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Dual Pentium III

Zare said:
I also gathered from your posts your machines are mostly about running games. Aren't you mostly interested in graphics cards and sound cards?
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But not a gamer, though! (Despite constantly emphasizing phrases like "DOS gaming" when discussing the motives behind including peripheral XYZ in his BOM.)

Anyway, whatever. The terrible mistake I made here was guessing that the reason someone would open a thread on a forum like this is they actually wanted opinions from people who actually had some experience with the thing they were trying to do and, well, giving an opinion. Like them or not my takes on those ServerWorks boards was fact-based and, in the context of the time they were making them not even remotely controversial: they were not intended for "recreational use" and they mostly suck at the things people interested in recreation want from their computers. (And, again, I babysat several racks of these things back in the day and even took a couple home after they were retired at a fairly young age; which I subsequently gave away *for free* after realizing that there wasn't a single thing that I might want to do at home they were good at.) Once or twice in this thread the OP has chucked out the vague suggestion that he might want to explore "other things" besides games with this computer, but I at no point have seen even the wiff of clarity about what those things might be. (Or any requests for suggestions.)

But sure, whatever, *more* than happy to leave this alone.
 
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Zare said:
Uh oh Everstar calm down a bit.

*we're all here for fun and not productivity
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Are you assuming I am not having fun? If it were about productivity, i would be talking about modern systems and CPUs and not 20-30 or older ones.

Forums have great ability to be helpful, however, you also have the potential for trolls and people who just like to see if they can prove they are the smartest greatest person.

Honestly, I was advised to hit ignore for this person, that is everyone's right here. If you believe someone isn't in your best interest to interact with, the right thing to do is ignore them. If more people did that there would ultimately be less trolling and the standard of conduct would be much higher.

Sadly trolls often seek attention in ways a lot of people don't appreciate. I think its wise to just say no thanks to people that you feel quote the small bytes and ignore the larger body of what you have said. Then you don't have to see them do it, lol. I sincerely believe there is nothing I could say that would enable me to be understood by him. He and likely others seem to be convinced I am building this for games. I have been an OS and computer guy for over 40 years.

I wonder how many people are ignored here and don't even know it and think they are having their say when Sadly they are not even being heard, kind of akin to a type of madness no?

Balance is key to being effective in messaging. You have freedom of speech for the most part, but freedom of speech doesn't mean you won't be accountable for what you say or that it won't have consequences.

E
 
EverStaR said:
Are you assuming I am not having fun?
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You completely misunderstood me, the point is one doesn't need to have a specific goal to reach if building retro computers, one does not need any real-life reason to mix hardware and software that seldom worked together back in the day.

Cheers and good luck with that server board.
 
EverStaR said:
If more people did that there would ultimately be less trolling and the standard of conduct would be much higher.
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Obviously none of this merits any response, and it’s all the more pointless considering this person is too fragile to engage with and hiding under their comfy little cone of silence, but… eh. Sure, I’ll admit it: if all you want is adoration and cheerleading when you’re doing questionable things and absolutely refuse to be challenged I am probably tough to be around. My apologies, hope the OP has fun in his little bubble.

EverStaR said:
I have been an OS and computer guy for over 40 years.
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*shrug* I guess I’ve seen worse. And subsequently always made a point of voting “no” in the post interview discussion, but… I guess it takes all kinds.
 
All works, 5 Operating Systems, one machine, 1 SD card in a CF adapter, simply awesome!

Thanks to those who have helped support this project, peace out! And with this,thank you to those that stayed on topic, thank you for the PMs that offered the relevant perspective of wisdom. The ultimate P3 offers so much, is it perfection, for ma y no, for some like me, yes!

Thank you!

E
 
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Looks like I will get a Matrox replacement, friend felt bad and acquired another Matrox. Meanwhile, being so impressed by the current Intel SAi2, I found another for $59 delivered! So while one has the 6200, the new one will have the Matrox! How sweet! I will compare and sell the weaaker one!
 
Eudimorphodon said:
Obviously none of this merits any response, and it’s all the more pointless considering this person is too fragile to engage with and hiding under their comfy little cone of silence, but… eh. Sure, I’ll admit it: if all you want is adoration and cheerleading when you’re doing questionable things and absolutely refuse to be challenged I am probably tough to be around. My apologies, hope the OP has fun in his little bubble.



*shrug* I guess I’ve seen worse. And subsequently always made a point of voting “no” in the post interview discussion, but… I guess it takes all kinds.
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My bottom line point here, you have presumed my motives and have tried to tell me as well as others who I am and what I am about, and why I am building this system when in fact we don't know each other. You have also seemed to discard my desire to build this machine. You have had your say now. What I want from this system is the fun of building it and the fun of loading older OS's and then tinkering as I please. Then it will get sold and I will try some other machine. I do have a single CPU P3 board that may end up being a keeper. So I build 3 or 4, and keep the one I like best. It may not be a matter of even which performs better. Usually the other 2 or 3 pay for the keeper over time. I have fun, and eventually get a system I like for free.

Now, as for my reply to you, I presumed a few things about your character and motives for engaging in my post. That makes me wrong as well. My advice is if you think someone is wasting their time, if you must, just say it once and let it be as that is surely enough, as did another poster in my P4 thread. Regardless, I do apologize for what I said. You are obviously knowledgeable about CPUs of the era and regardless of sidetracking this thread I did find some of what you said interesting.

And what is so funny here is I have had a blast building out this machine, so much so that I found another identical MOBO and bought it and am building it out a little different as to compare. I know some people don't support this model fun that some get from the pursuit of such endeavors. So be it, they can find a thread and topic they do like and engage that way.

Peace!
E
 
When you have a hardware/software combination that was seldom to never used originally, in the capacity you're trying to use it for today, it is fair to explicitly denote so.

It is a forum after all. These are public threads, people come in with their own outlook and throw in their 2 cents.

Honest question : why not try building a real server or workstation with ServerWorks and W2K Advanced or Datacenter, have fun with building installing stuff that's maybe not 100% in the comfort zone, and leave soundcards and DOS for other builds? If you want to sell a system around this board the market will expect it to be a server or a workstation.
 
Zare said:
When you have a hardware/software combination that was seldom to never used originally, in the capacity you're trying to use it for today, it is fair to explicitly denote so.

It is a forum after all. These are public threads, people come in with their own outlook and throw in their 2 cents.

Honest question : why not try building a real server or workstation with ServerWorks and W2K Advanced or Datacenter, have fun with building installing stuff that's maybe not 100% in the comfort zone, and leave soundcards and DOS for other builds? If you want to sell a system around this board the market will expect it to be a server or a workstation.
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I will consider it. I don't have a problem with people pointing out that this system is a server, if you read back up, I acknowledged that I was having fun making it work not as it was intended. I made a mod to the overall system yesterday and have a single Win2K Pro 4 HD now, the system runs best so far configured this way and is fun to use, leverages the second CPU.

Since the $59 board is 2 revs newer, is brand new, has the CD, cables, manual it will make a decent server build to try out. I was able to get some shrink wrapped new memory for it as well. Still a few parts coming in for this and I wilp use a pair of real HDs in it this time. We'll see!

E
 
Unknown_K said:
Win2k server was the last MS OS that had built in Macintosh file sharing.
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I'm thinking more in terms of some kind of third-party client/server setup you can do with a retro server and paired retro PC(s). Just spit balling ideas. There's gotta be something.
 
Zare said:
You can host retro LAN parties from a real retro server.
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Sadly very few retro-games had a dedicated server option, and most that did were weirdly hard to operate. Combine that with most of my "retro" systems having more than enough spare capability and it sadly doesn't make a lot of sense. But Im still tryin!
 
Well, we all know I am a die hard gamer, Retro Lan Party at my place tonight! :)
 
Welp, ran across exactly the kind of thing we're talking about here today in my 'junk' box pile. Two dual Slot 1 systems, not just boards, but full systems. One is a dual Pentium II and the other a dual Pentium III. The dual PII has a 3DLabs AGP Oxygen VX1 full-length video card, SCSI, and both an internal ZIP and 2GB JAZ drive (with a JAZ disc in a case as well); the dual PIII has an nVidia GeForce 256 AGP, SCSI, and a ZIP internal. Both generic beige boxes. Haven't tried to boot them yet.
 
Booted the two duallies. The dual Pentium II (400MHz, 512MB RAM) came up running Windows NT 4.0 Workstation with a blank password for Administrator. The ZIP and JAZ drives both worked fine, and readable files were found on the one 2GB JAZ cartridge that came with the system.

The dual Pentium III (500MHz, 512MB RAM) had some challenges; the power button is a bit flaky, and until I reseated the CPUs it thought only one processor was installed, which caused it to reboot over and over; it would bring up the GeForce 256 color banner, then the BIOS screen, and then restart, with a few times where it did boot up a bit further but only saw one processor. After reseating both processors it came up fine, running Fedora Core Linux (Fedora Core 1, before the 1 was necessary).

Both systems are running the Asus P2B-D motherboard.
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If you're talking dual P2/P3, the 440GX is probably a better choice. Supports 2GB. The downside is 100MHz (official), but I've had no problem running mine at 120MHz.
 
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