That's not the official name. This is my highest-spec-asterisk vintage-use PC, it's technically not done yet while still being "done", I'm just waiting on an IDE to SATA adapter and maybe someday a new case. This PC I started assembling to have a Linux PC from circa the year 2000, appropriate for something like Mandrake 8.2. It's nice finally getting to experience an AMD build, and I really love slot processors. I know why they abandoned them, but if ARM processors are going to all be soldered, why not give us something like this for them? The ASUS K7V that all this is built around took a while to show up and I thought it was stolen, but it ended up showing up, thankfully. Building and tinkering with this thing really helped me take my mind off things when I needed it.
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The PC I plan on building and using into the 2030s. Unfortunately expensive, but not much I can do about it, hopefully Raptor doesn't go under before I can get it... This is the computer I plan on doing everything on going forward, video editing, programming, writing fiction, drawing... anything requiring even a bit of horsepower, and not tied to proprietary software, is to be done here. Unassuming little thing, too, at least to begin with. Ideally, it just feels like a normal little micro ATX office PC running Linux, besides being PowerPC. It's the primary build target for my game, Age of Rail, and may even end up being the target for Athena's Arrow once I've built up enough experience to attempt starting on that project again. The only problem: it's gonna be expensive for basically something on par with a 5900X3D.
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I really want to build this. I know it won't have amazing performance and am ready to accept that; I just really want to have a PC that's made up of all the oddly prescient and first-past-the-post parts from history, I think it would be cool. I've also wanted a build with an AMD k5 since it's the closest thing I can get to an Am29000, which is fascinating because it's AMD's own take on a RISC processor well before any attempts to ARMify their offerings. Motherboard would probably be an Intel Advanced/ATX just for earliness to the ATX game, even if it was essentially SI-only.
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I guess we're going by date of acquisition for these, at least for now. This isn't the first computer I've ever used or owned, but it's the earliest one I still have, unfortunately. I wish I still had whatever Pentium 4 thing I had before it, since that was great for Windows XP gaming. This was a perfectly serviceable computer. Has a Core 2 Duo E6300 in it and basically no expansion, what it had is what it ever had, besides one wireless NIC card I added in circa 2016; it was literally just an office PC from like... 2007. The only kind of neat thing about it is it was a desktop and not a tower. It ran from 2014 to 2018 when I opened it up and could never get it closed again. It's still in my closet, completely unable to either fully close or open back up again. Really, it could have used just a little bit more expansion flexibility.
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I got this at a thrift store, my one lucky thrift store computer haul (besides a Sound Blaster Audigy for a few dollars), and it's been my trusty DOS steed since then. It's a really nice computer actually, kind of a convenient size and exactly the right size for a CRT on top (of course, it would be), which means I can (and do) put a 19"er on it without having to worry about using up any more floor space. I got it and as far as I could tell it was basically untouched since 2003ish, but I've obviously since touched it quite a lot; it was a nice, private place (maybe not so much considering the OS it has) for me to write on, 'distraction-free' as the kids would call it. I guess it helped in that way for me to realize some things about myself because it was just me baring my soul to Microsoft Word 97 (that I think I installed on there myself, oddly enough). The reason it isn't really considered a W98 PC is mainly just its lack of AGP since that was hardwaired to be an ATi Rage Pro Turbo.
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This thing was my daily driver not just when I started making this website, but up until 2021 or so. It was the computer where I first started getting serious about hobby programming, video editing, website writing, and various other creative pursuits. I honestly have a decent amount of nostalgic connection with it, I did a whole lot of growing up in front of it. Not all the memories were happy, but they're all part of who I am now. Luckily, since I haven't gone online with it since then, it's basically kept a preserve since late 2020, including cached files.
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I bought this little thing to run a Half-Life and Team Fortress game server for a friend group I fell out of, in part due to my own immaturity and in part due to theirs. It's just been hanging around for a while now while I figured out a purpose for it, but I decided to dedicate it to streaming video. It's not especially useful for much else with no expansion.
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This wasn't my first Macintosh (that goes in the laptops section), but it's deifnitely the one that I feel the most connection to. I got it with 640MB SDR (upgraded from 16MB), an 8MB ATi Rage 128 GL, and no hard drive (so I got a 160GB Maxtor for it). That's a... really weird combo for April 2000, so I assume it was a business or school PC, because 16MB RAM in 2000 was almost unusably anemic, and I wasn't even aware they made 8MB Rage 128 cards. Hence, the name Oddball.
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This guy was on eBay listed as being for parts, but the only thing "wrong" with it was that it had a Debian install on it. I got into that install but it wasn't terribly useful, so I moved over to Void when it was still a thing, which wasn't that useful either, so I decided to put Mac OS back on it. I decided to try gambling on modern Debian and it wasn't any better than Void, so it's just pending getting Mac OS back on it. Probably gonna sell it.
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I bought this guy to be a web server, but he was dead. It's probable that it's just the case being bad, and more specifically the power button. I was always intending to remove the case completely and shove it into a Fractal Design Core 1000 for the better airflow, only recently did I find a moutning kit for using Power Mac motherboards in ATX-mount cases. No real attachment though. I'll get around to it some day (tm).
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I bought this guy to be a web server, but he was dead. It's probable that it's just the case being bad, and more specifically the power button. I was always intending to remove the case completely and shove it into a Fractal Design Core 1000 for the better airflow, only recently did I find a moutning kit for using Power Mac motherboards in ATX-mount cases. No real attachment though. I'll get around to it some day (tm).
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I bought this little thing to run a Half-Life and Team Fortress game server for a friend group I fell out of, in part due to my own immaturity and in part due to theirs. It's just been hanging around for a while now while I figured out a purpose for it, but I decided to dedicate it to streaming video. It's not especially useful for much else with no expansion.
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This thing is my oldest and trustiest friend, I've had it since the later 2000s, doing a significant amount of browsing and VM stuff in the back of RVs and trailers throughout that decade. At one point, the screen was crushed when I folded a couch on it, and I cried a decent amount about it (I was a little kid at the time, what else was I going to do?), until one day a few years later it ended up being repaired by my dad. Ever since, it's been hanging around until at some point I lost track of it... somehow, not losing it completely in a rushed move. I only recently found it and kind of feel like reviving it for offline writing, but man, I remember when it used to feel like a normal sized laptop to my little kid self, using that Windows 3.1 in the browser thing, watching 60 minutes, and listening to Don't Copy That Floppy on the bare concrete floor of my old bedroom, on a pile of pillows and blankets.
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This thing was a secondhand laptop I got from a relative. It sure was an AMD Athlon II laptop. It died from overheating in 2016 just from web browsing.
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This was a surprise win on eBay. $25 and I ended up with a pretty nice laptop that's surprisingly compatible, both backwards and forwards. Unfortunately, the power supply ended up wearing off the power connector, but while it was good, it was a fantastic ltitle laptop, and was totally viable as a daily drier up to about 2022. Probably still is with a more modern Haiku install than the Beta4 currently on there.
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My very first Macintosh! I actually really love this thing, despite kind of slagging it off in the "white iBooks" page. I really loved using Mac OS 9 on it, it flied, and even emulated Windows pretty well. It was my daily driver after the power supply problems with my Dell Isnpiron made themselves well apparent. If I had to only keep one Mac laptop, this would probably be it. I eventually ended up installing Mac OS X Leopard on it to try to come up with an alternate universe 10.5 that's more of a 10.4 v2, and that's how it's stayed since.
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I bought this little thing to run a Half-Life and Team Fortress game server for a friend group I fell out of, in part due to my own immaturity and in part due to theirs. It's just been hanging around for a while now while I figured out a purpose for it, but I decided to dedicate it to streaming video. It's not especially useful for much else with no expansion.
Specs:
OS history:
I bought this little thing to run a Half-Life and Team Fortress game server for a friend group I fell out of, in part due to my own immaturity and in part due to theirs. It's just been hanging around for a while now while I figured out a purpose for it, but I decided to dedicate it to streaming video. It's not especially useful for much else with no expansion.
Specs:
OS history:
I bought this little thing to run a Half-Life and Team Fortress game server for a friend group I fell out of, in part due to my own immaturity and in part due to theirs. It's just been hanging around for a while now while I figured out a purpose for it, but I decided to dedicate it to streaming video. It's not especially useful for much else with no expansion.
Specs:
OS history:
I bought this little thing to run a Half-Life and Team Fortress game server for a friend group I fell out of, in part due to my own immaturity and in part due to theirs. It's just been hanging around for a while now while I figured out a purpose for it, but I decided to dedicate it to streaming video. It's not especially useful for much else with no expansion.
Specs:
OS history:
I bought this little thing to run a Half-Life and Team Fortress game server for a friend group I fell out of, in part due to my own immaturity and in part due to theirs. It's just been hanging around for a while now while I figured out a purpose for it, but I decided to dedicate it to streaming video. It's not especially useful for much else with no expansion.
Specs:
OS history:
I bought this little thing to run a Half-Life and Team Fortress game server for a friend group I fell out of, in part due to my own immaturity and in part due to theirs. It's just been hanging around for a while now while I figured out a purpose for it, but I decided to dedicate it to streaming video. It's not especially useful for much else with no expansion.
Specs:
OS history:
I bought this little thing to run a Half-Life and Team Fortress game server for a friend group I fell out of, in part due to my own immaturity and in part due to theirs. It's just been hanging around for a while now while I figured out a purpose for it, but I decided to dedicate it to streaming video. It's not especially useful for much else with no expansion.
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return home / return to the technology page / this page written May 11, 2025