I fired up the ol' Windows 98 computer again. Or "Project 98", as its
identified on the network.

Nominally, I booted the PC because I wanted to install a few more
era-appropriate games on the computer. Stuff like "Descent 3" and
"Star Wars Rebellion" and the like. I already have nearly 100 games on
that computer, but what's a few more? You never know when you're in
the mood for some old-school gaming, right? Better to have everything
set up and ready for when the mood hits you.

----

That was the excuse I told myself, anyway. Another reason, though, was
because old-school computers ran hot, and it was a cold, wintry day.
Turning on Project 98 and letting it run for a while was a
surprisingly effective method of heating the room. Not the most energy
efficient, mind you, but at least I could tell myself I wasn't wasting
money turning up the thermostat!

It gets real toasty in the computer room with Windows98 running. So
much I seriously considered cranking open a (real, made-of-glass)
window. (I didn't, though; that would be too energy wasteful even for
me. I just opened the door to the rest of the home and let the PCs
heat the unused hallways. But that's how warm it gets. Pentium II
processors are /not/ thermally efficient devices).

----

My 90s-PC escapade wasn't all so easy. Getting the game files onto the
PC is always a hassle. Getting it onto the network is such a chore I
rarely bother (no wifi, and no patch cables in its vicinity). The
optical drive on that computer is flakey. And Win98's USB support is
poor. External drives are right out (I don't have any small enough for
Win98 - with its 48bit LBA limitations - to recognize!). The only
thumb drives that work are 2GB are less... and the PC is USB 1.1 only.
Transferring files is laborious and slow.

Eventually I realized that my USB SSD-card reader, combined with a
32GB SSD card, works too. It's still amazingly slow to transfer,
though. But at least I can move the files over in one single copy
process instead of breaking everything up into smaller batches.

If only ZIP disks were bigger than 100MB (or even 750MB), I'd have had
no problem. But no, even they are too small. I never get to use that
ZIP drive anymore...

----

Early Win95-era games are the worst. Getting them to run, even on
period appropriate hardware, is such a hit or miss process. Among the
many games I'd hoped to install, I had to give up on "Resident Evil
2", "Colin McRae Rally", and "Daytona USA".

Most troubling was "Interstate '76". It runs... but only when it feels
like it (and it absolutely refuses to use the 3D accelerator). I just
have to keep launching and re-launching the game until it finally
decides that throwing up error messages isn't fun anymore, and
actually plays. If it wasn't for its awesome funkadelic soundtrack and
stylish visuals, I wouldn't bother.

Games from even a year or two later are far more forgiving. "Descent
3" (or "Descent³" if you want to be precise) ran far more smoothly
than I expected. Too bad I'm not a huge fan of 6DOF games. Novalogic's
"MiG-29 Fulcrum" wowed me with its graphics. Monolith's "Claw" was
fun, but its 256-color movies were disappointing. And I fled from
"Alpha Centauri" before playing it too long; Sid Meier's games are too
addictive to be used unmonitored.

Just don't try to alt-tab your way out of the programs. Games of that
era /really/ don't like when you do that.

----

I never did get that computer to recognize monitor resolutions over
1024x768. As if things weren't cramped enough running on a single
monitor already. Did we really used to live like that?

----

Still, I had fun. I revisited old games, and had fun cursing at the
limitations of 20-year old hardware. And I wasn't cold! Now, if only I
could find an era-appropriate gamepad that works with that computer.
The Sidewinder 3D Pro is a great joystick, but for platformers you
really need a good 'pad...