OCC 2026 Day 4
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... in which a couple of yaks get a good shaving


On day 4, I liberated the generic 386 client PC from its
shelf in the recently de-moisturized former server room, and
brought it down to the lab for a going over.

One thing I noticed right away: no standard 15 pin VGA D-sub
connector, just a 9-pin indicating we were dealing with
either EGA or CGA graphics. Now, I'm sure I'd used a VGA
monitor with this PC in the past, implying that somewhere
between then and now it had lost its VGA card. I have my
suspicions about who might have swiped it, but we need not
go into that now.  I'm sure he had a good reason.

Initally I thought I'd have to use a different PC, but I
particularly like this one because it dates from around the
time the PP3 client software would have been released, ie
1990 or thereabouts. I don't have too many PCs of that
vintage in the collection.  But then I remembered that day a
couple or three years back, when I hauled two or three carts
of old computing gear back from a workshop in our Psychology
department, of all places. On one of those carts was an NEC
Multisync II monitor [1] with an EGA style plug, that I'd
never got around to testing.

No time like the present! Having first opened up the PC to
confirm that yes, the video card was indeed an ATI EGA
Wonder 800, with dip switch settings for a multisync
monitor [2], I trepidaciously connected the two devices and
powered them up. And ... it worked. That was Yak One shaved
nice and close.

At which point I encountered Yak Two, which was that the
computer did not boot, complaining of having no hard drive.
Having opened it up, I could see that was not true.  Foolish
computer!  In this case, the culprit was the old CP3044 had
lost its CMOS settings. It booted up fine after I tracked
down the settings on The Retro Web [3], and entered them
manually into the PC config.

The most surprising moment of the day came when I was
rummaging through one of the drawers in a built-in cabinet
in the lab, looking for sticky labels I could affix to the
computer and monitor indicating the date I'd tested them and
their operational status.  I didn't find any labels, but
what I did find was the original documentation and software
for the Axis Network Camera I'd located in a different room
on another floor the previous day!  Talk about serendipity;
that was just uncanny ... Clearly, the gods really want this
project to succeed. 




References
----------

1. CRT Database - NEC Multisync II
https://crtdatabase.com/crts/nec/nec-jc-1402hma

2. DOS Days - EGA Wonder Specs
https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturers/ati/ati_ega_wonder.php

3. The Retro Web - Conner CP3044 Specs
https://theretroweb.com/harddrives/1410



Thu Jul  9 11:18:31 PDT 2026