creepingnet
Veteran Member
Current Specs
CASE: Kingspao Model 35 Chassis
PSU: 250 Watt Generic
MOBO: FIC 486-PVT Socket 3, AWARD BIOS, EnergyStar, 2xVLB, 7XISA (2 are VLB Extended)
CPU: Intel 80486 DX4-100
RAM: 256K L2 Cache, 64MB FP RAM
FDD: 1.44MB 3.5" Sony (A
, 1.2MB 5.25" TEAC (B
HDD: Removable HDD Caddy (IDE)
OPT: 52X CD-RW Burner
LS1: LS-120 "Super Drive" ATA
CONT: Ser/Par/FDD/HDD COntroller Card VLB (HDD/FDD), SOundBlaster AWE/32 IDE (LS-120)
GFX: S3 911/924 SVGA 1MB VLB Graphics - 800X600 @16-bit color usual resolution in Windows
SND: SoundBlaster AWE/32 w/ 2MB of Wavetable RAM + IDE Controller (ISA)
NET: Linksys SVEC PNC 10mbps PnP LAN Adapter (ISA)
FM: Packard Bell FM Radio Card (8-bit ISA)
Periphery:
Keyboard: AT/XT Switchable, Alps Keyswitches
Mouse: PC-TRAC Serial Trackball
Game: PC ProPad 4
KVM: Avocent Apex Outlook 180DX 8-port PS/2 KVM
MON: HP 15" LCD
Starting to work on making more O/S Drives for this thing....here's the current list+ Details
540MB Samsung - came out of a Holt Office Systems, Kirkland WA, 486 Desktop I had years ago. Currently has MS-DOS 6.22 on it, but I"m planning to throw my copy of OS/2 2.1 with WIn OS/2 and Multimedia on it. Would be nice to actually have that running on a REAL computer rather than just a Windows Virtual PC VM.
3.0GB Fujitsu - Came out of a Pentium system I had long ago (it had 2 of these, the other is the CAT's long-time DOS/WFWG drive). Since my 486 tops out it autodetect at 2048MB for any hard disk I throw in there higher than that size, this drive is getting a DDO before I put whatever I put on it.
3.0GB Fujitsu #2 - Came out of aforementioned Pentium, and has aforementioned WFWG 3.11 install on it. The setup on this is pretty well complete, with QEMM 97', multiple Windows 3.x programs and games from the period, + DOS Games, and even 2 of my old favorite NES Emulators (LoopyNES Beta and Nesticle x.xx). It's also my NES ROM Modification setup rig as well as I prefer the old DOS utilities to the newer ones for somet hings.
7.2GB Maxtor - Pulled this from an old Compaq Presario years back. It has Windows 95 OSR2 on it, and I"m currently working on getting it to run Diablo with no CD, Postal, and Doom Collectors Edition, as well as some other stuff that runs happily under Windows 95. That's mostly the focus though it may have some "from the period" DOS Stuff, and I may make it the main "classic" setup for Ultima VII and VIII as I have the Win 9x fixers for those games that allow them to run under Windows 9x (and they run great under 9x with those fixers).
8.0GB Seagate - I'm using this to reproduce the setup I had in 2002 on an IBM PC-330 100DX4 6571-W5K, running Windows 98 SE. It still has MANY problems though, mostly tying to the network adapter not being installed. Also, I have a LOT Of whittling down to do on this install...I only just closed Task Scheduler yesterday.
40GB Maxtor - Bought at a thrift shop god knows how long ago. I'm using this one for Windows 2000 Pro, which is going to be quite a caveat since my floppy drive controller is still acting up. Basically, using Win2K boot floppies, it gets to the Machine Identification Data and then stops dead in it's tracks. It has the Maxblast DDO on it which seems to not be affected by Win2K. The plan is to take the 486 as FAR to modern as it will possibly go (ie. Firefox, Thunderbird, WinRAR, and other modern programs). This is the other O/S that is leading a push towards populating the board to full 128MB.
Hardware Problems
- My VLB Multi-I/O controller seems to hate using floppies. I may just disable this and use the floppy controller I was using in my XT...I also believe this is what's halting the O/S install for Win2K. I may even just pull the controller altogether and use the ISA one, and use my super-high-speed 16550AFN Serial card to use the mouse and flash the KVM.
- Need to figure out the driver problem with my LS-120 drive in DOS 6.22 as it does not find the drive on the Creative Controller.......may have to mess with the driver order for awhile to fix this one in config.sys and autoexec.bat. 95/98 and most likely 2K find it just fine.
- Need to flash the Apex KVM, only 4 of 8 ports are showing up, so I believe it was flashed with the wrong flash. Will have to do this under Windows 95+.
- Get the network adapter working in Windows 98 SE so I can start pushing software to it.
Tempting Addtions/tweaks
- set up a second video card as a secondary display (if possible)
Eventual Hardware Additions
- Higher Memory Graphics Card (2MB+) capable of modern 1024X768 or 1280X1024 resolution @ 32-bit color, something like an ATI Rage VLB Card or Matrox
- 128MB of FastPage RAM
- Beef up the L2 Cache to the max
- Replace the Power Switch with a non-broken one
- PS/2 Mouse Port Card of some kind (I'd like 2...one for the GEM 286, one for this computer....to fully utilize the KVM with only one keyboard and mouse)
Perhipheral upgrades
CASE: Kingspao Model 35 Chassis
PSU: 250 Watt Generic
MOBO: FIC 486-PVT Socket 3, AWARD BIOS, EnergyStar, 2xVLB, 7XISA (2 are VLB Extended)
CPU: Intel 80486 DX4-100
RAM: 256K L2 Cache, 64MB FP RAM
FDD: 1.44MB 3.5" Sony (A
, 1.2MB 5.25" TEAC (BHDD: Removable HDD Caddy (IDE)
OPT: 52X CD-RW Burner
LS1: LS-120 "Super Drive" ATA
CONT: Ser/Par/FDD/HDD COntroller Card VLB (HDD/FDD), SOundBlaster AWE/32 IDE (LS-120)
GFX: S3 911/924 SVGA 1MB VLB Graphics - 800X600 @16-bit color usual resolution in Windows
SND: SoundBlaster AWE/32 w/ 2MB of Wavetable RAM + IDE Controller (ISA)
NET: Linksys SVEC PNC 10mbps PnP LAN Adapter (ISA)
FM: Packard Bell FM Radio Card (8-bit ISA)
Periphery:
Keyboard: AT/XT Switchable, Alps Keyswitches
Mouse: PC-TRAC Serial Trackball
Game: PC ProPad 4
KVM: Avocent Apex Outlook 180DX 8-port PS/2 KVM
MON: HP 15" LCD
Starting to work on making more O/S Drives for this thing....here's the current list+ Details
540MB Samsung - came out of a Holt Office Systems, Kirkland WA, 486 Desktop I had years ago. Currently has MS-DOS 6.22 on it, but I"m planning to throw my copy of OS/2 2.1 with WIn OS/2 and Multimedia on it. Would be nice to actually have that running on a REAL computer rather than just a Windows Virtual PC VM.
3.0GB Fujitsu - Came out of a Pentium system I had long ago (it had 2 of these, the other is the CAT's long-time DOS/WFWG drive). Since my 486 tops out it autodetect at 2048MB for any hard disk I throw in there higher than that size, this drive is getting a DDO before I put whatever I put on it.
3.0GB Fujitsu #2 - Came out of aforementioned Pentium, and has aforementioned WFWG 3.11 install on it. The setup on this is pretty well complete, with QEMM 97', multiple Windows 3.x programs and games from the period, + DOS Games, and even 2 of my old favorite NES Emulators (LoopyNES Beta and Nesticle x.xx). It's also my NES ROM Modification setup rig as well as I prefer the old DOS utilities to the newer ones for somet hings.
7.2GB Maxtor - Pulled this from an old Compaq Presario years back. It has Windows 95 OSR2 on it, and I"m currently working on getting it to run Diablo with no CD, Postal, and Doom Collectors Edition, as well as some other stuff that runs happily under Windows 95. That's mostly the focus though it may have some "from the period" DOS Stuff, and I may make it the main "classic" setup for Ultima VII and VIII as I have the Win 9x fixers for those games that allow them to run under Windows 9x (and they run great under 9x with those fixers).
8.0GB Seagate - I'm using this to reproduce the setup I had in 2002 on an IBM PC-330 100DX4 6571-W5K, running Windows 98 SE. It still has MANY problems though, mostly tying to the network adapter not being installed. Also, I have a LOT Of whittling down to do on this install...I only just closed Task Scheduler yesterday.
40GB Maxtor - Bought at a thrift shop god knows how long ago. I'm using this one for Windows 2000 Pro, which is going to be quite a caveat since my floppy drive controller is still acting up. Basically, using Win2K boot floppies, it gets to the Machine Identification Data and then stops dead in it's tracks. It has the Maxblast DDO on it which seems to not be affected by Win2K. The plan is to take the 486 as FAR to modern as it will possibly go (ie. Firefox, Thunderbird, WinRAR, and other modern programs). This is the other O/S that is leading a push towards populating the board to full 128MB.
Hardware Problems
- My VLB Multi-I/O controller seems to hate using floppies. I may just disable this and use the floppy controller I was using in my XT...I also believe this is what's halting the O/S install for Win2K. I may even just pull the controller altogether and use the ISA one, and use my super-high-speed 16550AFN Serial card to use the mouse and flash the KVM.
- Need to figure out the driver problem with my LS-120 drive in DOS 6.22 as it does not find the drive on the Creative Controller.......may have to mess with the driver order for awhile to fix this one in config.sys and autoexec.bat. 95/98 and most likely 2K find it just fine.
- Need to flash the Apex KVM, only 4 of 8 ports are showing up, so I believe it was flashed with the wrong flash. Will have to do this under Windows 95+.
- Get the network adapter working in Windows 98 SE so I can start pushing software to it.
Tempting Addtions/tweaks
- set up a second video card as a secondary display (if possible)
Eventual Hardware Additions
- Higher Memory Graphics Card (2MB+) capable of modern 1024X768 or 1280X1024 resolution @ 32-bit color, something like an ATI Rage VLB Card or Matrox
- 128MB of FastPage RAM
- Beef up the L2 Cache to the max
- Replace the Power Switch with a non-broken one
- PS/2 Mouse Port Card of some kind (I'd like 2...one for the GEM 286, one for this computer....to fully utilize the KVM with only one keyboard and mouse)
Perhipheral upgrades