Subj : My new* 486 (*=old)
To   : xbit
From : Ben Collver
Date : Fri Feb 10 2023 10:59:18

  Re: My new* 486 (*=old)
  By: xbit to All on Fri Feb 10 2023 06:25:16

 XB> Anyone else have a early era PC? Please share the specs and what you're
 XB> doing with it if so.

Aloha up there!  I am writing from Grants Pass.

My first PC was an IBM 5150 with two full-height 5.25" drives and no internal disk and it ran DOS 3.x.  I no longer have that system.

Recently i inherited an IBM PC 330 6577-79T, which has a Pentium processor, 200MHz clock, 66MHz bus.  It has 32mb EDO memory, 1mb video memory, 4gb IDE disk, 3.5" floppy drive, 52x CD-ROM drive dated 2002, PCI sound card, PCI
modem, and free ISA slots.  It has a parallel port, a serial port, two 1.5MB/s USB ports, and an "infrared" port.  According to the spec sheet it cannot boot from CD but the BIOS has the CD-ROM in the boot order.  The S3 Trio64V+ video controller with 1MB memory can go up to 1024x768x256 colors or 1280x1024x16 colors.

The system has Windows ME.  It boots to a BSOD even in safe mode.  I cannot get
it to boot from the CD-ROM and i don't currently have a way to write floppy disks nor IDE disks.  So i am effectively locked out of the system.

My thought is to acquire a USB floppy drive and write a memtest86 boot floppy.  I'd test the memory first.  Then i would write a BasLinux floppy to test the hard disk.  If the hardware tests OK then i would install FreeDOS.  My initial use would be recovering data from old floppies of mine that i recently discovered.  Then it would be for DOS gaming.

I have a model M keyboard that would be a good fit for this system.

Last year i used DJGPP to compile current versions of Angband and NetHack for DOS.  I have a Pentium-3 era system for testing, but it would be nice to have an older system to help keep it real.  Though not real mode.

A friend of mine is into ZZT.  Archive.org has a trove of ZZT content including a diskmag titled "Hacker's Guide to ZZT."  Thought i might check that out.

-Ben

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