Ferretcage
- Base model: VIA C3VCM6 Rev.1 mini-ITX motherboard, c.2000
- Processor: VIA C3 Samuel 2, 800 MHz
- Memory: 256 MB DDR, single-stick capacity
- Video: VIA / S3 Unichrome CLE266, VGA output only
- Audio: On-board (Realtek?)
- Storage: SATA SSD via IDE adapter
- Networking: On-board Ethernet
- Peripherals: Giant, glowing green pinball button
- Operating system: At last recollection, Windows 2000
A presently-unfinished Mini-ITX build; technically is fully functional, but still needs some work to finish its case. This is going to take materials and tools that I don't presently have access to. A more detailed explanation of Ferretcage's history and purpose can be found at this Blaugh post of mine.
Gjallarhorn
- Base model: HP Pavilion n5170, c.1999
- Processor: Pentium III, 600 MHz
- Memory: 256 MB in two SODIMMs
- Video: S3 Savage/IX outputting to 1024x768 panel; VGA and composite video outputs
- Audio: ?
- Storage: Factory 10 GB hard disk drive
- Networking: Built-in modem and ethernet, did accept PCMCIA 802.11g WLAN card
- Peripherals: Trackpad, Dual PCMCIA slots, two USB 1.1 ports, PS/2 mouse port.
- Operating system: At last recollection, Windows 98 Second Edition. Originally would have shipped with Windows ME.
- About the name: The "loud-sounding horn" blown by Heimdallr to signal the beginning of Ragnarok. If this laptop ever needs to beep, it always does so at maximum speaker volume. It is always startling.
Found at a garage sale in my neighborhood in late 2007 for a perhaps-too-much $100, Gjallarhorn was the original Craptop, to me. Absurdly heavy, but also my very first laptop, it came to me running Windows XP (which was too much for a 600 MHz, 128 MB laptop to handle). It's been through a lot, as my primary laptop for two years; it has suffered some physical damage (broken vent covers, floppy drive faceplate warped, some rubber corners are threatening to detach), and at this point, its keyboard and screen have degraded enough that the poor thing is unusable. With some love, I'm sure it could be restored to its former glory, but that hinges on my desire to actually do that. I did at least invest in a cheap SODIMM module to bump it up to 256 MB of RAM, back in the day; that gave it some much needed head-room to run those essential programs... like an IRC client and a music player.
Fafnir
- Base model: Dell Inspiron Mini 1012, c.2009
- Processor: Intel Atom single-core, 1.6 GHz
- Memory: 1 GB
- Video: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, outputting to 1024x600 panel; VGA output
- Audio: On-board (Realtek)
- Storage: 128 GB SATA solid state drive, multi-format memory card slot accepts SD and Memory Stick
- Networking: On-board 802.11g WLAN, on-board Ethernet, 3G cellular modem (not currently serviced)
- Peripherals: 3x USB 2.0 ports and that's it
- Operating system: Windows XP Service Pack 3
- About the name: The dreaded dragon slain by the hero Sigurd. But that's not the whole story; he was originally a son of the king of the Dwarves, Hreidmar, and became the dragon following much misfortune surrounding a cursed ring given to his family.
Fafnir in size comparison with the larger Lettfeti, and the smaller Scarface One (and a deck of Solo Jazz playing cards from one of my other hobbies).
Fafnir was the replacement for Gjallarhorn, bought on impulse (a dangerous prospect with me!) while at a T-Mobile store. It wasn't that expensive, even accounting for it having a 3G mobile internet contract tied to it, and it was an all-round improvement over Gjallarhorn in nearly all respects except for screen resolution. This thing actually got me through a year of college, and a somewhat agonizingly long period of having no gaming computer, until I'd finally had enough of its lack of RAM and ordered something else.
Heimdallr
- Base model: HP Pavilion Elite e9200z (c.2008)
- Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 810, 2.6 GHz
- Memory: 3 GB
- Video: NVidia GeForce 220 GT
- Audio: On-board
- Storage: Whatever is handy, I suppose
- Networking: Built-in Ethernet
- Peripherals: None
- Operating system: MX Linux 23.5
- About the name: A son of Odin and nine mothers(?!), Heimdallr acts as the gatekeeper of Asgard, keeping watch for the beginning of Ragnarok. At the first sign of invasion, he blows Gjallarhorn to alert the gods to take up arms.
This was Dad's old desktop, bought brand-new shortly before moving to another house in my old home-town. It never quite had the specs to be considered a full Gaming Rig, but it ran World of Warcraft, and that was all Dad ever needed out of it at the time. Once things got desperate enough for him, I took ownership of it, and assigned it its Norse name at long last in 2025. I think it has room to grow, but I have so many systems of roughly these specs that I'm unsure what the point would be.
Svipul
- Base model: Dell Dimension 3000, c.2001
- Processor: Intel Celeron D, 2.53 GHz
- Memory: 1.25 GB
- Video: NVidia GeForce FX 5500 (PCI)
- Audio: On-board
- Storage: ?
- Networking: On-board Ethernet
- Peripherals: Occasionally used with a Logitech USB gamepad
- Operating system: Windows XP Service Pack 3
- Role:
- About the name: The name of a Valkyrie, attested in the Poetic Edda in an apparently long list of other named Valkyries.
For lack of any more action-packed photos of Svipul, here is an example of my idiosyncratic game-sorting methods.
My grandparents' old Dell desktop, presumably bought out of necessity (and tight budget). Even for the time, these specs were probably nothing special, but it only took adding a graphics card to get it up to the task of acting as a Windows XP-era retro machine. At one point she was running a GeForce 8400 GS, which may not sound amazing, but I was shocked to find that those had PCI versions. Unfortunately, the 8400 is somewhat unwell, so I've switched back to the FX 5500, which does a reasonable job, even if it doesn't run the likes of UT 2004 very well.