So, I've got (buggy) full-motion, low-res video on my AMD K6 system @ 166MHz.

I'm currently collecting the resources to install a modded version of Windows 2000 on that computer, partially because in DOS there's very little support for hardware encode/decode of video, and partially because I can once again run Google Chrome 34 and troll Fimfiction like I did when the system had XP installed.

Yes, the modding is to trick Chrome into thinking it's running on XP. Also, hopefully unlike XP, installing any Nvidia display driver in 2000 hopefully won't lead to an instant BSOD. My only alternatives to Nvidia GPUs are very low-end ATi GPUs that have only up to DirectX 7 support. I'm hoping I can get my Nvidia Geforce fx5200 PCI to run properly under 2000 without any BSODs, 'cause then, I could go one further and...

...run freakin' Minecraft on an underclocked-to-166MHz AMD K6 with 384 MB of RAM.

Up until this year, when I had the Nvidia GPU installed and trying to futz around in XP, I actually had more VRAM (256 MB) in the Nvidia GPU than the entire rest of the computer (128 MB). Yes, I tried again after bumping it to 384 MB. It still BSODs, and some research shows that the fx series seems to be particularly buggy in XP when it comes to drivers.

So hopefully, 2000 won't have the same bugs. I've got an archived, non-CMOV version of Java 1.6 and the last non-SSE2 Google Chrome 34 sitting in a folder, and a Nvidia GPU that looks very lonely in its box.

...But that's gonna have to wait until next weekend. I'm just doing research into what'll work right now, and I don't have the time to do any major projects at the moment.

But yeah. If Win2k works, and doesn't BSOD with every Nvidia driver ever, then I'd get hardware media/3D acceleration for whatever video and game that I decide should go on the thing.

Did I mention that the SD card that all this is running off of is faster than the IDE hard drive it replaced?

...

...

I have an unhealthy obsession with pushing hardware to its absolute physical limits.

And no, I can't use an AGP graphics card. This board is old enough to only have PCI and ISA slots, and the only reason why I can use an AMD K6 is because there's exactly one model that can run on the 3.2/3.3 volts that the (not super) Socket 7 Pentiums ran on. And the reason why it's downclocked to 166MHz is because that's the hardwired limit on the multiplier. I tried an upgrade adapter meant to bypass the board jumpers for the multiplier, but it didn't work and nearly borked the BIOS.

And as for the why behind this, the computer I'm doing all of this work on is my dad's old work computer, which is also the computer I grew up with. It's a locally-branded beigebox system with an AOpen motherboard, and originally came with I think 32MB of RAM and an S3 Graphics card. I still use the keyboard it came with on my daily driver system, just because I like the feel of the beige, uniquely-90's style half-mechanical keyboard. Also, I still use the speakers too. They're surprisingly good still for something nearly twice my age.

Heck, the floppy drive nearly caught on fire a couple years back when a younger me accidentally wired its 5-volt rail to 12 volts, and yet both the power supply and the floppy drive still work perfectly.

The only thing I haven't been able to do with my 1996 computer is get a 5.25" floppy drive wired up to it. It's got the BIOS support, so I have a feeling that the thrift-store drive I bought was dead from the beginning.

Heck, I've got wifi on that thing, courtesy of one of the only USB cards in existence that the ancient BIOS recognizes.

It's Wireless-N, too. Think about it for a moment. A 1990s-era computer blazing along the internet with a tiny USB wifi dongle and a 166MHz processor that gets stomped by a Nintendo DSi.

If all goes well, I'ma load the computer up with Office 2000 to match and pretty much finish off the restoration process once and for all. This has been an ongoing project jumping between various Linux and Windows versions and distros for the past five or so years, beginning with my initial freakout at the CPU seemingly dying in the system waaaay back in the mysterious days of the 2010s. Turns out that the CPU fan had just come loose and the CPU would auto-shut off to protect itself, so it really just took a bit of double-sided tape to fix that. Though, I eventually moved on to thermal paste and metal clips with the much-hotter AMD K6 I installed.

Yes, a non-MMX Pentium 166 can run with a fan double-sided-taped to it. It produces little enough heat that the tape actually serves fine as thermal compound.

Anyways, it's 1:13 AM Mountain Time here and I've got a US history test tomorrow, so peace out, y'all.

Comments

[The Blue EM2]

What venerable machinery!