[Davies]

I'm not technical enough to advise on specs, but I can tell you what I've got.

I bought a secondhand laptop on eBay running Windows XP. Also from eBay I bought Windows 98se. Uninstalled XP from the laptop and installed 98se.

Bingo, a fantastic old-school gaming machine. 98se is thrilled with what it reckons is a super high-spec machine (which was actually only mediocre for XP). Unlike basic Windows 98, the SE version is happy to handle USB, so it can run external hard and floppy drives, a USB joypad, etc. Drivers are generally necessary for USB devices, but not hard to find.

It's fine for running both DOS and Windows programs, pretty much anything made from the late '80s right up to the present day, as long as it's not XP/Vista only. I use it for gaming and also for most of my serious stuff, including DTP and programming.

Have never had any problems with graphics or sound. Sometimes the screen settings have to be changed manually before running a game, which is no big deal. I use the freeware program CPU Grabber to slow it down as required, although very early games (e.g. Might and Magic 1) can still end up being a bit pacey.