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Finding a 486

A Pentium MMX will run Windows 95 just fine; most Pentium MMXs shipped with either Win95 or 98. DOS will run fine on them but some software may be too fast on it. Later DOS games will love the Pentium MMX, but titles from the early 1990s and before might behave weird.

One suggestion for tracking down these machines is to ask IT guys in their 30s or 40s. Someone that age is likely to have owned such machines when new and may not have discarded the old parts when upgrading. If they haven't moved in the last couple of decades, those parts could very well be lurking in the basement somewhere still.

Regarding thrift stores, you generally won't find complete systems at Goodwill. Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul, or Value Village are better bets, as are independent thrifts run by smaller local charities.
 
Well after cleaning it up and getting it to boot. It's a 200 MMX with 128 Megs of Ram and a 6 gig hard drive. So how am I going to have to partition this drive. Was it in 2 gig chunks? Can't remember it seems like its been along time lol. Also and place online to get a copy of dos 6.2?

Thanks again guys, you have been such a great help.
 
Firstly, congrats on your find! Getting old "junk" for free is great, isn't it? :)

Microsoft offers MS-DOS v6.2 for download here.

stepup.exe decompresses to a handful of files, of which 3 are 1MSDOS62.EXE, 2MSDOS62.EXE, 3MSDOS62.EXE. These compressed archives contain the files for each of the 3 corresponding installation disks. All of them will decompress within DOSBox, and you can create your floppies from within the DOSBox environment (make sure to view the README.NOW file for specific directions)

Others may have more direct routes for you to obtain a DOS version. FreeDOS is another alternative (I haven't actually tried it out)

If using DOS v6.2, IIRC you can go up to 4gb partitions. I'd personally probably go with a 1gb main partition for my programs, then go with 2x2.5gb partitions for the data/games. If you plan on running windows w/ the machine rather than DOS, I'd probably go with 1 2gb and 1 4gb partition (remember that Win98 can boot to a DOS mode as well, often referred to as DOS 7.0, so technically, you wouldn't need to install v6.2 unless you wanted to do so)

**** EDIT ****
Sorry, now that I had time to look further in depth on this download, the DOS v6.22 link I provided is a "step-up" installation intended for users of MS-DOS v6.0/v6.1. You must already have a system with those installed in order for this link to work. Sorry.
 
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With that hardware I'd recommend Windows 98 SE.
I have slower machines with less memory running 95 and 98SE no problems.
As above, you can also exit to dos or set the machine up to not always start the GUI if needed. I found most DOS games run just fine from the GUI.

DOS 6.22 allows 2.1Gb partitions up to a total of 8.4Gb. Win98/DOS7 etc would let you have a single parition, although Maverick's suggestion of a smaller C partition is good - especially if you format it FAT16 - then you could dual boot DOS 6.22 if needed.
 
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The original Win95A without built in IE runs decently on a 486 if you have 16MB of RAM. Once you start upgrades/patches/etc then you need more horsepower and RAM. A P1 200 or 233MMX with 64MB of RAM is great for an early DirectX 3 game machine (640x480 games).
 
Nice find! :thumbsup: Now all you need is a Voodoo card and maybe some ram... :D Fact it has a 200mhz cpu is a good sign, as 166mhz stopped at socket 7, so most likely super socket 7!

Guessing the stock video is a s3 based card, most likely virge gx/dx? Or maybe an ati 8mb rage based? If its either, it will run games like tomb raider and screamer just fine. :D

BTW if it is indeed a virge, dont forget to grab the GL wrapper for quake. Does wonders if you don't have a true 3dfx voodoo card. :)
 
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Yup its a S3 Rage. Good call. I loaded Windows 98 on and man is it fast. I did have to replace the floppy drive, i/o error. Now I just need to get some blank cds to get the drivers over to her. All my jump drives need drivers too. (sigh)
 
Yes, the 486. I threw out about three of these in a fit of tidiness about five years ago. They were all 486-DX 60s.

Of course now I have an 8088, 286, 386-DX40, _____ Pentium 1, Pentium MMX. Can you spot the gap? *sigh*

Tez
 
If you installed Win98se and not 98, then use this

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4131.html

Among the user created hotfixes is a generic usb mass storage driver. It should cure your woes. :D
If you dont have SE installed, dont fret! You wont have to change a thing! Just get ahold of a copy of win98se, and right before you restart to do your upgrade, delete win.com. It will reuse all your registry, drivers, etc. And wont complain to you its an upgrade either! :thumbsup:


Ouch Tez I feel ya , I threw away a few good systems and montiors I wish I never did in retrospec. Sigh. I miss my Wyse 19" cga monitor and isa card. =(
Eh I dont miss getting zapped by the static off it every day I used it tho! OW!
 
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twolazy said:
Fact it has a 200mhz cpu is a good sign, as 166mhz stopped at socket 7, so most likely super socket 7!
Click to expand...

Not necessarily the case. Socket 7 supports up to Pentium 233 w/MMX as these had a 66 mhz bus. In actual point of fact a board with an Intel chipset is probably a great deal more stable than one of the mid-late 90's Taiwanese wonders with a no-name chipset.
 
I use Windows 98SE on my computer, it has a Pentium MMX 200 also, but with 64mb ram. Runs pretty good.
 
Super Socket 7's supported the 75, 83, and 100mhz bus speeds needed by AMD K6-2's and some Cyrix Chips. One of the best AT SS7 boards was the FIX VA-503+.
 
I think these Pentium MMX cpus are pretty capable, I've been streaming music off the internet and Playing MP3s off another computer's shared folder over a network recently, I was actually surprised how well it handles this stuff.
 
I actually had the older brother to that board for years and years and years, and was still working when I sold it! FIC VT-502. Believe it or not they used to be made not far from me. I actually got a tour of the plant once, while I worked as assistant admin @ northwestern uni+hospital in the late 90s/early 2000. I resided thru the changeover from dumb terminals and ps/1 + ps/2 machines to 486s and early P1s. Reworked the entire network, and installed 12 multicore EISA servers, using citrix winframe. Ahhh memories! Most likely why I have a soft spot for p1 and earlier Compaqs, since most all the hardware was compaq. I handled at least 1000-1500 compaq machines back then...

Short after that , I was rearended by a drunk and couldn't walk for bout a year... :\

Still love those FIC boards though! :whistles:
 
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cobracon said:
Yup its a S3 Rage. Good call. I loaded Windows 98 on and man is it fast. I did have to replace the floppy drive, i/o error. Now I just need to get some blank cds to get the drivers over to her. All my jump drives need drivers too. (sigh)
Click to expand...
A functioning 200mmx is quite a good snag really and if you are adventurous it's quite fast enough to try your hand at other operating systems if you want to. I've got an HP3216 with a 200mmx cpu in it I saved from trash which is running a Linux variant with X and Window Maker. It's been a solid and stable machine. Didn't have to hunt around for drivers for any of the hardware either ;).

Seemed to have aquired a number of super socket 7 systems lately ranging from 166mmx through K6-2 350. They cost absolutely nothing and came with some interesting ISA expansion cards, which was really what I wanted anyway. They all had AT style connectors on the PSUs which is handy if I have a need to swap out the mobo with something older.

Tez if you want to start a 486 build I'm sure I have a spare 486DXsomething CPU lying around to get you started ;)
 
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I'm a huge of the Pentium machines (ideally a Super Socket 7 machine) instead of getting a 486. They are usually a lot cheaper to get and by disabling the L1 and/or L2 cache in the BIOS (L1 cache can also be disabled through a utility) you solve any issues with games that might otherwise run a bit too fast like Wing Commander, Test Drive 3 or Comanche.

I like Super Socket 7 systems the most because they are available in ATX form factors, so it's easy to use new parts like ATX cases and ATX Power Supplies. They also have excellent BIOS with support for large HDDs, PS/2 ports for optical mice, AGP for VGA cards with high quality outputs, all drivers, manuals, BIOS files are ready to download from Asus, Gigabyte, Aopen and well documented.

They aren't however period correct and mixing new parts with old isn't for everyone. But in terms of something that's reliable and easy to maintain it's the way to go. Only vintage part that might fail is the mainboard (and CPU and RAM of course but quite unlikely compared to the mainboard), everything else can be sources new or fairly new (new IDE DVD burners, CF cards, 2.5" notebook drives...).

I do have a 486 but I was lucky. It's an OEM Acer and I didn't have to hunt for parts. But I prefer to game on my SS7 machine.

Here is a short Video of my Super Socket 7 machine showing the L1/L2 cache trick to get older games to run at slower speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PtaXJp2iBY

And here are the results of heaps of benchmarking:

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/6906/timemachinefsbscaling.png

It shows you what "PC equivalents" you can hit with various CPUs and FSB settings.

If you want to hit slow speeds go for an AMD K6 (386DX-25 with both caches disabled). If you want to hit high speeds (486DX4-75) go with a Cyrix or Pentium MMX. The standard Pentium lies in-between and is what I am using.

The Cyrix is the fastest CPU with all caches disabled. Wing Commander is a little bit too fast on this one (though some prefer this as during the heavy scenes it will be fine). Wing Commander is a pain anyway as it's always too slow or too fast depending on how much is going on on the screen.
 
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I just got to watch the video. Nice job. Looks like it will do the trick. Guess I'm glad that I picked up this 200 mmx.

Thanks!!

Robert
 
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