I have totally rewritten this page to be a little more accurate to what my original vision was. See, a "Hybrid" Legacy System, is not a purely vintage collectors piece, it's a vintage computer that leverages new technology to keep what people find nostalgic or good about the designs of yesteryear, all the while removing all the reliability problems, insecurities, speed bottlenecks, and abandoning defunct and legacy software that would hinder making such a machine's ability to continue to be productive. This applies - in my book, to any computer Pentium II or older that is used for not just gaming, but as a productivity workstation.

The first question is "Why". Well, for starters, old computers did indeed do it better! There was a lot less ambiguity due to their simplicity in both design,a nd software design, and therefore, not a lot of layers of abstraction between your activities and what's really going on under the hood of the machine. Also, the restrictive resources forced programmers to write with good economical code, encouraged not to add features that add more bloat than they do value, and not allow bloat or feature creep. DOS was a BASTION of simplicity. It was only one user, one task at a time, and despite it's limitations was still very fast even on some pretty ancient hardware.

Things You Can't Change - Cases, Motherboards, Floppy Drives (due to their Obsolescence), and some associated peripherals if you don't have proper adapters (ie no USB Keyboards and Mice, you're likely going to need PS/2 at the newest and AT + Serial Mouse at the oldest).

Things You CAN Change - CPUs, RAM, Hard Disk Drive Technologies (SATA is even an option, even on a 486), Network Adapters, and the like. And the options are getting broader as more hobbyists start making new parts.

Cases - for a Hybrid system, you want to have a case that has some decent capcity. I'm not saying, at all, to go out and try and find the tallest AT Tower you can find - you don't need THAT much space. At the largest, you can get away with a AT Desktop, XT Desktop, ATX Desktop, or a Mid-Tower or MiniTower for a desktop machine. You want at least 2 3.5" capable bays for a hard disk and a floppy drive, and 2 5.25" bays for a 5.25" floppy (if desired) and a optical drive (pretty much a requirement). You also want to have something that will accept all of the slots on your motherboard - which is not really an issue. Seven Segment Displays, Turbo Buttons - that's all your call. I personally run a SongCheer XT case on my main hybrid (CreepingNet 486), no 7 segment, no Turbo Button.

Power Supplies - Depending on your case, you might be able to find an AT, XT, or Baby AT Power Supply that can handle the wattage we need. I'd say the ideal is at least 200 Watts, if not 250 Watts. ATX will be a breeze since you can mosey into pretyt much any computer shop in 2023 and buy a ATX power Supply more than adequatley equipped to deliver power to the motherboard and drives. If you have a Baby-AT system, the world is your oyster, because you could easily find a 200-250 WATT Baby-AT PSU, but you ALSO can find 200-250 WATT ATX PSUs and inexpensive adapter boards to adapt them to the P8 and P9 connectors found on most standard AT-era motherboard. You don't need a lot of power, 486's suck about 5w of current, and the newer optical and hard disks you'll be using reall sip on power consumption (especially when you go solid state!).

Motherboards - For a motherboard, you want to find one with all the latest technologies of it's generation, or at least enough of them to leverage the full pwoer of the CPU. If this was the 486 era, that means a motherboard with EISA, VESA Local Bus (VLB), or PCI. If this is a Pentium, then this would mean a Socket 7 motherboard with USB, PCI, maybe even AGP on it. Some really good 486 boards for this include the FIC 486-PVT series, the PC-CHIPS M912 with a REAL cache (it really rips!), quite a few of ASUS's offerings including the GX2 and GX4 boards, and DTK made some really good ones as well, or the BIOSTAR MB8433UUD is a real ass-kickin' PCI motherboard for a 486 hybrid box (especially with an overclocked AMD 5x86 under the hood with proper cooling). If you can, try and get all the accessory connections that can make your life easier (USB Dongles, PS/2 mouse connections, etc). Watch out for motherboards with VARTA Batteries, and if you are advanced enough...well...

Advanced Motherboard Mods - So now you have a ass-kickin' 486 Motherboard for your Hybrid retro-productivity system. But say it has a VARTA Battery on it - you know, the ones that look like little blue/red/pink barrels that are usually crusty like the socks under a teenage dude's bed - anyway, nasty references aside (Varta batteries come pretty close) - look for some spots on the board silkscreened (the littl edrawings and lettering on the motherboard) for a spot for a CR2302 (or any CR-series) battery holder. Chances are, you likely can just order a pack of 5 off E-bay for like....$2.99 - and then solder one on there, put in a CR2302, and NOW you have a MODERN 486 motherboard. Some 486 boards already had this, but I mod mine a lot for this as insurance for the future. THere are some other solder on mods like one guy on VOGONS I know is working on a Keyboard controller PS/2 Mouse port add-on, and another guy made some new Memory Modules for the elusive proprieary COAST module for the PcChips M919 socket.

CPU + Co-Pros - If you're working a 386 system, you'll want a 387, it DOES expand the software you can use. For 486's, I usually say to stick between the DX2-66 and AMD 5x86 PR-75 133 chips. Remember - early 486 was 5vdc, later 486s were 3.3vdc. You want a SOCKET 3 motherboard if you go 486. Mind your voltages. I've fried ONE DX4 in 20 years because I ran the computer at 5 volts (I was upgrading from a DX2-66).