My old workshop computer I believe I made when i got my first 3d printer over 6 years ago.

It's in a tiny wooden 'box' and runs a little amd quadcore processor.

I've been building a few base units for people in lockdown and after seeing how fast they are and benchmarking the the very cheapest entry level amd am4 Apu - I figured I deserved a new workshop machine

To put this into perspective an amd athlon 300g - £44 processor benchmarks FASTER than the top of the range desktop processor on the old am3 platform that cost well over £100.
And they all outperform intel I7's without trying.

I was amazed and impressed.

More importantly the rendering times for openscad has now dropped to about 1/4 the time.

A mini-solitaire set I'm currently designing went from a 16 minute render to just over 4.
So that's excellent.

So I made another wooden box

It's slightly larger as the new one is a micro atx board and the old one is a mini itx.
But the whole rustic theme and minimal desktop footprint is maintained.
I do like a tradition

There is a drawback to to using the very latest kit. And that is it will only run properly on the very latest version of windows 10.

I'm still not a fan - but I've pretty much got it tamed these days.

However some of my old and much used software will not run on it - no way no how.

So thewn what you do is to download oracle's openbox and create a virtual computer running windows xp

And it's the 'ghost in the machine' windows xp I'm typing this on

I'll stick some pictures in later.

But should you want a new computer and have a screwdriver and some wood.

You can build a pretty decent machine for under £150
Or $150 - pc parts seem a lot cheaper over there than they are here at the moment.

I've even seen youtube videos of people running some pretty high end games on a 200ge - the 300g's predecessor.

There are even teeny tiny one board machines that will work pretty well that could be simply taped to the back of a monitor or telly.

To be fair you can also do that with a mini itx system as well.

That may well be what happens to my old workshop machine

So anyway - that's all this is about - testing the new virtual windows xp internet connection.

Job done

Compared to the mini server I made to run the k40 laser cutter - those cases are pretty elaborate

This is a mini itx server board with an i3 processor and 4gm ram that I got off ebay for £25. Amazing buy, I used 4 before the seller ran out.
A £7 network switch, an old mini power supply I had in the workshop and a 128gb ssd I salvaged from a clients old computer.
And it's all screwed to an a4 sized bit of plywood.
Lives on  a shelf at the back of the laser trolley.

With some free remote control software I can use it as easily as if it had it's own screen mouse and keyboard.