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can i do anything with this pc

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polaris:
its an old pentium with windows 95 on it , ive got an idea what software it can run.
im not clued up on building pc's and parts so i googled and think ive identified the following,
the keyboard is connected via 5 pin din and the mouse through a ps2 converter to 9 pin serial on the pc.
can i interface with the pc for mame purposes, am i limited to a hack for controls.
would be nice to use it up in a project.
cheers

Ginsu Victim:
I hear ya. I was just given a 350 Mhz with 64 MB ram. I'd love to use it for something, but it's just so slow I can't think of what.

polaris:
i was under the impression i could run an old mame version on there even if its just a few games or am i wrong there. its the hardware i understand even less :D

Turnarcades:
Though most emulators will perform on low-end PC's, there comes a point where the spec makes it pointless. I've made good use of PC's down to PII spec (and I know many run a MAME 0.36 PC in small bartops etc.) but my lowest accepted useful spec is P3 or equivalent. Mainly cos they run XP easier so have less problems with software support, USB capability etc.

People know I use PC's a lot and kindly give me old parts all the time, but I usually just strip old PC's for cd drives, ram or spare ports.

pmc:
You can try it. But you gotta want to tinker and learn a bunch of stuff to even bother.

I used to run classics on a PI MMX box. I replaced the PI with an AMD K6-2 and overclocked it. For most of the classics it was fine. Use Win98-SE or DOS and get a keyboard encoder that has a PS/2 interface on it. Get a simple adapter cable (like this) to go old-style 5-pin to PS/2. Run an old version of MAME (I used 0.36 or something close to that) and a matching romset. Or consider something made for an old machine like Vantage. You may be able to find optimized compiles for your particular CPU. It's all about speed and framerate so you'll want to optimize your configs and shut down everything in the OS that you don't need. Measure to be sure you are getting the right speed. Get the whole software thing working acceptably before you bother with a keyboard encoder.

I eventually replaced the PC with a fast one so I could run newer games and software. But the PI got me started for near zero dollars and I still use the same keyboard controller and controls that I used with that old PC.

I still have a 486 laptop that I always wanted to stuff into a bartop and run Vantage. But I'll probably never do it.

-pmc

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