 91 or at the most, 92..i remember i was 8YO at the time but, then again, it could be sometime along 92.. either way, it was great for the time
@@d.p.423 the dx2 pcs was in 92 on the market, the quickshot was a joystick, the 520m ide released around 94, the 622 dos also 94.
I spent a lot of time playing C&C in shop class in high school the memory's. love the videos just got another sub
I first discovered _Command & Conquer_ at my cousin's house, and couldn't get enough of it. I eventually learned how to bait the AI, and exploit just about everything the AI opponent did (I preferred to steal the AI's buildings and vehicles rather than destroying them). The one time I tried playing against a friend over a dial-up modem, I got my ass handed to me; however I tried to adapt to his strategies, it felt like I was always 2 steps behind.
@@Christopher-N I just used the cheats for it. But your method sounds like fun. I have forgotten most of the game I just remembered playing it in CAD class and auto shop.
This was the first PC I bought and played Dune 2 on it. Win 3.1 and DOS. Now have a windows 11 Pc with RTX 4070 on it .. can’t afford the 4090 as I’m not hard core gamer!
Back then in 1994, I was one lucky one to have early SB 16 sound blaster card and with 4 Mb of RAM (later upgraded 8 Mb) and yes, Command and Conquer was a real hit in 1995-1996 period. Had a hard time getting my hands on it!
Great tower you 've got there! You should have built a VLB system. PCI 486 socket 3 motherboards were common from late 1995 to early 1997, for the DX4 cpus for both Intel and AMD and especially the 5x86. Anyway. I have built my 486Dx2 of my dreams with a VLB motherboard, Spea V7 Mirage P64 S3 864 2MB VLB video card, PT627B dual ide multi I/O VLB, ESS1868F with midi daughterboard (Dreamblaster X2), QDI motherboard and 32 MB RAM. I used an i486Dx2 and later I installed an AM486Dx2 enhanced with 16kb cache. It's good even using Windows 95B version. Many people back on 1995 were using Windows 95 on a 486Dx2 cpu. It runs great and you can play DOS game easily.
I believe a VLB setup ran much faster on 486s, particularly the video card as VLB was designed for it 486 architecture and VLB connects directly to the CPU.. I've seen comparison video on here showing equivalent PCI video card scoring way lower than the VLB... Also I ran Windows 98SE on my DX4/100 with 24Mb RAM back in the day and it ran fine.
@@mrbrad4637 incorrect. PCI cards are faster than VLB, but not by much. It's like : PCI 100% speed, VLB 80-90% speed, ISA - 20-50% speed.
@@mrbrad4637 fastest cards for PCI are indeed, S3 Virge, S3 Trio64 V+ / V2 etc... Also Ati Mach 64 are good, later Rage and Rage II, but they are less compatible in DOS games, than S3. So overall S3 is better pick.
Very fast, and with best image quality are Matrox cards, Millennium 2, or Mystique (first accelerators). But they have also issues in some DOS games. So S3 Virge DX is best of all for 486 card, almost fastest, great compatiblity in DOS, and also, some 3D acceleration, actualy, very few 3D games can be played with Virge under 486 at playable rate anyway,
Problem with S3 Virge architecture is, that it doesn't contain Triangle setup, so it is very CPU demanding card, it will need basically at least Pentium 150, to be fully utilized. So ironicaly, even better pick is voodoo2 for 486.
That card have best CPU scaling, sqeezing out most FPS, when CPU limited. It scales even more well than voodoo1.
So best pick for 486, is S3 Virge DX with voodoo2 accelerator. You'll get much performance of this combination, when CPU limited, also 2D part of Virge DX is one of the best.
Brilliant game selection, those were some of my favourite as well. I loved playing red alert two though on Westwood online over 56K which where I lived, I would get 28.8 max.
when that warcraft 2 logo popped up i got all kinds of goosebumps...i remember playing the hell out of the shareware version
Yes me Lord! Still a good deal of fun.
I was fortunate enough to have gotten a Dell Dimension XPS Pentium 90Mhz PC in Nov 94. If I had waited until summer 1995 I'd have had a slightly more powerful and better PC, but you couldn't keep up with the speed at which the hardware was improving in that decade. The same holds true for somebody who forked out some serious bucks on a PC in mid 96. By mid 97 somebody would have spent the same amount of $$$ as you had a year prior and landed themselves a significantly better and faster PC. Come around the same time 1999, I got my hands on a Time Machines PC that came with an AMD Athlon-K6 II processor, 19GB HD space, onboard GFX chipset and If my memory serves me correctly 256MB of Ram which I later doubled the following year. I couldn't keep up with the costly demands of PC Gaming and around circa 2007-08 I'd throw in the towel and start playing browser based games instead lol
Absolute stunning computer, and those speakers are chefs kiss
Started on a 386dx then went to a pentium 100 & eventually o/c'd to 133 with better cooler if i recall. This was it in-between. Sweet retro rig brother.
Congrats! Nice PC, it brings back my childhood!
I remember ours. The games were so fun. I remember when we replaced it with a Pentium. It was bittersweet.
Nostalgia! The dawn of multiplayer gaming. So many nights we gathered and played Warcraft2 , C&C, Doom, Quake, Starcraft, Descent, Hexen, etc. I didn't have a 5.25 on my DX2 though. It was kind of outdated already. Yeaaah I played Simcity 2000 aswell. First CD-rom game I ever bought.
Nice system. Certainly a proper case for a 486 build. Some generations of 486 run hotter than the sun but still manage to function properly. DX2 chips usually did not come with a fan, some like Cyrix did have a heatsink. Fan will be extra noise from the case. The front is made for a case fan and that would be sufficient air flow over the CPU if you are concerned about heat and still want to keep the noise down.
Great little retro corner there. I'm not sure If I should make one of these or keep my hardware more flexible for the videos.
Sorry for two comments... I have to adress why I would go for something else, hardware wise.
Using S3 cards on a 486, then I would use a VLB solution. When we are dealing with PCI cards and 486, then they are the best if you load up Univesa. However the catch is that you loose some memory when doing so. So the best choice is to find a card that are vesa compliant out of the box. That is why I choose a CL-5446 for a 486-PCI system. Ultimately because 5446 and S3-Virge325/Trip64v+ (with univesa) performs the same on a 486. So going for a 5446, you can save some memory for the same performance. It is only when you go past a Pentium-133/166 that you get a better solution with S3. Plus the image quality is more soft on 5446 and more sharp on S3. In other words, the 5446 gives a more vintage feel to the image.
CL cards on VLB are crap, compared to something like an S3-805. Inferiour performance and vertical stripes on the CL cards. If you use LCD monitors.
All in all. I use S3-VLB on my 486-dx2-80 VLB machine. I use CL-5446-PCI on my 5x86-133 system. S3-Virge325 on my Pentium-166. And my ISA-Only 486-dx33 uses an ET4000-ISA (Prodesigner-II card) that is the only ET4000 that I have seen, that have no vertical stripes on a LCD monitor.
Regarding sound, then I much more prefer a non creative with real OPL chip and a Dreamblaster daughterboard.
Golden age of PC gaming I think continues a bit into the 2000 with the great Blizzard and HL and rise of competitive online shooting.
i like how they had the 66 on the case, i remember that.
Thanks for this video. Loved playing transport tycoon all those years ago. That soundtrack was always stuck in my head :)
One of the greats... I still play it from time to time.
These were the lowest end of my time in computer sales. DX 4/100 was next and then came PENTIUM and showcased its power through uses of CD ROM, specifically Encarta 95.
My first 33/66mhz was simply tossed in the garbage (bad me) around 2k. I miss it. Starting it sounded like my grandparents groaning to get out of bed any Winter's morning. Charming, really.
My first pc was a 80286. When I got my 486 with quad speed cd.. I was the cool kid in the neighborhood
I remember when I a dual 486dx2 I had the fastest out of all my friends in the mid 90s dam computers are so cheap now. I still remember my windows 98 key code. 10/100 network work hub playing doom C&C red alert StarCraft doom miss those days
That is a great setup you have there. Wish there was more choice for buying old stuff over here where I live...
Got loads of old dos stuff thank goodness for dosbox I have some nice old hardware et6000 g card, harddisc controllers building a PC a mix of old and early 00's.
What a wonderfull machine!
Thank you for the share. It s a dream!!!
that old school voice acting is really something i gotta say
I just discovered your channel and this is right down my alley. Subscribed! 👍 Keep up the good work
Hey thanks! I need to get back at it.
Very cool video mate. I remember the good old days
this was the machine back in the day ...very cool
I run my retro PC on a test bench but I really want to get a proper old PC case. looks much better
I had a terrible slow 486-SLC-33Mhz. The SLC 486's were basically a 386 with some 486 extensions. Doom ran at sub 10fps, had to reduce to window and run in pixel doubling mode just to get a smooth framerate. Alone In The Dark 2 was also quite sketchy. It handled older DOS games such as Elite 2, 4D Sports Driving, Test Drive 2 etc but after six months I persuaded my parents to buy a 486-DX2-66Mhz CPU and the difference was incredible. Everything was silky smooth after that. I even overclocked it to 80Mhz and added an extra 4MB EDO RAM before I retired the computer for a Pentium 100 (Quake reasons...).
O the memories, also playing games on dial up, and when someone made a phone call you would loose the connection lol.
Had a P100, and never had a 486, but built one recently for DOS. It's just a tad underpowered on a DX66 compared to what I was used to, so I'm bringing it up to 100MHz with an overdrive chip. It's not Pentium level, but close enough. For retro windows there's a different setup on a P3. Transport Tycoon wise - that's the first game I put on when testing a new soundcard, just to see what the MIDI's like. GUS version by far is the favourite.
i had a p100 also...was pretty sweet for the time
I've got parts sitting behind me to build like 20 of these machines lol, some good rare pieces too.
Been building one, all VLB, Tseng graphics, original SoundBlaster (have Pro2, 16, AWE32 and AWE64s), all the good stuff :D
Even cooler that you have Warcraft 2. Awesome vid.
One of the greats! Thanks for watching
Seen doom in the background nice !
This is hands down, one of the greatest things ive seen. Any tips for someone who does not know computers all that well, to obtain something like what you have setup!?
@@greyghost4609 Dont know what 386/486 is my friend.
@@VishiousLOW dude. 486 is computer you asked for in video.
It is 486 DX/2 66 mhz build (that's name of processor, what is inside)
Really enjoyed the video. Thanks for sharing!
I miss being 20s...😭
this is was my first pc. i had it when i was young it was the most powerful pc at that time.
ribbon cables with little to airflow, tiny little exhaust fan and still never overheated lol
Awesome computer! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching! I appreciate the support and feedback.
C&C and red alerts we played the monkeys out of those games..... Used to play together over lan which was a blast some good memories 👍 🙏
Used to play C&C red alert over modem connections. It was awesome. Our parents were pissed because we were hogging the phone lines lol
Hi great video nice gaming pc I noticed you have a cd rom 3 and a half and 5.25 floppy drives can you tell me how you got them connected all together and what cable you used
This setup is so sweet, I’ve been looking for this exact kind 486 66 with the digital MHz readout, flip I/O switch and NOS tower case and 5.25 floppy drive and of course the turbo button! Even on eBay can’t find anything this good. Would you consider building one just like this that I could buy?
The problem is finding the case... I've only seen two of these on eBay and any case with a turbo button and display is getting a bit rare these days (and expensive).
That's the problem I have been running into. Do you have the make and model for the case so I can keep an eye out for it? It's the same as I had as a kid but I was dumb and don't have it anymore
First true gaming PC.
Definitely a golden era. So many great DOS games from late 80s - about 1996 or so before the transition to 3D graphics got started.
A new Microprose game was an automatic 8 hours straight gaming at the next available opportunity
My childhood computer was a V Tech keyboard connected to a CRT television.