IN WITH THE OLD
My shopping listPackard Bell tower PC
(PII 350, 16MB RAM, Voodoo 2) £100
Original keyboard £10
Microsoft Intellimouse £10
Windows 98 £12.99
6GB IDE hard drive £10TOTAL £142.99plug its PS/2 connector into to check.
I opted for a Microsoft Intellimouse
to pair it with because – and I’m
ashamed to write this – I can’t
remember much about the original
mouse that came with my first PC
and I’m pretty certain we plumped
for the Intellimouse quite quickly
anyway. They’re ten-a-penny on eBay
too. Easy, this retro PC-sourcing lark.
RETRO FIT
The real difficulty began, funnily
enough, when it came to finding a
specific model of PC released 20
years ago in good working order.
Retro gaming PCs are all the rage at
the moment, and there’s a growing
cottage industry of PC builders who
source old parts and practise the dark
art of ‘refurbishment’ on them (in
reality a can of compressed air and
some homemade bleach solution to
remove the yellowing on beige
plastic). But what if you’re not just
looking for a retro gaming PC, but the
retro gaming PC? After a year of eBay
alerts and fortnightly searches, I
hadn’t come close. I was at such a
low ebb that I considered hitting the
‘Buy it Now’ button on a Dell.
I also thought about building the
machine by sourcing the individual
parts, and I must now say in the
strongest terms possible: don’t do
this. You’ve forgotten everything
about hardware standards and
they include the original recovery disc, that’s a massive
bonus. You’ll need to buy your old operating system of
choice otherwise, and although Windows 98 isn’t quite as
expensive now (£15-£20 from most sellers), it’s an added
cost you might initially overlook. If you want, you can
even refurbish an old machine yourself by buying a £5 can
of air and following one of the many questionable recipes
for ‘Retrobright’ solution to bleach parts back to factory
fresh – just know that PC Gamer accepts no responsibility
for you ruining your floors, bathtub, hands and PC parts.
It came as quite a surprise when my exact make and
model of PC materialised on eBay after a full year without
leads. I stared at each shaky smartphone photograph on
the listing with an almost pornographic fascination, barely
conceiving the needle I’d found in eBay’s discarded goods
haystack. The seller had listed it with a guide price of
£400 to encourage private offers, and honestly I’d have
paid it if it came to it. In the end, though, I sent an offer of
£100 and spent the day worrying that I’d lowballed to
such an insulting degree that my bridge with this seller
was forever burned. He accepted it instantly, because you
would, wouldn’t you, if some weirdo came out of the
woodwork desperate for your unwanted two-decades-oldTOP: Half-Life is just
as good as you
remember.
Confirmed.compatibility from 20 years ago. You
have no idea what chipset that
motherboard you’re looking at is, and
there isn’t a damn thing on the
internet about it to inform you. No
one will help you if that Voodoo 3
doesn’t fit, and good luck getting all
the right cables to connect your
miraculously compatible components
which you’ve implausibly found
working drivers for. Honestly, forget
it. Buy a prebuilt PC which the seller
confirms is in full working order. Ifcomputer. Thanks again, sync_it, and
sorry about deleting all your old
Champ Man 3 saves.
The fates had smiled on me. I’d
secured some very specific pieces,
and I hadn’t even had to risk the one
website that claimed to still be selling
my original PC new, 20 years later.
Still, two pieces still elude me: the
Packard Bell Milano 17-inch CRT
monitor, and the recovery disc. I’ll
keep searching, of course, but I was
especially disappointed not to fully
immerse myself into 1998-o-vision