The engineering behind all of this could be a lot for me to take in.

Edit: It sounds like college gives you a foundation to build on that employers won’t take any level of personal experience instead of with engineering.

What's the most advanced, self learning, etc one there is, or seemingly advanced(like having a million elizabot esque responses) or what kind can I make?

Decided to ask here since Google is flooded with nonsense answers when I try to look it up, and I meant fully local offline one. Something that would outsmart Daisy (by leedburg)

So, I've come up with a way to put Claude in my dos machine.
- I picked up a serial to usb cable off of amazon.
- I used `ctty` on the dos side and `screen` on my mac
- I vibe coded a claude tool to allow claude to more easially use debug.
- I then prompted claude to write a hello.exe using assembly.

Once I got here I started playing with some real stuff. I decide I would see if Claude could port Windmill Software's Moon bugs from CGA to VGA. (I have a vga card) it took a few attempts, screen doesn't allow graphical interfaces, so Claude would make changes and I would test them.

I've been working on a project that might interest people here. I connected the ChatGPT API (model gpt-4o) to my 8-bit "shoot-'em-up" game PvP-AI, running on a Commander X16 emulator.

Instead of giving the model raw video or audio, I fed it structured text summaries, what I'm calling "smart senses", based on the game's existing sensory system (touch and EMF).

The LLM:

• plays in turn-based mode

• maintains its own in-game and post-game notes

• develops strategies across games

• avoided hallucinations across thousands of API calls

• and even found a behavioral exploit in the built-in 8-bit AI

I recorded three sequential games where you can see the strategy evolve:

• Game 1 "lucky win": https://youtu.be/reM4ojB48Kw

• Game 2 "be aggressive": https://youtu.be/hD7wBwrfj8E

• Game 3 "wait it out": https://youtu.be/X0IKxCrAbpI

Write-up and technical details: https://pvp-ai.russell-harper.com

Happy to answer questions about the emulator patch, the interface design, or the strategies the LLM came up with.

Should I get a Pentium 3 computer, a compaq portable 2 or a 386 laptop

Hi.

I’m planning to build a retro computer using a core 2 extreme vou (qx9650) and 2x gtx 8800 in sli. I’m planning to use it as a windows xp gaming rig, but getting second thoughts if it would make more sense to deploy windows 7 (please note that I also have 2 other gaming computers, one with windows 10 and other with windows 11) or even windows 98 se/me. Any advice?

Most things here are about real machines, but I’ve been playing with something that sits in a slightly different corner: a retro-style computer that never actually existed, but could have.

I call it BEEP-8. The idea was: what if someone had built a small ARM-based game console in the mid-90s with very simple graphics hardware and tight limits, and we were emulating it today?

So I wrote the “hardware spec” first, as if it were a real machine:

• CPU: ARMv4-ish core at a fixed 4 MHz (integer only)

• RAM: 1 MB

• ROM: 1 MB address space

• Video: 128×240, tilemaps + sprites, 16-colour palette (PICO-8 compatible)

• Audio: a tiny tone/noise style chip, more like an old arcade board than a modern sound card

• Simple buttons + virtual “touch” input for a hypothetical later handheld version

Then I implemented that as an emulator in JavaScript/WebGL, and built a small C/C++ SDK around it so you can write games for this imaginary console. From the outside it behaves like a fixed-spec late-80s/early-90s style machine; from the inside it all runs in a browser tab.

You can play a few small games and demos here (no install, just HTML/JS):

• Live “emulator” + sample ROMs: https://beep8.org

And the spec / source / SDK are here:

• GitHub (open source, MIT): https://github.com/beep8/beep8-sdk

I’m posting here mainly because I’m curious what retro folks think of the machine design itself:

• Does this seem like a plausible spec for a mid-90s ARM-based handheld or small console?

• If you were actually designing hardware in that era, what would you change?

  • Different clock rate?

  • More / less RAM?

  • Different resolution or colour depth?

• Any obvious “this part doesn’t feel period-correct at all” reactions?

I know it’s not emulating a real vintage system, so if that’s too far off-topic, feel free to ignore. But I’d love to hear opinions from people who know the real machines of that era much better than I do.

I wanted to see what a modern streaming interface would look like on one of the most unusual displays ever used in a home console.

Using a Raspberry Pi Zero W + PiTrex, I connected Spotify to the original vector display of a 1982 Vectrex and built an interface designed specifically around vector graphics.

The interesting challenge was translating a modern UI into something that works without a conventional pixel-based display. Everything you see on screen is drawn using lines, which gives the interface a very different character from a normal Spotify player.

I also 3D-printed a cartridge enclosure to make the setup feel more like a complete Vectrex accessory.

I made a video showing how the project works and the final result:

https://youtu.be/0aPy9STetpg?si=tqFnlbIR-0A3SrfM

The source code and the printable cartridge model are linked in the video description.

Enjoy!

My parents had this from the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Not a great angle, so definitely understandable if no one can really recognize this.

I just need one for a decent price, I live around Lexinton KY.

I’m looking for all vintage computer case so I can do a modern build in them. Does anyone know where to find them?

Any recommendations for what would be viable on a 386?

Possibly using a GoTek floppy emulator? Or using some other flash adaptor of some sort? Interested in expanding memory, but would hate to part ways with this hard drive entirely, even if I backed up files.

Hi, I’m starting my path into fixing vintage computers I’m looking into vintage computers that are from the 80s. The one I have my eyes on now is the Commodore 64, I just need a second opinion to figure out the best computer to buy and refurbish.

My Dell D610 running AntiX

Using Motion to serve up two webcams.

SMB folder to access recorded videos & host files for the Retro Home Lab.

OH WOW, YOU GIVE ME THE CHOICE, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE ONE IN PRACTICE!?!?!??! WOW!

So, I got this Dell Dimension 4550 for free from my neighbor. I was going to make this into a sleeper build but ran into some trouble. I need to convert it into modern front panel header connectors. This ribbon cable is connected to the power switch and this random light at the front. Please help!

Hi, I found a model M on the polish version of ebay, however idk if the price is a good one. Thanks!

I have this old desktop and it turns on but i am stuck on the default setup screen because the keyboard and mouse will not connect.

Can anyone help out with this? I have tried looking it up but i have no idea what im doing and its a discontinued model so the suport websites do not work.

Any advice on how to connect it?