Hello,
I have been getting rather nostalgic lately and was interested in getting back into retro gaming. A few weeks ago I got the chance. My buddy and I went to a local surplus store and I caught this Gateway G4-600 sitting forgotten on the shelves.
Now, this particular computer is extremely nostalgic to me - somewhere in 2000(ish) my older brother with his real job in college got a brand new gaming Gateway rig that absolutely demolished everything we threw at it. I just remember spending a full week at his place with Fierce Melon Gatorade, Spicy Nacho Doritos and Powerbars, ripping Diablo II nonstop on this thing while playing Bangi-O and Marvel vs. Capcom II on Dreamcast.
Anyways, I pop it open and see a Voodoo Banshee GPU inside, to my suprise. Furthermore in the back of the store was a Gateway 2000 Vivitron21 CRT monitor! Also found a Gateway branded keyboard wrapped up in a pile off to the side. I ask how much for all of it and I wind up walking out with all of this, a generic ball mouse, and cables for 125. Sounds good to me! We get back to my buddy's place and try to fire it up. At first no luck (one long two short beeps - no video) but scrubbing down things with IPA got us video!
I spend the next week or two getting things up and running and cleaned. full wipedown of IPA for everything inside, full teardown of keyboard, mouse and case throwing everything I possibly can into the dishwasher. Magic eraser and peroxide and everything is looking generally good as new:
Updated my bios to the latest 4w4sb0x0.15a.0019.p14 to enable Coppermine support. Troubleshooting revealed the hard drive and CD drive were toast. Picked up a Pioneer DVD-R off Ebay. Decided to try a Transcend 16GB CompactFlash Memory Card 133X (TS16GCF133) with a SaiDian CF to IDE Adapter 40-Pin CF Compact Flash Card to IDE Converter PCI Bracket:
I'll spare you the gory details of tearing my hair out trying to get Windows 98 installed on this CF card (my motherboard was NOT playing nice with the CF card) but long story short Ondrive Dynamic Disk Overlay is a gift from heaven and solved all my woes. Windows 98 is up and running, drivers installed, and finally, the result:
I'm now on the hunt to finish optimizing the rig. As I write this post I have recently secured an Athena Power AP-MP4ATX20/B PSU to replace the 25+ year old PSU currently in there, and a 1000/100 Pentium III socket 370. What's brought me to this site is my hunt for the Slotket. Made an account and am posting!
I have been getting rather nostalgic lately and was interested in getting back into retro gaming. A few weeks ago I got the chance. My buddy and I went to a local surplus store and I caught this Gateway G4-600 sitting forgotten on the shelves.
Now, this particular computer is extremely nostalgic to me - somewhere in 2000(ish) my older brother with his real job in college got a brand new gaming Gateway rig that absolutely demolished everything we threw at it. I just remember spending a full week at his place with Fierce Melon Gatorade, Spicy Nacho Doritos and Powerbars, ripping Diablo II nonstop on this thing while playing Bangi-O and Marvel vs. Capcom II on Dreamcast.
Anyways, I pop it open and see a Voodoo Banshee GPU inside, to my suprise. Furthermore in the back of the store was a Gateway 2000 Vivitron21 CRT monitor! Also found a Gateway branded keyboard wrapped up in a pile off to the side. I ask how much for all of it and I wind up walking out with all of this, a generic ball mouse, and cables for 125. Sounds good to me! We get back to my buddy's place and try to fire it up. At first no luck (one long two short beeps - no video) but scrubbing down things with IPA got us video!
I spend the next week or two getting things up and running and cleaned. full wipedown of IPA for everything inside, full teardown of keyboard, mouse and case throwing everything I possibly can into the dishwasher. Magic eraser and peroxide and everything is looking generally good as new:
Updated my bios to the latest 4w4sb0x0.15a.0019.p14 to enable Coppermine support. Troubleshooting revealed the hard drive and CD drive were toast. Picked up a Pioneer DVD-R off Ebay. Decided to try a Transcend 16GB CompactFlash Memory Card 133X (TS16GCF133) with a SaiDian CF to IDE Adapter 40-Pin CF Compact Flash Card to IDE Converter PCI Bracket:
I'll spare you the gory details of tearing my hair out trying to get Windows 98 installed on this CF card (my motherboard was NOT playing nice with the CF card) but long story short Ondrive Dynamic Disk Overlay is a gift from heaven and solved all my woes. Windows 98 is up and running, drivers installed, and finally, the result:
I'm now on the hunt to finish optimizing the rig. As I write this post I have recently secured an Athena Power AP-MP4ATX20/B PSU to replace the 25+ year old PSU currently in there, and a 1000/100 Pentium III socket 370. What's brought me to this site is my hunt for the Slotket. Made an account and am posting!
