Advice on old PCs

[ConfiXs]

So i want to get a system from the 80s....yes it will be older than me, but im stuck between an IBM XT 5160, Apple IIe and an Amiga 1000 any advice on where to look/which is the better option? it isnt gonna be used for work, mostly just a display piece that i might boot up every now and again to mess around

[emosun]

i think the 5150/60 will give the best compatibility but the amiga will seem more impressive fro a capability standpoint when booted vs the pc. An apple pc from the 80s is just a headache you don;t need to deal with.

That being said consider a machine from the 90s as it's capability will increase exponentially and be far more fixable and usable.

[ConfiXs]

4 minutes ago, emosun said:

i think the 5150/60 will give the best compatibility but the amiga will seem more impressive fro a capability standpoint when booted vs the pc. An apple pc from the 80s is just a headache you don;t need to deal with.

That being said consider a machine from the 90s as it's capability will increase exponentially and be far more fixable and usable.

glad to see apple hasn't changed throughout the decades...and ive been looking at compaq presario 2240s but so far only found 2 working tested models...might have to build my own shouldnt be too hard to find donor cases but ive noticed for 80s pcs they are much harder to find complete models without spending 800-1200 bucks

[ConfiXs]

Just now, ConfiXs said:

glad to see apple hasn't changed throughout the decades...and ive been looking at compaq presario 2240s but so far only found 2 working tested models...might have to build my own shouldnt be too hard to find donor cases but ive noticed for 80s pcs they are much harder to find complete models without spending 800-1200 bucks

also for a 90s machine is DOS or win95 the better option?

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, ConfiXs said:

also for a 90s machine is DOS or win95 the better option?

windows 95/98 is built on top of dos so dos apps can be run on either provided the app doesn;t require a slower 4/8mhz cpu. In which case you'd want a machine with a turbo button that can slow the cpu down to original ibm pc speeds.

regardless you will need that feature if you intended on running older dos software on newer faster machines. But honestly something from the mid 90s with a regular pentium 1 with a turbo button , an ssd , and usb will be your best bet

[ConfiXs]

6 minutes ago, emosun said:

windows 95/98 is built on top of dos so dos apps can be run on either provided the app doesn;t require a slower 4/8mhz cpu. In which case you'd want a machine with a turbo button that can slow the cpu down to original ibm pc speeds.

regardless you will need that feature if you intended on running older dos software on newer faster machines. But honestly something from the mid 90s with a regular pentium 1 with a turbo button , an ssd , and usb will be your best bet

that sounds like a better waste of money lol, i really wanna try the old ultima games, early nfs games ect

[Needfuldoer]

20 minutes ago, ConfiXs said:

glad to see apple hasn't changed throughout the decades...

The Apple II is a classic "hook it up to your TV" 80s home computer, very different from IBM compatible. Think "Commodore 64" instead of "DOS PC". It's not that difficult to get going, since tools like ADTPro exist you can get up an running even if you just have a bare machine and blank floppies. 

 

Old Macs take some finagling to work as well. Many have capacitor issues, and their floppy drives need service to work properly. Plus, if they came with 400k or 800k floppy drives, you can't make disks for them using a PC. You'd have to transfer everything over serial, get a "bridge" Mac that can talk to the modern world, or buy a floppy drive emulator that can read disks off an SD card.

 

You'll run into those weird cross-platform issues with an Amiga too.

 

13 minutes ago, emosun said:

regardless you will need that feature if you intended on running older dos software on newer faster machines. But honestly something from the mid 90s with a regular pentium 1 with a turbo button , an ssd , and usb will be your best bet

Agreed! An old PC compatible is going to be your lowest barrier to entry, since we're all using their descendants today. Something from the mid-Pentium era should be able to run just about anything you'd want a DOS machine to do. Add an ISA Ethernet card, a CF-to-IDE adapter for storage, and a Gotek floppy emulator and you'll be in good shape.

 

The YouTube channel "Phil's Computer Lab" does a lot of DOS retrocomputing content, including guides on how to get things up and running. (He hosts a lot of scripts and drivers on his website as well.)

[ConfiXs]

57 minutes ago, emosun said:

windows 95/98 is built on top of dos so dos apps can be run on either provided the app doesn;t require a slower 4/8mhz cpu. In which case you'd want a machine with a turbo button that can slow the cpu down to original ibm pc speeds.

regardless you will need that feature if you intended on running older dos software on newer faster machines. But honestly something from the mid 90s with a regular pentium 1 with a turbo button , an ssd , and usb will be your best bet

so after doing some researching can i dl some games on a standard usb stick then use em on the 90s pc? or do i need to get a period correct usb stick and adapter?

[emosun]

7 minutes ago, ConfiXs said:

so after doing some researching can i dl some games on a standard usb stick then use em on the 90s pc? or do i need to get a period correct usb stick and adapter?

It depends. Watch phils computer lab.  Retro computer question simply cannot all be answered in a single forum post like this.