The Other Yoshibox, also known as “Tarquin’s Seaweed Farm”

Since about 2018, I had a separate computer with old parts running Windows XP. However, due to the inconvenience of having to swap cables around every time I wanted to use it, it didn’t see a lot of runtime, especially with me playing games from the XP era on my modern computer (now named “yoshibox”, hence the post title) after fixing incompatibilities and other bugs. It was the same issue when I brought it out of the basement 4 years after I put it there. I really needed a separate setup for just that computer to really enjoy using it…

…and I eventually did assemble it! After finding a spare keyboard, mouse, mousepad and TV in a room in the basement, I got the urge to set up the XP computer there. So after finding all the appropriate cables and plugging it all in, I was able to enjoy all my childhood classics on my childhood OS in a neat little setup. In fact, it has seen a lot of usage since I assembled that setup, more than even my modern PC has recently. The convenience of being able to just instantly turn it on whenever I wanted really helped with increasing my desire to use it.

Now that the backstory is over and done with, I would like to describe the computer itself a little more.

Funnily enough, most of the parts in the computer are the exact same as my first ever PC from 2010. The CPU, motherboard and RAM are the exact parts that were in that first PC, and the graphics card was identical to the one I had in the first PC before it broke and was replaced. The PSU is not from the first PC, if I recall correctly, and the hard drive was also a separate acquisition. The hard drive from the first PC went on to be heavily used for about 11 years without a single issue, before I got my current PC and put the previous one in storage.

As you probably deduced with your master investigative skills, the operating system on the computer is none other than Windows XP. Specifically, it’s running Service Pack 3 with all of the post-SP3 updates and hotfixes obtained through the great Legacy Update. It also has a pretty sweet custom theme called Watercolor Emico (the light black variant, I believe?), which had to be patched in with a theme patcher.

The software on the computer is mostly old versions of modern software that I actually use on my current PC. A lot of them cut off XP support a while ago, so they’re pretty outdated versions, but I was pleasantly surprised to see VLC and WizTree in particular still support XP on their latest versions. They were probably the last programs I expected to still support XP after all this time. If you’d like to see some of the other software used, I have a list of most of them on my XP repository page.

The PC was obviously built to play games, so it is no surprise that most of the installed programs are games. I have installed some real classics like The Sims 2 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, but also some obscure no-name platformers from my childhood like Dracula Twins and The Three Musketeers. No idea why or how I stumbled upon them back then, but I enjoyed them a lot as a kid, and even tho they’re pretty mediocre, the fond memories still makes me enjoy playing them today.

(The “actual” PC name is COWLOVER, but I consider the OEM PC name to be the canonical one. It’s a reference to a Porcupine Tree demo cassette.)

So that’s my XP PC. It’s a pretty convenient box and place to conserve some childhood memories, with a little twist and additions from present me. You might think of this post as pretty dry and boring, but I honestly don’t care, I just find it fun to describe things like this, so that’s what I will continue to do for as long as I and this blog are alive.

Oh, and the computer also has the best bootscreen on Earth.