Taking a New PC to the 90s (Time Travel Hypothetical)

[DD_OneZero]

If you were to take a new computer back in time to the 90s with all the limitations that time would bring, would it work?

I was wondering about this this morning, and I figured that there would be no better place to ask then here!

I'm keeping the definition of 'new' up for interpretation since one person's completely fine gaming rig is another one's slowpoke grandma-machine.

Other than that, any OS is allowed since I'd love to hear how your favorite would do here!

My main wonder is about stuff like google, would you have to install and older version? Could you? Would the computer EXPLODE?!?!

Thank you for your time :D    

[lakes]

I think how well this would go would depend on the backwards compatibility of your OS or if your browser is meant for older hardware. Windows is supposedly extremely backwards compatible. So I'd imagine your average Windows PC would have an easier time than say, MacOS or Linux. You would probably also have to use browsers meant for older hardware like Dillo browser or NetSurf which are 2 examples of old hardware supported browsers meant for MacOS, Linux and BSD. Dillo also runs on Windows, but I've been told the installation on Windows is more complicated. These types of browsers tend to also strip websites of more modern Javascript & CSS but still work on modern operating systems and hardware.
However most old websites still work in modern browsers so long as they have HTTPS support. So even if you use a browser meant for modern hardware, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

[shaggy]

Yeah, such pc would mostly work. Assuming we talk about amd64 platform.

- cpu is backward compatible, and could run kernel from the 90s, be that linux or windows.
- gpu can also run in VGA compatibility mode
- usb can run in compatibility mode - but usb appeared in 1996.
- output from gpu would be difficult, it would be best to bring gpu with VGA output. There was no hdmi until like 2003
- ethernet phys can usually work in 10mbit compatibility mode as well, but you would have drivers for it, so it wouldn't work. You'd have to bring some pcie->pci adapters with you and use some old eth card for the internet.

You would not be able to achieve full potential of the hardware due to missing drivers, GPU would still probably be faster, but not nearly as fast as it could be with drivers. Same goes to CPU but to lesser effect. But no software could use new sse instructions for example. And I think multi core would not work, meaning you would have single core cpu.

And if you can run kernel, then you can run almost every software for that time, since software doesn't care about hardware. It cares about kernel and its ABI.

[edit]

Oh yeah, one thing that would probably blow up. SATA/nvme. It does not exist. There are no drivers for that, meaning you can't use drives. So you better bring some ide to pci to pcie controllers xD

Also 4gb of ram is max what you could use. PAE in linux was implemented near year 2000. But that's not an issues since in those time you could literally fit everything inside ryzen L3 cache xD

[Dan Q]

A really interesting thing about the ("IBM-compatible") PC is that it has tremendous backwards compatibility. A modern 64-bit processor can perfectly emulate an older 32-bit one. A UEFI BIOS can operate its bootloader in the older "chainloading" style. Even SATA devices can "work" with older operating systems (albeit without features like newer versions of SMART) by exposing themselves as PATA/ISA devices in the BIOS.

In the early 90s in particular there was still software floating around that relied on the clock cycle of the processor as a timing function - that's what "turbo" buttons were for! - and this software would have problems unless you were able to dramatically underclock the processor. And other software could face race conditions: e.g. I diagnosed a problem with a hardware dongle in 1994 which totally fell over when connected to a 486 DX4 @ 100MHz because the validation checks were sent through the parallel port faster than the co-processor in the dongle could handle!

You might have difficulty connecting to contemporary peripherals. You might take a USB keyboard back with you, but if it breaks and your modern PC doesn't have a PS/2 (or fat DIN) port, you're out of luck. Similarly: there's no WiFi, and while Ethernet was available it wasn't commonplace... networks were more-often 10Base-T (or more-exotic thicknet technologies), and you're only likely to find ISA network cards. Not that that matters because your network hardware is one of those "needs drivers" things that you'll find yourself unable to use anyway unless you brought drivers back with you or are willing to write your own... but then, so long as you've got a suitable serial port you can attach a dial-up modem! Or even a null modem cable.

So yeah: the hardware would work, even on most old OSes, except for the things that absolutely require drivers (optical media, network cards, soundcards, video cards for anything beyond what VGA/VESA etc. standards support). So long as nothing breaks, 'cos you're not gonna get spare parts!