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Christmas presents?
Nov. 28th, 2004 03:22 pmJust to note; I refused to post anything on this subject until after Thanksgiving.
Here is what I would honestly love to get for Christmas. (Or parts thereof)
I want parts to put together a computer to sit next to the TV in the dining room. Two reasons: First I want a machine that I can connect to the network and use to watch media on the television and sound system out there. Second, I want to be able to play emulated games (NES, SNES, Genesis, Colecovision, etc.) on the television withouth having to drag a computer out there. This would make me very happy as I can remove the 20 foot S-Video and RCA audio cables that are strung from room to room across the apartment right now.
I've been itching to play some Zelda: Link to the Past on the SNES for whatever reason and my primary machine has stymied me. The onboard audio, while very nice and all, has no joystick port! What's up with that? I have a nice MS Sidewinder game pad that I've been playing console games on for years and now I can't use it on that machine. *sigh* Plus it would just be so cool to be able to see all these games on a TV like they were meant to be seen. Not to mention that I'd like to be able to start recording stuff from TV to the computer someday when I have money for a nice video capture card, but that's in the future.
Here's what I need in the box:
Specs-------
Processor: Though I don't have a heat-sink for it (that would be a nice gift) I've actually already got an AMD T-bird 900Mhz (that's a 200MHZ FSB for buying RAM for the system) sitting here with a bad mobo (seems to have issues reading any RAM). That ought to do, which bring us to
Mobo: Anything that'll support an AMD T-bird (socket A) and has an AGP slot. Onboard network would be cool but, honestly, NICs are cheap. If it'll run a T-bird, I'm cool.
RAM: Preferably 256 MB, 128 might do in a pinch. I don't really care what kind or brand or how fast it is. This isn't a precision job.
Video card: Something old will do fine as long as it has S-Video; I don't need more than 64 Meg on the card. The card I have in my primary machine is a middle-aged Radeon 7500 with 64MB of DDR and it does the job just fine. Wouldn't need anything fancier than that; less than that probably wouldn't deal well with the emulated video for anything more than an 8-bit console.
Sound: The Soundblaster Live 5.1, or even an Audigy, with an optical audio jack would rock, but let's be honest; not only is that superior to what's already in my primary computer, I don't even have a surround sound system. If it's got a joystick port, a line-level out (line out, not spk out) jack and is Soundblaster compatible, I'm all set.
Hard Drive: I guess I'll need one of those. Something small is fine, all I need is enough room to install the OS (Windows 2000) and to store all the emulators and games. I'm sure 40GB would be more than enough if you can even find something that small anymore.
Case: Well, for the first time (My main computer is housed in a God's own full tower with 6 external 5ΒΌ bays) I'll say that smaller is better. A microATX board and case would even be cool since this will be sitting out in the living room and I really shouldn't have much cause to add any internals.
I've been intending to build this system for a while now and, were it not the case that I still haven't been moved up to full time with Techteam (grrrr) I would have. This would make me a happy doggy.
Here is what I would honestly love to get for Christmas. (Or parts thereof)
I want parts to put together a computer to sit next to the TV in the dining room. Two reasons: First I want a machine that I can connect to the network and use to watch media on the television and sound system out there. Second, I want to be able to play emulated games (NES, SNES, Genesis, Colecovision, etc.) on the television withouth having to drag a computer out there. This would make me very happy as I can remove the 20 foot S-Video and RCA audio cables that are strung from room to room across the apartment right now.
I've been itching to play some Zelda: Link to the Past on the SNES for whatever reason and my primary machine has stymied me. The onboard audio, while very nice and all, has no joystick port! What's up with that? I have a nice MS Sidewinder game pad that I've been playing console games on for years and now I can't use it on that machine. *sigh* Plus it would just be so cool to be able to see all these games on a TV like they were meant to be seen. Not to mention that I'd like to be able to start recording stuff from TV to the computer someday when I have money for a nice video capture card, but that's in the future.
Here's what I need in the box:
Specs-------
Processor: Though I don't have a heat-sink for it (that would be a nice gift) I've actually already got an AMD T-bird 900Mhz (that's a 200MHZ FSB for buying RAM for the system) sitting here with a bad mobo (seems to have issues reading any RAM). That ought to do, which bring us to
Mobo: Anything that'll support an AMD T-bird (socket A) and has an AGP slot. Onboard network would be cool but, honestly, NICs are cheap. If it'll run a T-bird, I'm cool.
RAM: Preferably 256 MB, 128 might do in a pinch. I don't really care what kind or brand or how fast it is. This isn't a precision job.
Video card: Something old will do fine as long as it has S-Video; I don't need more than 64 Meg on the card. The card I have in my primary machine is a middle-aged Radeon 7500 with 64MB of DDR and it does the job just fine. Wouldn't need anything fancier than that; less than that probably wouldn't deal well with the emulated video for anything more than an 8-bit console.
Sound: The Soundblaster Live 5.1, or even an Audigy, with an optical audio jack would rock, but let's be honest; not only is that superior to what's already in my primary computer, I don't even have a surround sound system. If it's got a joystick port, a line-level out (line out, not spk out) jack and is Soundblaster compatible, I'm all set.
Hard Drive: I guess I'll need one of those. Something small is fine, all I need is enough room to install the OS (Windows 2000) and to store all the emulators and games. I'm sure 40GB would be more than enough if you can even find something that small anymore.
Case: Well, for the first time (My main computer is housed in a God's own full tower with 6 external 5ΒΌ bays) I'll say that smaller is better. A microATX board and case would even be cool since this will be sitting out in the living room and I really shouldn't have much cause to add any internals.
I've been intending to build this system for a while now and, were it not the case that I still haven't been moved up to full time with Techteam (grrrr) I would have. This would make me a happy doggy.
