what do you use your "later PC's" for?

[commodorejohn]

The only "later PC" that I have, besides my daily-use machine (an Asus Eee) is a Celeron box that I've tossed some assorted bits and pieces into. Yeah, I know, hardly all that old-school, but it runs DOS and Win98 beautifully, so it's an ideal machine for any software too old to run on XP and too new to run on DOSBox on my *ahem* not-particularily-mighty Eee. I don't really use it for much else, though, as most of my development efforts are done during my downtime at work and transferred straight to my 286 box for testing.

 

[creepingnet]

The only old school ones I have are the 286, the 486, a Pentium 233, and a Cyrix based Compaq 2266

- CAT Computers 486 -
SPECS: Kingspao model 35 Chassis with 220 Watt PSU, ASUS GX4 System Board, Intel 80486 DX4-100, 64MB of FP 72 pin RAM, 256K L2 Cache, Fujitsu 3GB HDD, 52X CD-RW drive, Iomega Zip100 ATA, S3 Trio SVGA 1MB VLB, SoundBlaster AWE32, NE2000 compatible network, Packard Bell Radio Card, Packard Bell TV Tuner Card, running MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11.
USAGE: Generally used for old DOS Games, some light Internet via IE 5.1 or Arachne, and some basic tasks. Also acts as a print server for the HP LaserJet 4L printer I still use (the best printer I've ever owned)

- GEM 286/10 -
SPECS: IBM PC AT Style Clone Chassis (Full SIze AT), Octek Fox II Rev. 5 80286 Motherboard (Baby AT), Intel 80286 SX-10 CPU, ITT 80c286-12 MPU, 6144K System Memory, 350 Watt PSU (in old 200 watt PSU case), Seagate 540MB IDE Drive, Iomega ZIP100 ATAPI, The usual dual Floppy Setup (1.44 A:\ and 1.2M B:\), 1MB SVGA VESA Compatible (ISA), Creative Labs SoundBlaster 16, NE2000 Compatible Network Card, running MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1, Windows 2.03, and Windows 1.01.
USEAGE: This is the one I put on Youtube running Arachne 0.74 (DOS Web Browser), so Showing off. It's also used for DOS Games, mostly older titles like Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny or some of the older Test Drive games that run way too fast on my 486.

- Flight "386 SX" Pentium 233 -
SPECS: Kingspao Model 35 Baby AT Chassis with Hi-Pot 220 Watt PSU, ASUS SP-97 Series Socket 7 Motherboard, Intel Pentium 233MMX, 64MB RAM, 20GB HDD D:, Swappable Drive C: (allows me to run just about any O/S on it I want off any drive I want, plus make drives for my other computers), ATI Rage II PCI 4MB 3-D Graphics, SoundBlaster Vibra 16, Dazzle Snazzi PCI DV Capture Card, running a ton of different O/S (Open BSD, Linux, Unix, DOS, Windows 1/2/3/9x/NT/2K, CP/M, whatever I want basically).
USAGE: Experimenting with different operating systems, playing various games too new for DOSBOX or for Windows 9X (Windows 98SE being the standard drive for that computer), capturing digital video off of old computers and game consoles, MIDI Patch and File editing.

- Compaq Presario 2266 -
SPECS: Cyrix 233 MHz CPU, 64MB of RAM, 8GB Maxtor HDD, 1.44M Floppy, CD-ROM.
USAGE: I plan to just use this as another Network computer for LAN gaming old LAN games (DOOM, Quake, and the like), and possibly also as an MP3 server once I beef up the hard disk drive. For awhile this was my DV capture rig but I prefer an AT system for that because I can put a beefier graphics card and more memory and a faster chip in that.

I'll Refrain from my 8088's because I'd rather post those in the forum for those, and those are both used for DOS Gaming and LeetIRC anyway and not much else. I also won't mention my modern boxes, just because between my Acer Aspire One and my Home Built Pentium D 3.4G system, I'm not sure how to keep down from "fifty" paragraphs about all the stuff I do on those since they are the most active systems in the house.

 

[Caluser2000]

Just really getting back into the "later PC era" machines and for some reason the ones I've acquired are not your standard AT box setups. Mainly used for wasting away the evenings trying out older OSs. At present one has OS/2 v3 and the other a flavour of Linux. On the look out for another 486 I'll dedicate strickly to Dos and it's add-ons, will also use it to test all those cards I've still got in boxes out in the shed I've collected over the years. No dought I'll post my trials and tribulations in the appropriate areas. It's a relatively cheap and entertaining hobby. With forums like this one its even more enjoyable, with lots of lessons to be learn or relearnt if you know what I mean?

Also have a slimline P200mmx which has done stirling service for number of years as the household file server running RH 7.3. Only just recently retired the Win98 box as the family pc for something newer. It still gets switched on now and again.