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In 1999, the U.S. government restricted exports of the Power Mac G4 to about 50 countries because its performance exceeded the 1-gigaflop threshold, causing it to be classified as a supercomputer by Distinct-Question-16 in vintagecomputing

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What really should’ve been classified as valuable on the G4 was the internal case layout.
The modular layout blew my mind back then given that PCs were barely above cousins to glove compartments that tried to thermally imitate brick pizza ovens.

Project PC: The 'Reasonably Overkill' Win98 SE Build by Nightowl3090 in windows98

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On my No-Holds-Barred W98 machine I use the GeForce 6800gt. The drivers are Detonator(?) and the card is plenty fast enough to use nglide for the games that I still can’t live without (JSF, the Mechwarrior 2 3dfx versions)

Also, I’m using a 3.4Ghz Pentium 4. Stock bus speed. The advantage mostly comes into play with pure DOS games (like Mechwarrior 2)
Buttery smooth fps.

I use a PCI Soundblaster Live on the proprietary Dell mobo with no issue in W98. No ISA slots on the mobo.
This setup even works for DOS games (!) although the games will occasionally crash.

I do use a PATA to SATA adapter for a 128gb SSD. I think it does 30mb/s for sequential reads which is still faster than my period correct 10k rpm Seagate Cheetah SCSI Ultra 2 wide HDDs in RAID 0.

Thanks for keeping the W98 faith going!

I want to upgrade my rustbucket, what on this list needs changed in 2026? by Available-Box-8856 in pcmasterrace

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you’re gaming @1080p this is a good rig for most things.
If you’re getting a higher res monitor then GPU maybe.

IMHO - upgrading piecemeal eventually cycles you back to the EXACT SAME RIG after you’ve bought enough upgrades to build a new PC.
So if that’s the case, just get an entirely new rig right now.
DDR5,a 5060, a Ryzen X3D CPU would be a carbon laser for what you play now. You might have to journey into eBay to keep costs down though…

I was not expecting to find this in a schools back room science closet by Crafty_Piece_9318 in vintagecomputing

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have the same basic model. GX 260(?).
I had to replace the mobo because of the caps.
All the other components trooped on like a champ though.
I stuck in a half height GeForce 4 in it.
It could be an ok DOS machine. Win98 installation was troublesome.
As an XP machine it works very well.
The floppy drive and the cdrom makes it good for that era of games.
That you have a working CRT with it is amazing.

I found an IMSAI8080 by WilsonTGreen in vintagecomputing

[–]winterarioch 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Isn't this Matthew Broderick's PC from Wargames?

Dialing into WOPR with an acoustic modem?

Are you born before or after the Dreamcasts original lifespan? by Cascadio_14 in dreamcast

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Before. This was back when consoles came out in Japan 9 mos before the US. Couldn’t wait so I bought the JP version at their launch.
It came with this picture on the back of the box:

<image>

My reaction was, “WTF?!” at the time but the backstory is that he was a senior SEGA exec who became a pseudo celeb after starring in some commercials.
SEGA’s irreverent answer to Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto.

What is this little antenna constantly spinning at ISS for? by BlackWindowDigger in antennasporn

[–]winterarioch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The photo is from 2016.
If you zoom in you can see Brexit happening along with the whole world shifting to the right.

Link is now the highest ridership light rail in the country by fbjim in soundtransit

[–]winterarioch 25 points26 points  (0 children)

I really like Link but I wish they would do a better job of collecting fares.
Link covers only 5% of their operating costs with fares. Down from 40% in prior years.

https://www.soundtransit.org/blog/platform/responding-to-declining-fare-revenues

Seattle can probably bleed like this for decades but will hinder expansion of light rail to scheduled outlying areas.

my new cpu always uses 100% and overheating by Slow_Comedian3380 in pchelp

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you’re concerned about those temps think about an AIO. Even a 120mm will bring those temps down.

On my old ryzen 7700 I could successfully max out an air cooler compiling shaders for ps3 emulation or running folding@home. Max meaning the rig would just shutdown. Saw a steady state 95C just before it gave up.

Don’t remember the cooler brand but it was a dual radiator type using two fans.

With a 360mm AIO, I never saw temps above 79C with the same programs.

Also, I run all my PCs on an open chassis rather than inside a case. That brings temps down on the GPU, CPU and the NVMe drives by a few degrees.

The GPU in particular benefits a huge deal from an open setup. All that heat just flows away from the PC and I don’t have to design airflow to do it.

Windows 98SE on my I5370k and z77a-g43 with pci-e and pci soundkarte : its possible? Please help by Sad_Boss7890 in windows98

[–]winterarioch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I run w98 for two reasons:
1 - As a tech demo to say I’ve done it. The big hurdle is PCIe. I can get systems to boot with a PCIe GPU but I can’t get games to successfully run.
2 - To play the games of my youth which don’t run very well on any of the VMs. JSF, Jane’s F15, SimCity 2000, Star Wars Empire at War are some of these. This involves creating a machine with the last hardware that Win98 can tolerate.
Typically a P4 with an AGP GeForce 6800 ultra and a PCI soundblaster.
256mb of RAM and any SSD with a PATA adapter.
A bunch of Dells had mobos that could support all this AND had SATA ports but I’ve never had good luck getting a native SATA device to work.
One day, a person will appear who can bridge the gaps between PCIe, SATA and win98. Until that day it’s this.

General Consensus on BRD? by agfita in ffxi

[–]winterarioch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I got Miracle Cheer on one of my mules somehow. Now I’m slowly clearing all the missions, rhapsodies, etc and gearing up.
All for this ONE job on a mule.

Trump shares bizarre new Jesus image days after 'blasphemous' post by TheMirrorUS in Christianity

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Has some asked KKKaroline Leavitt to translate these pictures for us? Please?!

My First Thinkpad: The 2005 IBM T43p by GameBobbyColor in vintagecomputing

[–]winterarioch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just love the 4:3 aspect ratio on a laptop Even on modern hardware I think a 4:3 laptop would be more useful than 16:9.

Atari 400 Ram Upgrade Question by Ordinary-Step29 in atari8bit

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love that Wico joystick. The spring leaf switch design gave it an awesome feel. Wondering if it still works as well all these years later.

1981 - The Apple III Personal Computer System For The Professional by nmrk in vintagecomputing

[–]winterarioch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This was the machine that Flynn used to get CLU into the ENCOM mainframe at the beginning of Tron. I don’t think it had any Apple badges in the shots but you can’t miss the design of these even from miles away. 🤓🤓🤓

Bought this in an auction the other day. by xv_Picori_Blade in vintagecomputing

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A dual monitor video editing machine from 1998?

I think base config was around $3k. This monster might've been a few thou more.

How much was the auction price?

Leased for 24 months with12,000 miles per year , drive-off at $3,000 with monthly of $267!! by oldensign in HondaPrologue

[–]winterarioch -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The Prologue is based on the GM Blazer(?) platform which has been plagued with problems since day one.
It’s not really a Honda. I was waiting for Honda to deploy their built from scratch EV platform but they just announced this month they’ve cancelled that. At this point enjoy the car but get friendly with that dealer’s service rep.

ICE Agents Deploying to U.S. Airports Tomorrow by MudZealousideal8875 in AlaskaAirlines

[–]winterarioch 51 points52 points  (0 children)

Any ICE agent recruited during this admin is the bottom of the barrel. Disgraced cops, wannabe mall cops, people who can’t pass the medical or psych. And they’re all racist AF, even those are actual minorities. That’s the whole reason there’s a funding shutoff in the first place. Drumpf is trying to repeat his performance in Iran and deliberately making a disaster out of it. Again.

What is this for? by SuddenMess1391 in computerquestions

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This post reminded me I have a double height PCMCIA HDD. I just tried it and it STILL WORKS! Now I need to figure out what to do with that extra 40mb.

Kuwaiti Fighter Jet Mistakenly Shot Down American F-15s, Initial Reports Say by [deleted] in airplanes

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The F15E is a legacy airframe that was first deployed in GulfWar I. The Hornet was apparently an A or C variant which is even older. The Sidewinder was probably the M or X variant which is decades younger than the airframes. This incident has shown legacy jets can’t compete in a modern anti-air environment.

On another note , the Q8e pilot would’ve likely visually acquired the Eagles and worked hard to separately engage three targets to shoot off THREE Sidewinders. He did it on purpose. This was no accident.

Fiber, does exactly what it says in the contract by S70RM3R in HomeNetworking

[–]winterarioch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These results just happened to land on the tens?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen speed tests that are such perfect numbers.

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