[Chris]
Experienced Member
Here's my other Magitronic PC, a 486-class tower. Got it at the same place I got the Magitronic laptop, my workplace.
For the past few years, I've had a Magitronic keyboard (a rebadged Focus FK-2001 alps switch keyboard), and I've been wanting to find one of their tower PCs, until this one showed up in my workplace (an e-waste warehouse which also used to house a prop library until the current location's recent closure).
When I first found it, it only had a 5.25" floppy drive and the turbo panel, with the rest of the bays being covered by their blanking plates. Sports an AMI BIOS, and OPTi chipsets.
For expansion cards:
As part of the effort to get this PC to work properly, I wound up harvesting parts from other 486/Pentium class vintage PCs which were DOA or had numerous issues, but their expansion cards were perfectly fine.
As for the add-on cards I added:
For spares:
I also had a 5.25" bay speaker system and added that into the mix. It currently has 8MB in 8 x 1MB 30-pin SIMMS (upgradable up to 64MB), which I have a 32MB kit on its way. It has an Intel i486 DX 33MHz. I do plan on replacing it with an AMD Am486 DX4 100MHz, but I am not sure where I can source a voltage regulator or find the jumper settings to reduce the 5v to the required 3.3v (Motherboard is a model A-B435 if it helps). If that fails, I still have a 486DX2-66 as a backup.
...and before you ask, yes I know about the battery, that's getting replaced with a battery holder to use off-the-shelf parts, it thankfully hasn't harmed the motherboard at all.
For the past few years, I've had a Magitronic keyboard (a rebadged Focus FK-2001 alps switch keyboard), and I've been wanting to find one of their tower PCs, until this one showed up in my workplace (an e-waste warehouse which also used to house a prop library until the current location's recent closure).
When I first found it, it only had a 5.25" floppy drive and the turbo panel, with the rest of the bays being covered by their blanking plates. Sports an AMI BIOS, and OPTi chipsets.
For expansion cards:
- Video: Paradise PVGA1A
- SCSI: Adaptec SCSI/Floppy combo card (For some reason, the Adaptec SCSI card was having issues detecting any hard drives at all, so I took it out but I still have it)
- Serial/Parallel: Goldstar I/O card
As part of the effort to get this PC to work properly, I wound up harvesting parts from other 486/Pentium class vintage PCs which were DOA or had numerous issues, but their expansion cards were perfectly fine.
As for the add-on cards I added:
- Creative Labs SoundBlaster with matching CD-ROM drive
- Marvell 10 mbit Ethernet Card
- GoldStar IDE/Floppy combo card with Parallel port with Mitsumi 3½" floppy drive
For spares:
- Eagle by Microdyne 10 mbit Ethernet Card
- 2nd GoldStar IDE/Floppy combo card with Parallel port
- Turtle Beach Pinnacle Rev C with EIDE and WaveTable connectors
- Creative Labs SoundBlaster 32 with IDE interface
I also had a 5.25" bay speaker system and added that into the mix. It currently has 8MB in 8 x 1MB 30-pin SIMMS (upgradable up to 64MB), which I have a 32MB kit on its way. It has an Intel i486 DX 33MHz. I do plan on replacing it with an AMD Am486 DX4 100MHz, but I am not sure where I can source a voltage regulator or find the jumper settings to reduce the 5v to the required 3.3v (Motherboard is a model A-B435 if it helps). If that fails, I still have a 486DX2-66 as a backup.
...and before you ask, yes I know about the battery, that's getting replaced with a battery holder to use off-the-shelf parts, it thankfully hasn't harmed the motherboard at all.
