RE: Which DOS era computer makes for the best retrogaming PC?

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I sold Gateway computers from 1998 - 2004, during some of the prime retro gaming times. I remember explaining why you want that extra 4MB ram and that big 200 MB hard drive. Gigabytes were still science fiction back then!



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(Edited)

Gateways are definitely my favorite "vintage" PCs. My first PC was a Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V that I ordered some time in July 1993. It came with a 486 DX2-66 processor, 16MB of RAM, a 340MB hard drive and a single speed CD-ROM drive with manually operated tray. I added a Soundblaster 16 ASP and 14.4 modem (both ordered from Gateway who seemed to have great prices for add-ons at the time) by Christmas. Within a year I had a ZIP Drive and a 1 GB hard drive (had to order a BIOS upgrade on floppy to support that). I absolutely loved that machine.

In Christmas 1997 I upgraded to a G6-333 Pentium II (mini tower version) which was also an awesome machine.

By the time I was ready to upgrade again I was building my own computers. The Athlon and Pentium III era Gateways were really the last ones I liked. Recently I picked up a full tower Pentium 133 Gateway 2000. That has got to be the most awesome tower computer ever built. And it is huge.

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I'm drooling over all this geekspeak, doesn't seem that long ago when "Pentium" was high-end. I had a zip drive also, I still remember the noise it made. I didn't build my first until much later, I was overclocking a Celeron and installing some of the first video graphic cards.

I'm glad you like the old Gateways, it was sad seeing that company go the way of the dodo. I still have my "Gateway Country" denim shirt with GATEWAY 2000 branded on it. The squishy cows given away with the old PC's have become collectors items - I could have made a fortune if I kept a box or two intact!

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Gateways, especially in the 486 and Pentium days, were awesome. I just paid too much (though still far, far less than it originally cost) for a Pentium 133 full size tower that is something I would have upgraded to at the time if I could have afforded it. That gargantuan tower has got to be my favorite design ever and this one was in mint condition...and miraculously survived shipping. Basically the same design as the 486 tower shown in this post.

Pentiums don't seem that old, and honestly they were still usable (albeit not necessarily a pleasant experience) until they finally pulled the plug on Windows XP...at least if you had a higher end one and could cram enough RAM into it. I recently came across a Compaq Presario that had a K6-200MMX in it. Problem is that it had 16MB soldered on and one memory slot and could have a max of only 48MB of RAM. That thing was practically obsolete when it came out because of that limitation.

I got a zip drive for my 486 not too long after they came out. I splurged for the SCSI version. At the time, ~$20 a disk for 100MB was a great deal. I still have it and a few years ago I pulled it out and hooked it up to copy all the old data I had on ZIP disks. It still worked then anyway.

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