Duke Nukem 3D, Quake and Doom: Do these names evoke nostalgic feelings? Many people enjoy playing these old DOS games again years later. This can be done in a computer museum, via an emulator or by means of an old system. Among (older) tweakers we see increasing interest in the latter or even in rebuilding a retro PC. With old hardware, but supplemented with handy accessories that make everything a lot more practical.

More retro Those who not only want to play old DOS games again, but also games from the home computer era, can choose from a wide range of products. Well-known names are the DE 10 Nano FPGA and RetroPie based on a Raspberry Pi.

There are countless possibilities to go in time. The easiest way is an emulator or virtual machine. Via Dosbox you can easily play old DOS games again; a site like GoG.com, or Good Old Games, has grown with it. You can also install an old Windows version by means of virtualization. In addition, the web is nowadays powerful enough to emulate a lot of software online. For most people that will be enough, but someone else will miss something. Think of certain hacks or tweaks that made it more fun, extensions and mods or the sound of a specific sound card, especially in games with AdLib sound. Emulation is close, but not the same.

An advantage of a real computer is that old hardware and peripherals just run on it. This is often not the case on modern computers, either because the desired software is not available for modern operating systems or because the connections and adapters are simply missing. For example, if you want to read old 5, 25 ”floppies, you really need an old disk drive and corresponding computer. The same goes for old IDE hard drives, zip drives, and software that only works with an old Windows version. Also old DOS and Windows games often no longer work under Windows 10, at least not without tools.

In this article we will discuss what to look out for if you want to build or buy a retro PC, the do’s and don’ts as well as new possibilities and modern tools that make this a lot easier.