I have been using a thin client with a VIA cpu as a Windows 98 machine for a while now. It doesn’t have good 3D graphics support, of course. It doesn’t replace a full Pentium III machine in that respect. But the fact that it actually gets used, more than makes up for that. The P3 machine didn’t get used because it took up too much space. I had it tucked away beneath my desk and wasn’t very accessible. It was also prone to crash, which the thin client is not. I don’t play many 3D games from that time period either, so it suits my needs perfectly fine. The game I’m currently playing is Escape from Monkey Island. And while it is a bit slow, it’s certainly playable.

I first played EfMI with a Microsoft Sidewinder gamepad, and I wanted to replay the game with the same controller. I had reacquired a Sidewinder a time ago, and it works fine on my 486 and on my P3. It is the gameport version. I remember getting it to work on a USB machine with a passive gameport to USB adapter. But that didn’t work on my thin client. I therefore put a search query for a Sidewinder on our local second-hand website, and last week a USB version turned up. It arrived promptly and worked perfectly after a reboot or two. Another problem in my retro game land solved!