byJoe Pring
Published: Oct 24, 2026, 15:48
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A YouTuber fed up with the state of modern PC gaming has rebuilt their childhood computer from 1996, only to discover someone else’s homework and Doom 2 cheats on an old hard drive.
Frustrated by rising hardware prices, the creator spent months tracking down vintage components to recreate the machine that first sparked their love of gaming nearly 30 years ago.
YouTuber brings childhood gaming PC back to life
In a YouTube video documenting the project, TrashBench explained that their fascination with PC gaming began at age 11 after seeing Need for Speed Special Edition running on their cousin’s computer.
They received their first PC for Christmas in 1996 and decided to recreate it using parts
The finished build featured a 200MHz Pentium processor, 32MB of RAM and a Sound Blaster 16 sound card, matching the hardware they remembered from childhood.
However, one of the biggest surprises came when they examined an old hard drive intended for the project.
“There’s some dude’s science homework on there from 2001 and his Doom 2 cheats,” they explained, admitting they felt uncomfortable deleting the files.
Rather than wiping the drive, they installed Windows 95 on a separate one before firing up games including Need for Speed and Duke Nukem 3D.
They also experimented with a vintage 3D accelerator, settling on a $100 Matrox Mystique after discovering that a 3dfx Voodoo card would cost around $1,000.
The project ultimately reminded the creator why they fell in love with gaming in the first place.
“There’s been so many times during filming where I’ve been playing a game and just gotten lost in it for an hour,” they said.
