Getting a new computer

[Stephen S. Lee]

It's just about time for me to buy a new computer. I will still have a
486, etc. around to actually play games on if needed, but I'd like to make
a new computer that I buy as retro-friendly as I can reasonably make it.

I actually don't know that much about recent desktop hardware. The
intention is a triple-boot setup (Windows 10, some kind of Linux, 32-bit
Windows XP).

The main questions I'd like to know are:

(1) Would it be practical to look for a motherboard that still would be
able to read a 5.25" floppy drive? Or even 3.5"? I'm not sure if modern
motherboards/hardware still support that kind of thing. I have a large
enough floppy supply I'd like to archive that doing this on an older
computer isn't terribly practical (there would be no good way of actually
transferring any images I make to the modern computer), so this is worth
spending a fair bit of cash on to get this to work if need be.

(2) What do I need to consider if would I want to make DOS games work
under Windows XP in a multi-boot system? XP is necessary because some
not-quite-vintage games absolutely won't work with either Windows 7+ or
DOSBox. I don't intend to use it for my everyday OS, though.

-- Stephen

[Pedro Quaresma]

(1) I recently bought an USB 3.5 drive (not sure a 5.25 exists) . which I use to test disks and save data for my Amigas. I'm not sure if this will do the job for you, but give it a try.

(2) can't help you here I'm afraid. I have yet to find a game I couldn't get to work on a modern rig.

Beyond (1) and (2): I was recently on the market for an inexpensive gfx card. Now I'm not sure of your budget, or which modern games you play, but my investigation led me to the conclusion that if you won't play anything beyond HD (1920x1200), a GTX 960 with 4Gb is a decent investment in terms of quality/price. Certainly quite enough to play high-res Fallout 4 on a main HD monitor and browse the web on a 2nd smaller monitor.

[Christian Bartsch | softpres.org]

Regarding (1): There's a USB floppy drive which can read Amiga disks? Usually these drives only read standard MFM ("IBM PC compatible") and can't deal with the modified Amiga format...

Christian Bartsch
The Software Preservation Society
http://www.softpres.org

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[Stuart Feldhamer]

I heard about this the other day, apparently there are drives that can read ST disks too...

Stuart

[Pedro Q.]

Not Amiga compatible, but the Amiga can read msdos disks

---

From: Christian Bartsch | softpres.org
Sent: ‎24/‎01/‎2016 13:50
To: swco...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [SWcollect] Getting a new computer

[Stephen S. Lee]

It's specifically 5.25" that I'm really looking for (since I have a lot of
those as well). There are solutions that work with those, but it doesn't
actually need to be USB (the 5.25" USB solutions out there seem awkward at
best anyway), and I was wondering if motherboards still support the older
models.

-- Stephen

[Christian Bartsch | softpres.org]

True... But you would lose all low level data, and of course this only works towards the Amiga, not when imaging Amiga disks.

Christian Bartsch
The Software Preservation Society
http://www.softpres.org

[Pedro Quaresma]

Oh, this I would be interested in!

[Pedro Quaresma]

Yeah, it's a "lazy" approach, I know, but getting the ADF into the amiga via a PC floppy, and then "burning" the ADF on the Amiga does the job.

[Mike Melanson]

---- On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 16:40:23 -0800 Stephen S. Lee wrote ----

>
>It's just about time for me to buy a new computer. I will still have a
>486, etc. around to actually play games on if needed, but I'd like to make
>a new computer that I buy as retro-friendly as I can reasonably make it.
>
>I actually don't know that much about recent desktop hardware. The
>intention is a triple-boot setup (Windows 10, some kind of Linux, 32-bit
>Windows XP).
>
>The main questions I'd like to know are:
>
>(1) Would it be practical to look for a motherboard that still would be
>able to read a 5.25" floppy drive? Or even 3.5"? I'm not sure if modern
>motherboards/hardware still support that kind of thing. I have a large
>enough floppy supply I'd like to archive that doing this on an older
>computer isn't terribly practical (there would be no good way of actually
>transferring any images I make to the modern computer), so this is worth
>spending a fair bit of cash on to get this to work if need be.

I recently repurposed a cast-off machine as a retro machine, though mostly with the intention of investigating the legacy of 16- and 32-bit Windows software. By running 32-bit Windows XP on this machine, I expect it to be able to natively run games designed to run even on Windows 3.1. It's also able to smoothly run such games as Tomb Raider Underworld, released in late 2008.

Installing XP can be a bit of a challenge nowadays. I documented my adventure in this blog post:

http://multimedia.cx/eggs/running-windows-xp-in-2016/

Perhaps you would like to look into the motherboard I used for the project, the ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium (seems to be about $130 on eBay right now):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131071

Apparently released in 2006 according to the Newegg reviews. While it has 6 SATA connectors, it also has a classic 40-pin PATA connector (which I''m using for an Xbox hacking project) and it also appears to have a floppy connector (which I'm not using). Thus, it's a good mix of the old and the new.

-Mike M.