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It liiiiiives!

olePigeon

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2009
Messages
1,259
Location
Silicon Valley
Took me a couple years to get all the parts together, but it's now working! Had a little trouble getting the power supply to work (tripped my circuit breaker. :blush:) My black 486DX2 with charcoal gray ALPS 1000 keyboard, matching serial mouse, CD/DVD, 1.2M 5 1/4", 3.5" Floppy, Zip 250 (slightly off-color), SoundBlaster 16-SCSI, EISA IDE card, and SVGA video card. :D

Check out that MHz display! So cool. It says 16 when the Turbo isn't on, but I've done some research on the motherboard, and I think it's an error code that the CMOS battery is low. This particular motherboard, however, has a normal battery that I can desolder and replace relatively easily (little purple 3.6v battery.)

Power button's a little wonky cuz it's just sitting in the hole. I'm going to have to glue it in or something.

Next on my check list are some black speakers, a black 1024x768 LCD (maybe an old IBM), Sound Blaster MIDI wavetable card, and a Roland MT-32. After that, it'll be 100% complete.

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Hey! thats a nice machine to be right honest! great for the old games :eek:
What a nice case too! isn't it the best feeling when you finish projects :D
congradulations on such great work :)
 
It's really fun. That case is just awesome, I bought it new-old-stock on eBay. Had everything I wanted: weighs a ton, has a turbo button with display, and ignition keys. :D Worth every penny. I love the RAM ticking at the beginning, brings back memories. :) I'm going to attempt to put 128MB of RAM in it, see if it'll work. :p Might install Windows 3.11.

The game running is my absolute favorite DOS game of all time, Darklands. If you haven't played it, you should. A game way ahead of its time (isometric battle field, animated attack sequences [you can actually see arrows fly out or potions being thrown!]). It was, unfortunately, plagued with several crippling bugs upon release & had ginormous requirements for its time, so it didn't sell well. Came on 9 5 1/4" floppies. Really nice inserts with the game like a full color map and a beautifully illustrated manual. Definitely worth it if you can find a boxed copy on eBay.
 
Nice system :) What speed is your processor? 128MB RAM you may find the RAM ticking a little less lovely ;-) I don't even know if Windows 95 supports that much RAM let alone 3.x.
 
Intel 66MHz i486DX2. It's on a ZIF socket that says Pentium Overdrive. So I guess I could install a Pentium? Meh, just not the same. Plus, I'm not sure if I'd get to keep my nifty Turbo button with a Pentium.

I'll do the 128MB at least once just to see if I can. I could make a cup of coffee while it counts out the bytes. :lol:
 
I am not saying I am right. but I think Win 3.x ram maxes out around 32 or 64MB
and Win 95 is just under 500mb?
Or am i wrong :p
 
128MB RAM you may find the RAM ticking a little less lovely ;-)
Trust me, this is true... I've a late-model IBM 486 DX4-100 that I maxed out, including the 128mb on the motherboard, and it takes about a minute just to count out the RAM... and if you disable the RAM check, then you no longer get the cool clicking. What a conundrum.. ;)

OP, VERY nice-looking case you've got there! You should find that he MHZ display is custom-set with a bunch of jumpers on the back. I had quite the time with trial-and-error getting mine to simply say HI/LO for the turbo switch! I never could get it to display the numbers correctly...

As for the Roland MT-32, keep an eye out on eBay - there have been several that have closed recently at the $50 shipped mark, which is the lowest I've seen them routinely go for about a year (mainly because most sellers are putting high BINs on ones that are perpetually listed, artificially inflating the cost of others, but hey... name of the game, I suppose).

Also be aware the your SB-16 will only work with UART mode on the midi port. This MAY not affect your gaming habits, but if you're looking to play some of the early Sierra Quest games and see the SYSEX messages on the display of your MT-32, you'll need to either patch the games, or you'll need a midi controller, such as the MidiMan MM-401 or the Music Quest MQX-32M, that can support both Intelligent and UART mode. Note: there are certainly other midi cards available, but these two offer the same capabilities as the true Roland midi cards, and usually at a fraction of the cost (I got my last card NIB for < $20 shipped on ebay about a month ago)

Last thing - if that battery is NOS on the motherboard, PLEASE go ahead and change it out for a new one. In fact, unless you're married to the idea of having a lithium cell soldered to the motherboard for authenticity's sake, just desolder it and replace it with a button cell. It's all too easy for those thing to start leaking even though they're functioning fine, and you don't want to ruin your nice new board.

Good luck with it - and have fun!
 
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