A P4 is retro? exept very rare boards no P4+ boards have ISA, then not good for DOS

I don't think P4s are useless for retro gaming, in fact along with P3s they seem to be a good option for those all-in-one retro builds. That's from a purely utilitarian POV.

But personally I just find the 478 platform so utterly boring to tinker with that I never feel like dedicating a build to it. IMO it was the start of the era where everything seems to have standardized so much that it became difficult to have really unique builds. Everything started to look the same and feel the same.

But that doesn't mean I hate P4s. In fact, I got a 1.9GHz Socket 423 Willamette that's been pretty fun regardless of its relative performance shortcomings. I guess I find odd things way more interesting when it comes to hardware, especially stuff that I didn't have access to back then.

Not really underrated, it's just they are very limited. The S478 platform is generally cheap with good W98 support and perform well in W9x era games, but the support of PCI sound cards in DOS is not excellent which makes early Socket A boards as well as Socket 370 with ISA a more versatile option while on the top-end they are underpowered of the XP era especially without PCI-e for faster graphics cards.

theelf wrote on 2024-05-04, 18:57:

A P4 is retro? exept very rare boards no P4+ boards have ISA, then not good for DOS

They are good for DOS. What they are not is ideal for DOS.

Northwood was pretty awesome back in the day. My first P4 was a 1.6A running between 2.4 and 2.6 until getting swapped for a 2.4C (800 fsb and hyper threading) which ticked on at 3.2 for a good long period ... so I won't say hated per se when they were new, at least. Northwood was a pretty solid performer for its time ...

theelf wrote on 2024-05-04, 18:57:

exept very rare boards no P4+ boards have ISA, then not good for DOS

I agree that having ISA slots does allow for better DOS support. But I'm not sure if these boards are really that rare.

For example, the board I'm using (DFI ITOX G7S620-N-G) was readily available on Ebay as of a few months ago. But there seemed to be very little interest in it. Searching VOGONS at the time, I could only find a couple instances of members owning and using one.

I ended up picking up three of them at the time and I'm glad I did. Supply of these boards has mostly dried up after Karl's Retro Channel (KITR) posted a build video using the same board back in March. But prior to that, they were easily available.

Another board that is readily available right now is the Advantech AIMB-742 motherboard. Again, nobody seems to be using this board except for this one build thread: Retro Pentium 4 Rig - 27-year-span (PC) software supported *without* use of emulation There are very few posts on VOGONS that even mention it here.

And what I find really intriguing about these boards is they offer dual ISA slots. While some late 90s/early 2000s boards only have a single token ISA slot, having dual ISA slots makes these boards that much more versatile.

TheMobRules wrote on 2024-05-04, 19:09:

I don't think P4s are useless for retro gaming, in fact along with P3s they seem to be a good option for those all-in-one retro builds. That's from a purely utilitarian POV.

But personally I just find the 478 platform so utterly boring to tinker with that I never feel like dedicating a build to it. IMO it was the start of the era where everything seems to have standardized so much that it became difficult to have really unique builds. Everything started to look the same and feel the same.

But that doesn't mean I hate P4s. In fact, I got a 1.9GHz Socket 423 Willamette that's been pretty fun regardless of its relative performance shortcomings. I guess I find odd things way more interesting when it comes to hardware, especially stuff that I didn't have access to back then.

I'm curious what you mean by standardized? Are you talking about in terms of APIs or hardware (or both)?

I still see an opportunity for creativity and interesting builds, especially using boards with ISA slots. One challenge of an all-in-one board is figuring out hardware combinations to span multiple decades, and juggling all the necessary hardware resources needed. Especially when it comes to builds relying on multiple video cards and sound cards.

Plus, those builds don't seem particularly popular so they seem to be unique by virtue of nobody doing them.

1) I think the P4 may be headed towards a bit of a renaissance, simply because... alternatives are becoming unobtainium.

For Win98, it seems to me like one of those i865G/PE LGA775 motherboards that support C2Ds are a better alternative. Same compatibility as i865 with a P4 with a much easier to manage CPU (less heat output, etc) and much greater potential for an XP dual-boot. But at this point... the C2D-friendly i865 AGP boards are not exactly easy/cheap to find, so I think other i865 boards, potentially on 478, may come to be seen as passable alternatives.

I also wonder if people are going to look at P4s more for DOS, simply because again, slot 1/socket 370 stuff is getting much more rare, the more DOS-friendly thin clients are no longer plentiful, the good ISA sound cards have jumped in price too (I was looking at AWE64s on eBay... wow... now I understand why people selling homemade retro systems on eBay are using PCI sound cards) etc.

2) The P4 represented a time when Intel really took ownership of the PC platform and started to modernize it. Technically it started a little earlier, but the idea of the "legacy-free" PC was trendy. They were removing ISA slots, PS/2 ports, serial/parallel ports, even PATA. Probably some other more subtle stuff too that would affect DOS compatibility. Now, Taiwanese enthusiast boards resisted some of those changes compared to late P4-era big OEM systems... but...

Legacy-free is... not particularly appealing... for a retro system. You don't want the first generation to really support an incoming software ecosystem; you want the last (or greatest) generation to support an outgoing software ecosystem.

3) The other thing I would note is that nostalgia is an important driver of decisions. People want either what they/their friends/etc had in their youth, or what they read about in the magazines and web sites and wished they could have afforded at the time. Other than maybe a few Northwoods for a 6 month period or maybe one Pentium D 8xx that was a good overclocker (I forget which one), no P4 ever generated those strong positive emotions. The early P4s were outdone by Socket 462 Athlons; the later P4s faced Socket 754/939, all of which were much better received. P4s were what the Dells in the school library had, not something... sexy and desirable. And certainly Phil's Computer Lab on YouTube and others have done a lot of promoting 754 as a retro platform.

And I say this as someone who had a Willamette, a Preshot Deleron for a project, and family members with those ubiquitous Dell 2400/3000 C/Delerons. I'm the biggest Intel fanboy you'll ever meet. And yet... building a Win98 retro machine last year, I went with an AM2 AMD/VIA platform. Other than a few BIOS/chipset features that miiiiiiiiight have let me run 98SE on SATA, what advantage would a P4 system have had? I would have picked the P4 back in the day for perceived stability/compatibility/etc, but that isn't really a concern for a retro system - I'm not building it for multi-month uptimes running XP or Vista...

They are quite good, since you can throttle them more easily than PIII/Athlon. And late Socket 478 platform is modern enough to be hassle free.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-04, 20:05:

I agree that having ISA slots does allow for better DOS support. But I'm not sure if these boards are really that rare. […]
Show full quote

theelf wrote on 2024-05-04, 18:57:

exept very rare boards no P4+ boards have ISA, then not good for DOS

I agree that having ISA slots does allow for better DOS support. But I'm not sure if these boards are really that rare.

For example, the board I'm using (DFI ITOX G7S620-N-G) was readily available on Ebay as of a few months ago. But there seemed to be very little interest in it. Searching VOGONS at the time, I could only find a couple instances of members owning and using one.

I ended up picking up three of them at the time and I'm glad I did. Supply of these boards has mostly dried up after Karl's Retro Channel (KITR) posted a build video using the same board back in March. But prior to that, they were easily available.

Another board that is readily available right now is the Advantech AIMB-742 motherboard. Again, nobody seems to be using this board except for this one build thread: Retro Pentium 4 Rig - 27-year-span (PC) software supported *without* use of emulation There are very few posts on VOGONS that even mention it here.

And what I find really intriguing about these boards is they offer dual ISA slots. While some late 90s/early 2000s boards only have a single token ISA slot, having dual ISA slots makes these boards that much more versatile.

I did not see a P4 board with isa in my life to be true, i checked the ones you say in ebay and are expensive as hell... I dont know in other country but here in spain a P4 board normally cost 5 to 10 euro max for normal ones

I really want to test a good P4 board with ISA one day anyway, double video card, a Radeon for 15khz in windows 2000 and a S3 for 31khz in DOS, something i want to build one day!

I think people avoid them because they ran hotter than their AMD counterparts. But you're probably not running a retro rig 24/7/365, so who cares about the power consumption - just slap a decent cooler on there and enjoy.

edit: Oh right, and they fall into the "capacitor plague" timeframe, which may be another factor.

theelf wrote on 2024-05-04, 18:57:

A P4 is retro?

Well, most of them are 20+ years old by now, predating e.g. the first iPhone... I didn't know we were gatekeeping the term?

elszgensa wrote on 2024-05-04, 21:12:

Well, most of them are 20+ years old by now, predating e.g. the first iPhone... I didn't know we were gatekeeping the term?

No idea, but i grew up in 80s, still remember the punch cards, CP/M, DOS, 8bit computers, to 90s

But im here in 2024 writing this to you in a Xeon 775 from 2008, using Supermium and XP SP3... how can consider retro... if i use everyday for modern use? in my opinion computers really did not change much this last 20 years... just more power

Hardware that is 15+ years old can be considered retro.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-05-04, 21:56:

Hardware that is 15+ years old can be considered retro.

Then maybe half companies, and regular people are using retro hardware, because i still see A LOT of 2005-2010 Dell, HP, ibm, etc in offices for example

theelf wrote on 2024-05-04, 21:54:

But im here in 2024 writing this to you in a Xeon 775 from 2008, using Supermium and XP SP3... how can consider retro... if i use everyday for modern use? in my opinion computers really did not change much this last 20 years... just more power

I don't think I would consider something from 2008 to be retro; it can still boot a currently supported Windows version (including, for now, 11 unsupportedly though apparently that will change when they add some new CPU instruction dependencies soon), it can run a current web browser and current application software, and you can buy parts for it at the local computer store, etc.

But a P4...? I guess maybe you can boot 32-bit Windows 10 on it, it probably wouldn't be very usable...

I would argue that the C2D in 2006 led to a bit of an 'end of history' moment for the PC and... everything newer than the C2D has remained strangely viable 18 years later, whereas everything older than the C2D was from that era where computers gained massive performance/memory/storage and became hopelessly obsolete after 3-5 years. And that era... is most definitely retro at this point.

theelf wrote on 2024-05-04, 22:01:

Then maybe half companies, and regular people are using retro hardware, because i still see A LOT of 2005-2010 Dell, HP, ibm, etc in offices for example

Yeah, and? Pretty sure people were considering 386/486 as retro when they were still used on some backwater factories and registers.

Speaking of... I've encountered 486es in business use as recently as ~7 years ago, albeit in extremely niche use cases. Switched employers since then but I'm pretty sure they're still there to this day. So... would anyone like to argue that makes them not retro?

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-05-04, 22:15:

theelf wrote on 2024-05-04, 22:01:

Then maybe half companies, and regular people are using retro hardware, because i still see A LOT of 2005-2010 Dell, HP, ibm, etc in offices for example

Yeah, and? Pretty sure people were considering 386/486 as retro when they were still used on some backwater factories and registers.

and? im using a modern web browser in a computer from 2008, that im using right now while writing to you, try to do this in a Pentium 3, Pentium 2, 486, 386 ...

This almost 20 years old computer im using still can run modern software

elszgensa wrote on 2024-05-04, 22:22:

Speaking of... I've encountered 486es in business use as recently as ~7 years ago, albeit in extremely niche use cases. Switched employers since then but I'm pretty sure they're still there to this day. So... would anyone like to argue that makes them not retro?

Try to watch youtube using latest Chrome in a 486, in fact any CPU without SS2 at least have trouble with modern software

VivienM wrote on 2024-05-04, 20:53:

3) The other thing I would note is that nostalgia is an important driver of decisions. People want either what they/their friends/etc had in their youth, or what they read about in the magazines and web sites and wished they could have afforded at the time. Other than maybe a few Northwoods for a 6 month period or maybe one Pentium D 8xx that was a good overclocker (I forget which one), no P4 ever generated those strong positive emotions. The early P4s were outdone by Socket 462 Athlons; the later P4s faced Socket 754/939, all of which were much better received. P4s were what the Dells in the school library had, not something... sexy and desirable. And certainly Phil's Computer Lab on YouTube and others have done a lot of promoting 754 as a retro platform.

This is sort of a weird one. On the one hand, I agree that nostalgia does play a strong role in what people tend to pursue in terms of older hardware.

On the other hand, there is legacy hardware that was unpopular at the time that became popular once its value for retro gaming became known. Via C3 processors and GeForceFX cards come immediately to mind.

It's that latter scenario where I can see people discovering value in marrying up P4 processors with industrial socket 478/778 motherboards with ISA slots. All it takes is one YouTuber to advertise such a build and that can spark a sudden interest in the platform.