My DOS Retro Gaming PC Time Machine Socket 7 Pentium MMX

In this video I'm showing off my DOS Retro Gaming PC! Because of the Socket 7 motherboard and Pentium MMX processor I can configure the speed so it runs speed sensitive games at the correct speed, but can also handle more demanding 3D games such as Doom or System Shock.

Resources:

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[PierreVonStaines]

Great to see your not camera shy anymore mate, I think it’s a really positive decision after all these years to talk to your audience direct. At the end of the day people will always support you, but putting yourself in the videos really connects with your viewers on another level. Well done pal, good on you! 👍

[osgrov]

Feels great to finally put a face to the voice after all these years! Well met, Phil. :)
I grew up on Commodores and later the Amiga. Stuck with them until sometime in 1992 when I managed to get a brand new 486 system thanks to work. I used that for many years playing DOS games, and most of the time I had a Tseng ET4000 which was later upgraded to an ATI Mach-something (I think it was a Mach64 but I kind of forgot). Sound was provided by the original SB16 which cost a bloody fortune I recall. :) Anyways, had that throughout the 90s. Early Windows never did it for me so I more or less skipped that stuff until late into the Win 98 era. Didn't move to Windows full-time until Windows 2000 came out. Now that was a nice Windows, finally.
Anyway! Very nice system you put together here, I sure could use something similar. The only working retro-PC I have now is a Core 2 Duo-rig that I use for XP gaming, but I really could use something older like this. I'm getting the itch to play Master of Orion again, hehe.. One of my all-time favorites. I know it works in DOSBox but as you know, that's not the same thing.
Keep it up brother, been a loyal fan for many years now - here's hoping for many more years to come. :)

[michaelluong]

My first PC was a Packard Bell 486sx running at 33Mhz with a whooping 4 MB of RAM that couldn't even run Doom... so I was beyond thrilled when I got my second PC - a Gateway 2000 with a Pentium 2 400Mhz that came with 32MB RAM, which I upgraded to 64MB and added a 3dfx Voodoo 2. The first PC I built completely for myself was an AMD Athlon 64 with a Radeon 9800 Pro and a Sound Blaster Audigy. Love your channel Phil, always brings up good memories.

[blakedmcRaveHD]

u're making me regret not lookin' into those Sound Blaster hardware alot earlier than i discovered ur channel even though i did picked up a Sound Blaster Live second hand

[DeViLzzz]

This channel exudes love. If the world was more like this channel it would be a much better place.

[modlabs]

This is most warm video i ever seen on this channel. Thanks.

[chrisducati]

Great to see you in person Phil, i subscribed to your channel many years ago because you put so much passion with platforms i loved like the socket 7 and your contribution to the community is stunning!

[holgerwikingsen]

I'm a caveman and kept using a 486 up to the year 2000 and embarrassingly enough got my first sound card that same year (was using pc speaker all that time and programmed great tunes myself with BASIC). The card was an ISA-slot ESS Crystal Sound whatever model, nothing new nor crazy but for me it was the revolution. Had to buy speakers also for the first time, it felt weird having those in the desk. I couldn't believe that my programs and games could produce nature-like sounds. I remember using a windows sound recorder to save and edit wavs, it was an awful grinding experience but I remember it very fondly, kind of like a toddler playing with one of those "match the shape" toys.

[amindlost]

Really nice to have a (smiling) face to put to the voice!

Like you, I started with a Commodore64, then moved on to a 386/25 with a whopping 1MB of RAM in highschool, early 90's. A while later, a friend's father gave me a 486 DX2/66 with 16MB of RAM, which was light years beyond our little 386. In that 486 I had a Gravis UltraSound Classic with the 1MB memory expansion that I purchased off another friend's brother, as he was looking to upgrade to the GUS PnP. Around this time I had gotten into music tracking, and the GUS was *the* card to have for that - shoutout to Marc Schallehn (MAS of Prophecy) for UltraTracker, which took full advantage of the GUS.

In 1997 I got a Pentium 233MMX with 32MB, an AWE64 Gold, and later upgraded from an ATI card to a Voodoo3 2000 PCI. I used this system for a solid five years before upgrading to a Socket462 Athlon Thunderbird 750 on an Abit KT7A-RAID. And here I am, almost twenty years later enjoying your videos, which give me those warm fuzzy feelings as I also kick myself repeatedly for having just discarded all that old hardware than I'm now buying second hand all over again (mostly the expensive AWE64 and a lucky find Voodoo3 3000 AGP in a not well described eBay purchase).

Thanks for the videos Phil, I really enjoy everything you put out.

[bowtopostulio]

my biggest regret in vintage computing is not getting the soundcanvas when it was easy and affordable. i still want one really bad

[davidfranklinv]

Out of all the retro pc channels on YouTube, yours is by far the best. I have learned so much over the years and I keep learning something new every-time you put out new content. You have such a genuine personality and way of doing things. Thank you, Phil for the hard work and dedication. And now your quality and presentation is even that much crisper and professional. 👍🏻😎👍🏻

[Kyle]

Heyyy, good to see you finally Phil :) Ive been tuning into your videos for years and years already. Hello from Denmark

[dennisp.]

I built a similar machine a couple of years ago out of mostly NOS parts where I could. I used a modernish NOS 2008 Cooler Master ATX case, an NOS Chaintech 6ESA0 ATX motherboard with the 440EX chipset and onboard Yamaha sound. No one seems to want the 66mhz limited chipsets on the Slot 1 boards, so it was quite reasonable on eBay (although the seller has since sold out.) I paired the board with a 233 MHz PII, 128MB of SDRAM and a PCI SATA1 card. Video is provided by an AGP S3 Trio with composite out that I've owned since the Mid 1990's.

It's set up to triple boot MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 2k from the native IDE drive and Windows 98SE from a 40gb SATA drive . The onboard Yamaha sound gives decent Soundblaster compatibility plus native OPL3. The BIOS allows me to downclock the CPU to 133 mhz and disable the CPU cache for older games.

I've added a USB hub internally to allow most of the front case I/O to be hooked up, but the board doesn't have AC97 headers, so front mic and headphones aren't working. I've got a DVD drive and a CD-RW hooked up to the second native IDE channel. I've also got a 5.25 and 3.5" floppies installed on the floppy line. Power is supplied by an NOS ATX supply that has a -5V line. It was fairly difficult to find.

The case is pretty packed, but future plans are the installation of a GOTEK (although I dislike them, it's hard to argue with the ease of use) Possibly convert the "modern" partition from Windows 2k to XP (Again, I prefer 2K, but its hard to argue with 15 years of XP driver support) and the addition of an LS-120 drive to allow me to keep the option of booting from a 3.5' floppy with an added GOTEK.

I've got a Super Socket 7 ATX board waiting to build into a stupidly modern case with glass sides. I was going to use a K6-III that I've had for a few years sitting around, but I might just consider using a plain-jane Pentium MMX.

[davkdavk]

Warms the heart seeing a vintage build like this. I had a AWE64 in my first PC. Cyrix PR200 (166mhz)

[PixelPipes]

This video felt like the most personal video you've made on your channel, and I really like it for that. Getting to know the real Phil and why all this means so much to you. Really great!

I have a SS7 Baby AT board I just recently got, and so far I've just been playing with a K6-2+, but it supports Pentium MMX and I've been curious to try it out, and this video gives a good reason for doing so.

[molivil]

I have the best of both worlds. My 486 rig (upgraded to AMD 5x86 133MHz) has an ESS688 and Sound Blaster AWE64 installed. The ESS688 has a real Yamaha OPL3 chip, so that covers most Adlib and OPL3 compatible sound generation. The AWE64 serves the wavetable sounds. I have a small patch cable going from the Line-out of the AWE64 to the line-in of my ESS688 so I can have sound coming from one output. The ESS 688 is on standard 220/5/1 address, while the AWE64 installed automatically on 240/7/3, and the AWE64 wavetable answers at the default 330H/620H addresses. The 240/7/3 is not really needed anyway, as digital sounds come from the ESS688 anyway. The operating system I chose for it is Windows 95 C OSR 2.5, which has a really good compatibility with General MIDI and AWE64, and the operating system itself services General MIDI compatible calls to DOS apps, so surprisingly even games without specific AWE compatibility can play MIDI sound tracks through the AWE. And everything "just works" running under Windows 95, which, given my past experience, was a pleasant change. But of course, I can boot to DOS any time if needed.

[zacmitchell_]

Well done! One of the few channels I watch start to finish.

[jeffwhite]

Excellent video and so good to finally put a face to the voice, brings back so many memories, I'm currently going through all my stuff, I have a lot of Pentium stuff from this era and picking what to use to build a machine.

[HeyItsJonny]

I love your focus on sound. Sound is such an important aspect of old games, and you touched on every reason you needed the hardware you have accurately.

Austria, UK, and Austraila? You get around, man.

[UpLateGeek]

It's my dream to build a home lab (I'm a network engineer) into a rack, but I also want to put in a retro PC using some kind of rackmount case. First I thought I would have to modify an ATX case to fit an AT or baby AT motherboard, then I got the idea of buying a smaller form factor PC and putting it on a shelf. But now I see the answer is obvious, just find an ATX socket 7 motherboard and use a standard ATX rackmount case.

Now I just need to find one for a reasonable price ... oh yeah, and buy an apartment large enough for a rack! 😄

In terms of your build, I think you've done a good job covering all the bases. If you couldn't find a board with AGP, then a PCI card would probably be fine, you'd just need to use the VGA input of your screen (or use an older model with a VGA input). Unless you can find one with DVI, but I guess that would be pretty rare.

I personally prefer the genuine OPL sound over the CQM/CT1978 sound. _[Insert why don't we have both meme here]_ Technically it's possible to have _two_ sound cards in one system, however I'm not sure how that would work in practice if you're using PNP cards. Obviously older non-PNP cards allow you to manually set the midi I/O port, IRQ and DMA, which would allow you to avoid conflicting with a PNP card like the AWE64. But I think the Adlib port is hard wired to I/O port 388/389h, so I'm not sure how that works with two cards in the system.

I would probably just use a SB16 card (with OPL3) and a Sound Canvas/MT32.