Building my childhood dream PC

Posted by joexbayer 9/8/2025

Building my childhood dream PC(fabiensanglard.net)

212 points | 85 commentspage 2

voidUpdate 9/12/2025|

I always really liked the handle on my old upgraded lenovo E73. It made it much easier to transport when going to university and back for the holidays, and I'm sad that most cases don't have one. Even a hinged one that sits flat to the top of the case when folded down would be awesome

gsibble 9/11/2025||

I just finished building a water cooled Threadripper 9980X machine today (you can go see it on reddit in r/watercooling or r/threadripper.

My first ever build was a 386 though.

What fond memories.

incomplete 9/11/2025||

oh man, what a trip down memory lane. i started building PCs in college with 386/486s and last year rebuilt my silly custom loop watercooled workstation. :)

and yes: the supplied pc docs back then >>>>>>>> supplied pc docs today

gerdesj 9/12/2025||

Were they 80486 or i486 8) SX or DX?

My first "PC" was a Sinclair ZX80. I got my soldering iron out.

Much later on (1986ish) my Dad bought a Commodore 64, unfortunately he plugged the power lead into the video socket, when me and my brother arrived home for Chrimbo. Dad got it repaired and it served us very well for several years.

I still have that C64 and it was repaired again a few years ago (re-capped). It now has a USB interface etc. I also have an original Quickshot II joystick and it still works fine.

My first "real" PC was a 80286 based thing. A maths co pro (80287) was a Chrimbo prezzie too and costed something like £110. It had a whole 1MB RAM and the co processor enabled me to run a dodgy copy of AutoCAD. Yes, AutoCAD used to run in 1MB of RAM! The next version needed something mad like 32MB minimum.

incomplete 9/16/2025|||

the pc as purchased in 1992 had a i486DX2-66... after a few years, that case received numerous upgrades -- moar ram, moar disk, various amd and cryix 5x86/6x86 cpus over time. trade shows in the 90s were just full innovation and cheap, performant hardware!

hulitu 9/12/2025|||

i was Intel. IBM had Cyrix. AMD also had some "clones"

jwrallie 9/12/2025||

Most of what I know about maintaining and assembling computers I learned from the pictures on my Aptiva manual when I was a kid.z

lepicz 9/12/2025||

my childhood dreams include gravis ultrasound

sgt 9/12/2025||

Or Roland MT-32. That was the dream.

pengaru 9/12/2025||

I lived that dream, and it was good.

urda 9/11/2025||

The rise of retro computing and gaming is wonderful thing.

dfxm12 9/12/2025|

MiSTer has been a huge boon for me in terms of saving space and having access to old computers. I have it in an old pizza box case and connected to my old IBM CRT monitor.

I have a modern mouse and mechanical keyboard, but I tried to make everything as beige as possible...

thw_9a83c 9/12/2025||

Honestly, that IBM PS/1 model 2168 computer case looks retro, but also classy and nerdy. I miss the days when computers had enough free slots for external media drives. I really like physical media like CD-ROMs, Blu-ray disks, and floppy disks (I don't use those anymore). It's getting harder and harder to find a computer case that has a slot for a Blu-ray/CD drive.

hulitu 9/12/2025|

The design of computer cases has died some 15 years ago. The only thing they got now is "RGB LEDs".

markus_zhang 9/11/2025||

Ah, this is the perfect machine to replicate John Carmack’s work. It’s not a NEXT but is pretty strong to do development on.

sergsoares 9/12/2025||

The attention and care to the details of that post are incredible.

jcims 9/12/2025||

The prior owner took great care of that machine. It looks new.

gigatexal 9/12/2025|

I have been wanting to do this with 2000s era Athlon system

sergsoares 9/12/2025|

For me replicate an old P3 1000mhz that I study and played a lot of games.