Old age, nostalgia, and its effects on garage space

For those who have been checking my blog regularly, you may have noticed a slight decline in regular postings during the 2010 period. My interests change faster than the pants of a deer in a lion cage, so unfortunately my blog had lost my attention for quite some time; but this is about to change, because I have loads of stuff and junk (literally) to talk about!

I'll kick it off with some news about my latest hobby. In an attempt to relive some of my most memorable years, I have become the proud father of seven Windows 98 era PCs that would have otherwise been thrown out by my employer. With these old machines, a choice selection of high school chums and I will be able to replay some of the old multiplayer games that kept us busy most weekends (and many weeknights) during the 1999–2001 period. I'm talking about classic LAN games such as Delta Force, Half-Life: Counter-Strike, Motocross Madness 2, Quake, Soldier of Fortune, Starcraft, Unreal Tournament, Viper Racing, Worms 2, and butt-loads more. Sure, some of these games are playable on new systems, but nothing beats the feel of a chunky beige keyboard, a flickering CRT monitor, and a noisy rig with the stability of a dead wombat on a tightrope. There's no ugly image resampling for the low-resolution games, and there's a sense of satisfaction I get knowing that the computer is working hard to display the primitive graphics.

Before we go to the trouble of removing 10 years worth of boot marks and coffee stains, I want to at least make sure the old PCs will talk to each other in a network. This was problematic back in the day, as we all had different machines with different operating systems. This time around I have a bunch of Dells, all running Windows 98 Second Edition. The only problem is, the network card drivers want to extract to floppy disks before they can be installed. Where am I supposed to find working floppy disks?! I could try eBay, but I'm hoping to avoid spending any money on this project. Besides this setback, I have functioning sound and video card drivers, and Viper Racing is as fun as it was in 1999!

I better stock up on Cheetos and Mountain Dew, 'cause there will not be any girls there.