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Got my first 486! Now, what do you do with one?

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ProfessorK

Member
Joined
Apr 10, 2012
Messages
32
Location
Fulton, NY
I got out of work early today and decided to meander over to my usual thrift shop. I went in looking for a cheap hat to wear at work and ended up finding myself a tidy Compaq Contura 400c. Here's the specs:

IMG_20120412_173148.jpg

- 40 mhz 486 DX2
- 12 megs of ram
- 255 MB HDD
- 3.5 inch FDD

I plugged it in at the store (it came with the official AC) and it booted right into Windows 3.1. Well worth the 5$, I'd say. My only question now is, what's fun to do with a 486? I mean, I'm sure it's the same as the things that are fun with any other retro machine. Play classic games, run classic software... I just don't know specifically what to look for. So if anyone had any software or project recommendations, I am all ears!
 
Man you are lucky. I can't find a 486 around me anywhere. Lots of good software out there for a 486.
 
It should run DOOM, I think (might even run Duke Nukem.) I dunno about sound on 486 laptops, though; I have a Pentium Compaq laptop with an SB16 chipset, but you'll have to look and see what that model has.
 
@cobracon Yeah, this is the first one I've seen. Most of the time the stores around here just have P2-P4 towers that have been stripped out. I consider myself pretty lucky too :D

@commodorejohn Well, that's good to hear. I'll have to find somewhere to get the software and invest in a USB floppy drive so I can move the games to a media the Compaq can read. As far as the sound goes, I am pretty much positive that this doesn't have sound capabilities. I can't find speakers anywhere on the thing and all the hardware diagnostics bring up nothing about multimedia devices.

News: I just found a Megahertz brand PCMCIA fax modem card in it's card slot, so that's pretty neat. Sadly, I have no way to test if this works!
 
Regarding Doom, I have an older Compaq I got two days ago, Portable 486C:

IMG_0197.jpg


Doom was released in the 486 era, and I consider a 486 the authentic machine to use for it. It runs smooth as silk and mine is only a DX-33. No sound card needed, Doom supports the crazy sound stylings of the PC speaker :) Duke Nukem 3D will be a stretch - I compare that with Quake which was really Pentium generation. But Hexen, Rise of the Triads, Heretic etc should be ok I think.
 
Whoa, SpidersWeb, that Compaq rules! Mine just looks like a regular laptop, haha. It's good to know that I can play something like DOOM. I googled my Compaq's name and model and apparently it's also capable of Windows 95, but I think I am going to pass. I've never used 3.1 before today and I'm too excited to have a new OS to trade it for familiarities sake.
 
It's my understanding that you don't really want to run Windows 95 on anything less than a Pentium 90, anyway - and the vast majority of 486 games are DOS, so it shouldn't matter.
 
commodorejohn said:
It's my understanding that you don't really want to run Windows 95 on anything less than a Pentium 90, anyway - and the vast majority of 486 games are DOS, so it shouldn't matter.
Click to expand...

Well good then. That gives me a reason, other than exploring 3.1, not to upgrade. My only real issue isn't getting used to the OS at all, anyway. It's the position of the mouse buttons. They aren't left and right, they are top and bottom. Not only do I keep clicking the wrong one (I keep right-clicking everything!), but sometimes I put my fingers where the buttons are on modern laptops and end up just pushing on the palmrest! It's frustrating! I'm just glad this has a PS/2 port. Picking up a mouse first thing tomorrow!
 
ProfessorK said:
Whoa, SpidersWeb, that Compaq rules! Mine just looks like a regular laptop, haha. It's good to know that I can play something like DOOM. I googled my Compaq's name and model and apparently it's also capable of Windows 95, but I think I am going to pass. I've never used 3.1 before today and I'm too excited to have a new OS to trade it for familiarities sake.
Click to expand...

Cheers :) Was donated to me in a broken state but didn't take me long to get it reinstalled and running. It's quite literally a movable desktop with an active TFT screen, only downside is the weight, not really lap friendly! I wont be laxing on the couch playing Doom any time soon lol

And I agree, I use Windows 3.1 or 3.11 on my 386/486 machines. Windows 95 is doable but instead of speed deamon it'll make it feel slow and laggy. I've got 3.11 on my buddy in the picture (helps with networking etc). You can run early versions of Microsoft Office with it and there are a few early games out there too - Civilization, SimCity for Win, and everyone loves SkiFree.
 
SpidersWeb said:
And I agree, I use Windows 3.1 or 3.11 on my 386/486 machines. Windows 95 is doable but instead of speed deamon it'll make it feel slow and laggy. I've got 3.11 on my buddy in the picture (helps with networking etc). You can run early versions of Microsoft Office with it and there are a few early games out there too - Civilization, SimCity for Win, and everyone loves SkiFree.
Click to expand...

I look forward to when I can get some new software on my 3 machine (I have nothing else that uses 3.5 inchers. Just an Apple IIc and a Win 7 laptop). Pretty much all that is on there right now is Lotus 1,2,3 and the software that Windows 3.1 comes with.

Also, I wanted to ask, is Windows 3 compatible with PCI ethernet cards? My Compaq came with a PCI fax modem, but I can't really use that :huh:
 
As much as you dont want to run 95, I really do suggest a dual boot. Helps a ton with data transfer, plus dos 7.x... :)

I run dual boot on most my 486s, its alot easier to network modern machines with win95 then dos/win 3.11. I would also snag a cheap 16-bit wifi card, like an orinoco gold or early cisco.
 
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twolazy said:
As much as you dont want to run 95, I really do suggest a dual boot. Helps a ton with data transfer, plus dos 7.x... :)

I run dual boot on most my 486s, its alot easier to network modern machines with win95 then dos/win 3.11. I would also snag a cheap 16-bit wifi card, like an orinoco gold or early cisco.
Click to expand...

Dual booting is an interesting idea, but I still have to get a USB floppy drive before I even consider it. I didn't realize that a WiFi card was a possibility for this. Are they pretty rare, or should I be able to find one?
 
commodorejohn said:
I dunno how rare they are, but here's a 16-bit 802.11b card for pretty cheap.

I didn't know Win95 supported wireless...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I wasn't sure on the support side of it, either. That isn't a bad price though. I think I may still stick with an ethernet card, though. It just seems like less of a hassle.
 
commodorejohn said:
I dunno how rare they are, but here's a 16-bit 802.11b card for pretty cheap.

I didn't know Win95 supported wireless...
Click to expand...
It does support wireless networking, but with a wireless utiliry that old, setting up security with it is going to be a great hassle. (Unless there's a utility out there that'll automatically detect networks) But I just have trouble finding a card that'll support Windows 95.
 
angel_grig said:
You can also try from Calmira here :http://www.calmira.de/downloads/index.htm
Calmira is a shell that brings win 95 interface in win3.1!Nice to play with!
Click to expand...

Wow, I like the sound of that! I'll certainly have to try it out.

@DOS lives on!! I think the "great hassle" you mentioned is why I am going to invest in an ethernet card. It just seems like an easier solution that will get me faster speeds, anyway.
 
A thing to note with using Calmira is that quite a few win 3.x installation routines expect to see Program Manager as the default shell so may need to switch back to that on occasion in some cases. Once the picky program is installed just switch back to Calmira.
 
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