Away from the game engine

Old hardware

Old computers and hands-on projects. A place for photos, notes, and the things I'm working on at the bench.

Tower cases

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A beige tower with a Creative CD-ROM drive and floppy drive, a Cooler Master case, and a look inside the chassis.

Beige tower with external drive bays
Beige tower with a Creative 48× CD-ROM drive and a 3.5-inch floppy drive.
Inside the beige tower
Inside the beige tower, with flat ribbon cables linking the drives to the motherboard and a top-mounted power supply.
Black tower front panel
Cooler Master tower with front USB and audio ports and external drive bays.
Open black tower chassis
Empty tower chassis with external drive bays, a lower drive cage, and rear expansion slots.
Silver and black tower front panel
Silver and black tower with front USB and audio ports above its external drive bays.

Motherboards, processors, and memory

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Socket 7, Slot 1, Socket 370, and Socket 478 hardware, including the AOpen AX6BC, Albatron PX865PE Pro, and MSI PT8 Neo.

Motherboard set up on the test bench
Open test bench with an Intel stock cooler and an expansion card installed.
Red motherboard with expansion slots
MSI PT8 Neo v1 (MS-6799). Socket 478, VIA PT800 and VT8237 chipset, DDR memory, AGP graphics, and two SATA ports.
Blue motherboard with PCI slots
Albatron PX865PE Pro. Socket 478, Intel 865PE and ICH5 chipset, four DDR DIMM slots, AGP, and five PCI slots.
Motherboard with legacy expansion slots
ASUS P/I-P55TP4XE. A Socket 7 Pentium board with 72-pin SIMM sockets, PCI and ISA expansion, and ASUS MediaBus.
Motherboard with a slot for a Pentium II cartridge
AOpen AX6BC. Intel 440BX chipset, Slot 1 processor connector, three SDRAM DIMM slots, and AGP, PCI, and ISA expansion.
Close-up of DIP sockets and chips on a vintage motherboard
Close-up of socketed chips and empty DIP sockets on a vintage motherboard.
Intel Pentium processor with MMX
Intel Pentium with MMX, marked A80503166 and SL27K. Runs at 166 MHz on a 66 MHz bus.
Intel Pentium III processor
Intel Pentium III 600EB, marked SL3VG. A 600 MHz Socket 370 Coppermine with a 133 MHz bus and 256 KB of L2 cache.
Intel Pentium II cartridge
IBM-labeled Intel Pentium II Slot 1 cartridge. The label shows 350 MHz and IBM FRU 02K2776. Intel specifies a 100 MHz bus and 512 KB of L2 cache.
Corsair memory modules
Corsair ValueSelect DDR400 (PC3200) memory. The labels identify a 1 GB VS1GB400C3 and a 512 MB VS512MB400.

Sound and expansion cards

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Creative Sound Blaster and Avance Logic ISA audio alongside AGP graphics cards from ASUS, ATI, and XpertVision.

Several vintage sound cards laid out together
A collection of sound cards with a mix of ISA and PCI edge connectors.
Sound card with color-coded audio jacks
Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Value, model CT4520. The ISA card has color-coded audio jacks and a game/MIDI port.
Sound card with a black mounting bracket
ISA sound card with an Avance Logic ALS007 chip and MA5ASOUND printed on the board.
Sound card in its retail box
Creative Sound Blaster Pro documentation and original floppy disks, including a Dutch-language manual.
Purple expansion card
ATI-branded AGP graphics card with a Rage Theater video chip, EtronTech memory, and VGA and DVI outputs.
Red expansion card with a fan
XpertVision GeForce AGP card with an active heatsink and VGA and DVI outputs.
Graphics card with a round gold cooler
ASUS V9560/TD with an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 GPU, AGP 8× interface, and VGA, DVI, and TV outputs.

CRT testing

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A Pentium 4 boot screen, a 350 MHz Pentium II benchmark in DOS, and a game running on a CRT.

Intel boot logo on a CRT monitor
Intel Pentium 4 splash screen displayed on a CRT during startup.
DOS system information utility displayed on a CRT monitor
Navrátil Software System Information running under MS-DOS 6.22. It reports a 350 MHz Pentium II, 128 MB RAM, and Diamond SVGA with 16 MB of video memory.
Benchmark results displayed on a CRT monitor
Navrátil Software System Information CPU benchmark showing the 350 MHz Pentium II alongside comparison results.
A game running on a CRT monitor
A strategy game running on the CRT, with the map and command panel visible.