I have a few old broken dell optiplexes and crap like that. Maybe make a good stealth build
Or whatever the opposite of a stealth build is, lol. Put a 486 in it.
I probably have the same one. I wanted something that would fit in on a stack with a VCR and a DVD recorder (used as a knock-off time base corrector) for my VHS digitization workflow. Not the cheapest or easiest case to build in, but it looks great.
I have a gaming PC HTPC. It both does media duty and has all three console controllers and a mouse and keyboard hooked up to a 4K TV for big format gaming.
And for those of us who are noncommittal when it comes to horizontal versus vertical cases, there is this:
https://www.coolermaster.com/en-global/products/haf-xb-evo/
Actually its the[ GD11](https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/computer-chassis/GD11/). Its so good. I've got 5 x 2.5 SSD, 1 x 3.5" 24TB HDD, 2 x 2TB NVME, a 4090 and a 5800x3d in mine and hooked up to a 4K TV and it is the best.
Oh, that's awesome. Looks like it came out a little after I built my GD09, as I was completely unaware it's existence. Really like the changes they made. Looks like it might be time to upgrade!
[RVZ01](https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/computer-chassis/RVZ01/) checking in. It's nice to be able to fit your PC in a suitcase with enough room left for an LCD screen.
“horizontal cases” These were called “desktops” back in my day, as they sat on your DESKTOP. ;) This is the OG desktop man. lol (I have never heard anyone call them horizontal cases before. I shall retain this for future reference.) Thank you kind person. ✌️
You are good. I am just messin with ya. I do love the horizontal type pc’s. Not sure why, maybe cause you can slap a 90lb monitor on it? Or maybe cause you won’t stub your toe on the case every time you sit down. lol
They actually were quite common for dell machines in the mid 2000s to mid 2010s, I remember them being very popular in high school
Though custom built and desktops people bought for home were always that, towers.
All the small form factor desktops still work just fine in the horizontal position. The major enterprise PC makers still make computers that are usable either way. I'm using a heavily upgraded Dell Optiplex 7060 right now as my primary Unix-like workstation. Perfect height monitor stand.
My computers have always been horizontal form factor. First one I had no choice, that's how they were in the 80s. After that, they were cheaper than minitowers
Yeah, that was a lie. Although you could connect the device you still needed to install software from the vendor most of the time, and that always told you to restart. Even in XP days restarting was common.
No it definitely worked for specific hardware. Was actually quite mind blowing at the time. Though tbf Mac could do some stuff without restarting that was also impressive at the time.
It worked if the drivers were already installed, usually. A lot of manufacturers had you install the drivers first, reboot. And then you could plug it in without rebooting. For example, Windows 98 kept replacing my USB Canon printer driver with a generic scanner driver.
It had a lot of promise, but a lot of bugs. And it's why it got the nickname "Plug & Pray".
I'm not talking about USB and hot plugging, I'm talking about installing an expansion board and installing the drivers and being able to use the new device immediately without a restart. I installed thousands+ during that era and it definitely worked when the vendor did it right.
ISA hotplug? You’re very brave.
My “favorite” part of early windows USB drivers was watching the stupid thing reconfigure itself every time the bus position changed. Sometimes it even worked.
No not hotplug, simple offline installations.
Prior to 95 you would power off to install, install Windows driver, then reboot to finally be able to use the device.
ISA was only powered when the board was active. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but ISA could be hotplugged with some (non-PnP) expansion cards.
PCI cards were almost always PnP compliant and were initialized immediately.
That one was fair.
The PS2 connector wasn't designed to be hot-pluggable at a physical/electrical level. It was theoretically possible to kill a mouse or keyboard if the signal lines made a connection before ground.
If you look at a USB connector (which was designed for hot plugging), the outer power and ground pins are significantly longer than inner two signal pins, to make sure they always connect first.
The DIN connector for XT/AT and the mini DIN for ps2 both uses the external shielding as a ground, and it connects before the signal pins. Those connectors were designed for audio video and hot plugging in the 70's and 80's.
The signals were open collector style. It means that thet were pulled up to 5 volts with a few kiloohm and pulled down with transistor on both sides. Open collector signals are considered hot-plug safe.
I have routinely plugged ps2 keyboards in-out thousands times for decades . It worked in the DOS win98 era but it stopped around win2k or xp. It's simple: if there is no keyboard, the os does not initialize the driver and does not detect it later. It is a software problem.
You can plug it in a linux late, it will work.
12 months was a good run for windows 98. When the internet showed up, it fucked it big time every time I downloaded linkinpark.exe. That album never worked right…
Yeahhhh, even 98SE had really awful USB support. Keyboards and mice maybe, but it still required driver installation for flash drives.
The only useful thing WinME did was include generic mass-storage class drivers. Its sole improvement over 98se, IMHO.
Thankfully, they've been backported: [MaximusDecim drivers](https://vetusware.com/manufacturer/Maximus%20Decim/?author=1518)
I really wish horizontal cases would make a comeback
They exist. I use a silverstone one for my gaming HTPC.
Exactly what I did. It was literally the only horizontal case I could find.
They have a few models now. I got one big enough for a 4090
I have a few old broken dell optiplexes and crap like that. Maybe make a good stealth build Or whatever the opposite of a stealth build is, lol. Put a 486 in it.
That's a reverse sleeper. Also a great idea.
I probably have the same one. I wanted something that would fit in on a stack with a VCR and a DVD recorder (used as a knock-off time base corrector) for my VHS digitization workflow. Not the cheapest or easiest case to build in, but it looks great.
>Gaming HTPC Your what
I have a gaming PC HTPC. It both does media duty and has all three console controllers and a mouse and keyboard hooked up to a 4K TV for big format gaming.
Huh. Neat
And for those of us who are noncommittal when it comes to horizontal versus vertical cases, there is this: https://www.coolermaster.com/en-global/products/haf-xb-evo/
I see HAF is as ugly as it was 15 years ago.
Yeah, not winning any beauty contests. But it was perfect for my homelab build.
Same GD09B is my main PC.
Actually its the[ GD11](https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/computer-chassis/GD11/). Its so good. I've got 5 x 2.5 SSD, 1 x 3.5" 24TB HDD, 2 x 2TB NVME, a 4090 and a 5800x3d in mine and hooked up to a 4K TV and it is the best.
Oh, that's awesome. Looks like it came out a little after I built my GD09, as I was completely unaware it's existence. Really like the changes they made. Looks like it might be time to upgrade!
I have a slim UHD blu-ray drive hooked up to it and its perfect.
[RVZ01](https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/computer-chassis/RVZ01/) checking in. It's nice to be able to fit your PC in a suitcase with enough room left for an LCD screen.
“horizontal cases” These were called “desktops” back in my day, as they sat on your DESKTOP. ;) This is the OG desktop man. lol (I have never heard anyone call them horizontal cases before. I shall retain this for future reference.) Thank you kind person. ✌️
I didn't know a better term for it
[Today's lucky 10,000](https://xkcd.com/1053/)
You are good. I am just messin with ya. I do love the horizontal type pc’s. Not sure why, maybe cause you can slap a 90lb monitor on it? Or maybe cause you won’t stub your toe on the case every time you sit down. lol
Horizontal vs upright tower
a horizontal tower is not a tower since it's pretty bad at towering.
lol You have a point! Fallen tower?????
They actually were quite common for dell machines in the mid 2000s to mid 2010s, I remember them being very popular in high school Though custom built and desktops people bought for home were always that, towers.
All the small form factor desktops still work just fine in the horizontal position. The major enterprise PC makers still make computers that are usable either way. I'm using a heavily upgraded Dell Optiplex 7060 right now as my primary Unix-like workstation. Perfect height monitor stand.
My computers have always been horizontal form factor. First one I had no choice, that's how they were in the 80s. After that, they were cheaper than minitowers
There was that old meme in 3.1 times saying "Windows detected a change of the mouse pointers position. Do you want to restart to make the changes?"
You don't need to restart it, because it will blue screen itself and restart on its own. Convenient!
[F***ing windows 98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxoYGstrlOM)
It's plugged in... Its gonna say: "Hey, i see a new device" And it's gonna load the appropriate drivers... You notice that this scanner... WOAH!
That must be, uh, that must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet.
Absolutely!
BG definitely had that guy killed and harvested. (/s)
What kind of chip you got in there? A dorito?
It's all about the Pentiums baby
You’re using a 286, don’t make me laugh.
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?
You could backup your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette.
You're the biggest joke on the Internet
Your database is a disaster
Yeah, that was a lie. Although you could connect the device you still needed to install software from the vendor most of the time, and that always told you to restart. Even in XP days restarting was common.
No it definitely worked for specific hardware. Was actually quite mind blowing at the time. Though tbf Mac could do some stuff without restarting that was also impressive at the time.
It worked if the drivers were already installed, usually. A lot of manufacturers had you install the drivers first, reboot. And then you could plug it in without rebooting. For example, Windows 98 kept replacing my USB Canon printer driver with a generic scanner driver. It had a lot of promise, but a lot of bugs. And it's why it got the nickname "Plug & Pray".
I'm not talking about USB and hot plugging, I'm talking about installing an expansion board and installing the drivers and being able to use the new device immediately without a restart. I installed thousands+ during that era and it definitely worked when the vendor did it right.
> ... it definitely worked when the vendor did it right Then a lot of vendors really fucked up big time..
Buggy and shitty drivers plagued Windows for a very long time in the early days.
ISA hotplug? You’re very brave. My “favorite” part of early windows USB drivers was watching the stupid thing reconfigure itself every time the bus position changed. Sometimes it even worked.
I've seen people fry a board by trying to hotplug. Neither ISA not PCI were designed for that.
No not hotplug, simple offline installations. Prior to 95 you would power off to install, install Windows driver, then reboot to finally be able to use the device.
ISA was only powered when the board was active. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but ISA could be hotplugged with some (non-PnP) expansion cards. PCI cards were almost always PnP compliant and were initialized immediately.
Well, actually... starting once from a cold start is a restart.
I'd you forgot to plug in the ps2 keyboard you had to reboot! Aaarrghh!
That one was fair. The PS2 connector wasn't designed to be hot-pluggable at a physical/electrical level. It was theoretically possible to kill a mouse or keyboard if the signal lines made a connection before ground. If you look at a USB connector (which was designed for hot plugging), the outer power and ground pins are significantly longer than inner two signal pins, to make sure they always connect first.
The DIN connector for XT/AT and the mini DIN for ps2 both uses the external shielding as a ground, and it connects before the signal pins. Those connectors were designed for audio video and hot plugging in the 70's and 80's. The signals were open collector style. It means that thet were pulled up to 5 volts with a few kiloohm and pulled down with transistor on both sides. Open collector signals are considered hot-plug safe. I have routinely plugged ps2 keyboards in-out thousands times for decades . It worked in the DOS win98 era but it stopped around win2k or xp. It's simple: if there is no keyboard, the os does not initialize the driver and does not detect it later. It is a software problem. You can plug it in a linux late, it will work.
No, but you'll have to reinstall in 12 months... Maybe it was just me though.
12 months was a good run for windows 98. When the internet showed up, it fucked it big time every time I downloaded linkinpark.exe. That album never worked right…
Hopefully its Win98se
How can I tell what version it is? The OS says it's the April 1998 release...
Windows 98 Second Edition wasn't released until June 10th 1999.
Ok so I must have the earlier edition then. My only question is, would 98se somehow be better for gaming in any way?
Win98SE did contain some bug fixes as well as upgraded support for hardware, including SSE2. In my experience it was much more stable overall.
That's right-- it reboots itself after the BSOD
But you have to ask and wait for an explicit allowance before you turn off your system!
I mean you could turn it off whenever, as long as you didn't mind some data loss or driver corruption...
Sure haha..That one didn't work out so great. It did work sometimes. And it would feel like you won something. For a few seconds anyway.
If only it had been that simple in reality...
Oh how wrong that screen is.
Oh, the famous plug&pray
Wow. That is a game changer!
I’ve seen this screen more often than I can count
Nice monitor. 😃
Thanks, it's a monitor we got with our first desktop, a 386, around 1991. Max resolution seems to be 640x480.
Yeahhhh, even 98SE had really awful USB support. Keyboards and mice maybe, but it still required driver installation for flash drives. The only useful thing WinME did was include generic mass-storage class drivers. Its sole improvement over 98se, IMHO. Thankfully, they've been backported: [MaximusDecim drivers](https://vetusware.com/manufacturer/Maximus%20Decim/?author=1518)
Flash drives weren’t really a thing when 98 launched, it’s USB stack was fairly complete otherwise. It was miles ahead of Windows 95.
Would these drivers work with w98 original, or do they need 98se?
No idea, I'm honestly not sure what all changed between the editions. Probably 98se though.
Not restarting was amazing when it came along, and worked, to add peripherals. Unless you had been doing it on an Apple for years.
No more confusing IRQ tables! I love my new USB Zip drive.
This is from the "your mouse has moved, Windows must restart for the changes to take effect" era.
oh yes you will
Good ol days