Should I get a 286, 386, or 486 computer?

[Keatah]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

My friend's DX-50 had VLB.    I know now after reading about it in retrospect that making these was a mistake, VLB doesn't perform properly @50mhz.   But if he had any issues with it at the time, he never complained about it.

 

While I never really had hands-on experience with a DX50. I do consider it "specialty" PC hardware outside the mainstream. A one-trick pony that performed well at highly select tasks with the added cost of needing special I/O cards and memory and other "mod" like concessions. Not mainstream!

 

26 minutes ago, AtariLeaf said:

I distinctly remember my first needed upgrade was to up the ram on my 486 DX2/50 from 4 to 8 meg so I could play Dark Forces

I forget exactly what prompted me to upgrade from 8 to 16MB, but it was around the same era. It may have been for better performance on Duke Nuke'em 3D. Or some other 3D game around the time.

 

I also took the time to get the Micronics' M810 memory expansion card. An electrically simple, but still proprietary, card that has a few LS 244/245 buffers and 8 more SIMM slots. I'm hesitant call it proprietary as it seems it's just a way of adding extra PCB real estate for more SIMM slots. This card let you upgrade beyond the motherboard's 32MB capacity all the way to 64MB. I never went higher than 16MB by way of using 1x9 SIMMS however..

 

I hadn't seen this card anywhere except 1 time on ebay about 7 years ago. So naturally I grabbed it for my parts box.

[zzip]

17 minutes ago, Keatah said:

 

While I never really had hands-on experience with a DX50. I do consider it "specialty" PC hardware outside the mainstream. A one-trick pony that performed well at highly select tasks with the added cost of needing special I/O cards and memory and other "mod" like concessions. Not mainstream!

 

 

It seems that it was sold as a mainstream part for a brief period.  I remember him being kinda annoyed when they started selling DX2's, which he considered inferior because of their slower bus.

 

On his advice, I tried to obtain a DX-50 for myself as my first PC build,  but I failed.   I ended up with a DX4-100 instead, which was probably for the best :)

[Keatah]

Inferior part my ass! Who is that weirdo??

[wierd_w]

Hmm..

 

It depended a lot on what all was in that system, if a DX50 would outperform some other chip, but a DX4-100 would probably outperform it handily anyway.

One of the few tasks that the DX50 really shined when performing, was playing an MP3.  Normally, it took a pentium class system to do that, but a DX50 had sufficient FSB speed to crunch through.

 

 

 

[Zap!]

Small update that could be potentially a huge update. More on this in a second, but first...

 

I had forgotten about this old computer. It's a Pentium II laptop with 96 megs of RAM, using  Windows 98 SE. It has one USB port, which is great for the easy transferring of files. Although I'm a desktop guy, it will hold me off for a moment. My guess is that it can probably run anything mid-90's or so, but probably not much letter. That will hold me off for a moment. Here's a pic.

 

Now for the second part. I was contacted yesterday by a man that says he has many old computers in storage that he wants to give me. I know he's in his late 60's or so, because he graduated HS before I was even born, as I saw his Facebook. It sounds legit, as we exchanged numbers. I will keep you updated, as I'm supposed to meet up with him on Sunday.

Edited December 31, 2019 by Zap!

[DragonGrafx-16]

I would love a laptop like that for some portable DOS gaming...

[firebottle]

On 12/31/2019 at 4:19 PM, Zap! said:

Small update that could be potentially a huge update. More on this in a second, but first...

 

I had forgotten about this old computer. It's a Pentium II laptop with 96 megs of RAM, using  Windows 98 SE. It has one USB port, which is great for the easy transferring of files. Although I'm a desktop guy, it will hold me off for a moment. My guess is that it can probably run anything mid-90's or so, but probably not much letter. That will hold me off for a moment. Here's a pic.

 

Now for the second part. I was contacted yesterday by a man that says he has many old computers in storage that he wants to give me. I know he's in his late 60's or so, because he graduated HS before I was even born, as I saw his Facebook. It sounds legit, as we exchanged numbers. I will keep you updated, as I'm supposed to meet up with him on Sunday.

Don't know what it is about those cool grey Toshiba Tecra laptops from the mid to late 1990's, but they built them to last forever. Even the batteries still charge up on the ones I have.

[Kombalar]

On 12/30/2019 at 12:16 AM, AtariLeaf said:

Some games are very sensitive to cpu speed and don't seem to play nice with slowdown programs. An example of this is Spectrum Holobytes Stunt Driver, a personal favorite of mine. It seems to want a good low to midrange 486 to run properly. Anything too fast gives it fits and slowdown programs cause very odd behavior such as the car flying off into the air for eternity.

 

Having said that most games will work ok with slowdown programs

Hey I had completely forgotten about that game. I played it to bits back in the day. Amazing game! There was also Br0derbund's "Stunts" which was very similar. That was great too. 

 

 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Kombalar

[carlsson]

It reminds me I've got a Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook 4510 (400 MHz Pentium III w/ 128 MB RAM, 6 GB HDD) collecting dust. Unfortunately I believe the keyboard is electronically broken so one would have to connect an external PS/2 keyboard in order to use it. It even has the docking station/port replicator and original power adapter. Maybe I should check if it is otherwise working and see if I can find a buyer.

[wierd_w]

If it's like my Fujitsu Lifebook e2010, the audio hardware is AC97 based, so any games will have to run in a win98 dosbox, or you will need to install win2k and use either vdmsound+ntvdm, or dosbox.

[DragonGrafx-16]

18 minutes ago, wierd_w said:

If it's like my Fujitsu Lifebook e2010, the audio hardware is AC97 based, so any games will have to run in a win98 dosbox, or you will need to install win2k and use either vdmsound+ntvdm, or dosbox.

A quick browse through the manual of his laptop shows that it has a 64 voice wavetable synth... The Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth in Windows 98 only had 32 voices so it must be hardware... it should be fine for DOS gaming. I prefer OPL or tracker music in my games though...

 

EDIT: Uh I just found this in the same manual:

 

So it does have FM! SoundBlaster compatibility is very important for DOS games...

 

While browsing the only thing I didn't see it having was a game port... which is really bad if you want to use a controller... USB controllers will not work in DOS.

Edited January 4, 2020 by DragonGrafx-16

[wierd_w]

Browsing the drivers for it at Fujitsu reveals it is AC'97.

Specifically:  Intel(r) 82440MX AC'97 Audio Controller

 

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

14 minutes ago, wierd_w said:

Browsing the drivers for it at Fujitsu reveals it is AC'97.

Specifically:  Intel(r) 82440MX AC'97 Audio Controller

 

 

The manual says it's Sound Blaster Pro compatible so it must mean it has DOS drivers... maybe just a Sound Blaster Pro driver in DOS will work? Well... if not it should work for pretty much all mid to late 90s DOS games in a DOS window... only issue is lack of a game port..

Edited January 4, 2020 by DragonGrafx-16

[Zap!]

Just came back from the guy’s house from Facebook. It was less than a mile from my house, and him and his wife were in their late 60’s. He had a couple of computers. The first one he showed me was too new, a Windows XP computer. I passed.

 

The second one I took, along with a keyboard and some floppies. I didn’t do anything with it yet. He thinks it’s from the mid-80’s but he may be mistaken. Looks like a 286, no?

 

He also has a nice CRT monitor. I’m going to pick it up next week, even though it looks a bit modern. I should have taken it today. He was giving me everything for free, but I threw him $40, I couldn’t just take it. Anyway, here’s some pics.

[wierd_w]

pics of the back?

 

Looks like early 90s to me though. (91, 92..)

[Zap!]

1 hour ago, wierd_w said:

pics of the back?

 

Looks like early 90s to me though. (91, 92..)

Yup, I was wrong, it’s actually a 386DX-33, so probably early 90’s. Here’s some more pics after I cleaned it up. Btw, the guy actually included many floppies, including quite a few blank ones.

 

I can’t do anything without a keyboard, but it appears to boot fine. One should be in the mail by next week.

[wierd_w]

8MB is a little on the thin side, but many dos games will work great with that.

 

edit:

 

Also, many PS/2 keyboards will work with an AT<->PS/2 adapter.  I know model M keyboards do for certain.

 

 

Oh, and mouse-- That's gonna need a serial mouse.

A guy in the TI forums recently scored a classic Pre-Microsoft 3 button optical mouse (From Unisys) with the metal grid mousepad, and intends to list it on ebay.  Go hit him up.

 

And sound hardware (The back of the unit shows no sound hardware) (For slightly more you can get the older jumpered version)

 

Should be good for just about anything after that.

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by wierd_w

[Zap!]

43 minutes ago, wierd_w said:

8MB is a little on the thin side, but many dos games will work great with that.

 

edit:

 

Also, many PS/2 keyboards will work with an AT<->PS/2 adapter.  I know model M keyboards do for certain.

 

 

Oh, and mouse-- That's gonna need a serial mouse.

A guy in the TI forums recently scored a classic Pre-Microsoft 3 button optical mouse (From Unisys) with the metal grid mousepad, and intends to list it on ebay.  Go hit him up.

 

And sound hardware (The back of the unit shows no sound hardware) (For slightly more you can get the older jumpered version)

 

Should be good for just about anything after that.

 

I found an AT keyboard on eBay that was said to work 100% for under $20. I didn’t have an old PS/2 keyboard anyway.

 

i have a PS/2 mouse already though, and just ordered an adapter. Hope that works.

 

Funny you should mention that basic SB16, because I ordered that very same one a few hours ago lol. I can’t wait until everything arrives! 
 

Do you think the HD will work? I hope so. I wonder what’s on the drive. Also, I forgot to mention that it has an original battery hard wired. I have to remove that ASAP. Luckily, it still looks ok with no leaks.

 

Other than that, perhaps I’ll put in a CD-ROM. I have tons laying around. Maybe an SD card solution too.

[wierd_w]

The IDE interface inside should work fine even if the hard disk does not.  This opens options to you, such CF->IDE adapters. (and SD->CF adapter inside that even.)

 

Since this is a 386 (and an early one at that), to get a drive over 500ish MB, you will likely need a dynamic disk overlay.

This version of Disk Manager is universal and will work with anything.  It should let you have very large capacity HDDs in the system.

 

Be aware that DOS6.22 cannot see or use partitions larger than 2GB.  For that, you need either FreeDOS or abuse Win98's "Dos parts".  (EG, use a win98 EBD, with files copied from a win98 system's C:\windows\command folder, put in C:\dos instead, with appropriate paths set.)   That will let you have FAT32, and large volume support.

Edited January 5, 2020 by wierd_w

[The Usotsuki]

Ooh, a Speedstar.  I think I still have one of those - used it on my old 5160.

[Zap!]

10 hours ago, wierd_w said:

The IDE interface inside should work fine even if the hard disk does not.  This opens options to you, such CF->IDE adapters. (and SD->CF adapter inside that even.)

 

Since this is a 386 (and an early one at that), to get a drive over 500ish MB, you will likely need a dynamic disk overlay.

This version of Disk Manager is universal and will work with anything.  It should let you have very large capacity HDDs in the system.

 

Be aware that DOS6.22 cannot see or use partitions larger than 2GB.  For that, you need either FreeDOS or abuse Win98's "Dos parts".  (EG, use a win98 EBD, with files copied from a win98 system's C:\windows\command folder, put in C:\dos instead, with appropriate paths set.)   That will let you have FAT32, and large volume support.

It's an early 386? Oh, I figured it was later, since it's a DX and the bios says 1990. Do you think it's ok to put a CD-ROM inside? Anyway, thanks for that link, I'm going to order both. 2GB should be more than enough for what I need anyway.

 

Another thing that I forgot to mention is that barrel lock. It's missing the keys. What are my options? How easy would it be to find an exact match? Can I easily switch out the locks?

[wierd_w]

CDrom should be fine.  Getting one in IDE these days might be a trick, but ATAPI works on basically any IDE interface. (with exceptions for things like XT-IDE and pals. This is a 16bit interface though, so it should work fine)

 

Edit-- No, you're right about it being a late one.  Still probably lives in CHS mode with no ECHS or LBA function at all.  That means Dynamic Disk Overlay time.

Edited January 5, 2020 by wierd_w

[DragonGrafx-16]

You might want to stick in a IDE CD-RW drive... sure you'll most likely not burn discs on this machine but it's important to be able to run burnt CD-Roms, and makes it much easier to transfer files onto it. I had old CD-Rom drives that would not run burnt CDs.

Edited January 5, 2020 by DragonGrafx-16

[wierd_w]

(I would use FX.EXE and a laplink cable, using that swanky PII laptop.)

 

(FX easily fits on a floppy. You can push hundreds of megabytes over the cable. Either way.)

Edited January 5, 2020 by wierd_w

[Zap!]

How’s this IDE drive? It’s dirt cheap, but it’s also a DVD.

 

Also, anything I can do with that lock? I would love to have it functional. And thanks for that FX link!

 

Edit: I sent the wrong link, but there’s a DVD one too for that price. Darn cell phone copy and pasting! ?

 

Lite-On CD-RW Drive Model xj-hd166s w Rounded Sony Vaio Silver Bezel IDE

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Zap!