vswitchzero

Hi! I’m Mike, the creator of vswitchzero, a YouTube channel dedicated to 90s retro PC hardware and gaming. Join me in this exciting journey of history, exploring forgotten tech and preserving the legacy of vintage computers! youtu.be/UxjBAdSWxgg

#PicoIDE production update: after a delay due to supply constraints, boards are currently in production! All enclosures have been manufactured. www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics...

In order to configure the Intel Ether Express 16PT, I got a socket 7 ASUS SP97-V motherboard with an AMD K6 CPU. It has been a blast from the past with jumper settings depending on the CPU used among other things. It has been a LONG time since I last configured a motherboard using jumpers.

this is a QUARTER CENTURY old now youtu.be/GAv1EwoRnec Back to 2001 on LGR today for a retrospective on Windows XP! Reminiscing on its release, unboxing and setting it up, new features, games, screensavers, and a bunch of nifty early 2000s things. Still a truly enjoyable eXPerience decades later!

I dunno how many of you remember this, but handheld scanners were a THING for a sneeze in the early 90s. I remember Best Buy had one side of an aisle dedicated to them just off the main PC area. And then... like many computer things in those days... they were gone.

It's been one of those kind of days. Compaq presario 1247, Dead motherboard no power. Let's see if we can fix it

Btw - this 386 motherboard I am using is from back when a chipset was a… set of chips. This thing is full of PALs. Kinda eliminates a lot of tweaking possibilities, but the board is gorgeous.

The talk I gave at #teardown2026, Creating Up to Date Hardware for Out of Date Tech is now up on the Crowd Supply YouTube channel! Join me as I talk about what makes old tech cool, and why open source hardware makes it even cooler. youtu.be/S2pVAZUPD6o

I miss the simplicity and the exploration that came with the early internet. Thanks to Protoweb, you can relive some of that, and it works on retro computers. So for the stream this week we'll be exploring parts of the internet, 90s style! Starting at 8 PM CT youtube.com/live/3-Q4842...

It appears I missed the 30th anniversary of the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics by a few days (Oct 7), but nonetheless, that doesn't mean I won't celebrate it! Here's an excellent article from Club386 where they commemorate it with an interview with co-founder Ross Smith www.club386.com/3dfx-voodoo-...

Is it just me or does this REALLY look like the Doom font 😁

- Kids these days: "I'm really sad, because my computer can't handle 4k gaming" - Me: "Dude, my computer couldn't even handle 320x200 back in the day, but I still had fun!"

DOOM... on a Vectrex.

Thermaltake Golden Orb

3dfx Voodoo 2 640x480 @ 120Hz on a CRT. That’s the way… I like it.

Does anyone need a new screen saver !?

Redhat 6.2 Linux on a 486DX4-100 with 64MB RAM and VLB Video

Mistigram: Rick has been running one BBS or another for 40 years now, a milestone celebrated by fellow SysOp Darkman Almighty in this #ANSIart screen of a desktop computer that might well have been there at the start of his spree.

Finally picked up one of the motherboards I’ve always wanted. Bunch more parts to get but this begins a fun windows xp gaming computer build.

Mistigram: #ANSIart and #bonsai, both aesthetically beholden to severe constraints, might have more in common than you expected! @conchaos.synchro.net drew this ANSI illusrtation of a tiny tree and included it in last month's unthemed MIST0826 artpack collection.

I've decided to see if I could create a SATA RAID 1 array and get this Athlon 1Ghz system to boot from it.

If anyone has a Gigabyte GA-7IX or GA-7IXE motherboard and you see this in the 'Hardware Monitor' page, plus it locks up your computer, here's why it's doing it (check below)👇

Unspeakable feeling.

Eject the floppy.

Very excited about my latest acquisition. A Gravis Ultrasound ACE (Audio Card Enhancer) that I don't think has ever been used. Now I need to create a 486 era PC with some interesting audio/video cards in it :) #vintagecomputer #retrocomputing

I guess the rumor is true. I left the SFC Jr. on and sitting while watching the master clock slowly drift higher and higher🤡

Long story, but I obtained a Sega Master System! I never really played one back in the day or had any close friends who owned one. I grew up playing the NES. It came with 14 games, but curious what everyone thinks are the "must play" titles for the system? Looking forward to exploring the platform!

Paid an unholy amount to own this card. But it sure does sound really nice!👀

Remember to pay for WinZip.

During lockdown in 2020 I discovered the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade and got quite far into the game. Recently I went back to it but had lost my progress so had to start again. There is a new upgrade for 2025, however, which I can now enjoy fully! The PS3 controller over Bluetooth is great for this.

I got a Pentium III up and running with my old hard drive image and the same cards I had but with a different motherboard. This time I have a 1GHz CPU. I'm not getting my hopes up over this cause it's a Pentium III and just sneezing at it wrong can cause the whole thing to brick itself.

Rate my setup. It's has a 200mhz Pentium Pro, 64mb EDO RAM, and a Soundblaster AWE32. I use it to run MS-DOS lol

PC Tools was one of the big DOS utility suites competing with Norton Utilities, while also offering file-management features that overlapped with XTree. By the early 1990s it had grown into a huge toolbox: disk repair, undelete, backup, antivirus, compression and more. Did you use it too?

Computer club day in Cambridge! @computinghistory.org.uk is a fantastic venue who lay on some brilliant interesting things for us to explore. Many of us also bring our own things to share. But the best thing is chatting with all the lovely people that turn up.

Apogee's "Hocus Pocus" is such a fun little game. During its development, developer Mike Voss created the version on top of this graphic. The graphics were then redone by Cygnus Multimedia Productions, making the game one of the most beautiful platformers at the time.

Officially the dumbest/most fun thing that I've tested PicoIDE on: a controller kit that turns a CD-ROM drive into a standalone CD player

i was recently reminded that this connector is real, and can hurt you.

adding missing alt text: A 3.5" floppy drive, with a printed label that reads "Works, but makes Sad Noises" (this is my photo, but it's been bouncing 'round the internet for years now)

Since y'all liked my floppy disk so much, here's one rotated the other way. I've added some subtle gradient shading, didn't want to overdo it so much it loses its "flat" look but I think it looks nice. #retrocomputing #pixelart #floppydisk

Another thrift store find. Parallel ZIP250 drive. Found the original power supply in a pile being sold separately too. The top window was rattling around inside. No idea if it works but have some Zip disks around here somewhere. Worth a shot for $5.

One of my latest thrift store finds. M-Audio AV40s. A little dirty but otherwise in good condition. Couldn’t test them there but decided to take a chance for $14.99 CAD. They wouldn’t power on till I reseated the fuse. Work great aside from some 60Hz hum. Caps perhaps?

iWill zPC64 SFF PC (2003) - AMD Athlon 64 Socket 754 powered, with AGP 8x

[VGA Add-on for Philips CD-i] I wanted to mod my CD-i with RGB, but the output options always involve removing a jack or cutting an extra hole. So I decided to create this add-on to minimize case modification🤔 This will also allow dual output, which is cool!👀 GitHub: github.com/jeffqchen/CD...

Tower by Adam Basanta (2026) www.adambasanta.com/tower.php

I miss this setup. Everything has been dismantled and boxed up for over three years and I never got around to setting it up again.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002)