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Mini 486 gaming PC?

The CWD5001-ZA, according to a thread I found googling the model number, has the following specs:

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unisys CWD5001-ZA (model No)
p166
32mb ram
1.4gb hd
int vid
int LAN
passive hsink
135w psu
floppy
ps2 mouse/ kboard
1 parallel
2 serial
1 serial lookin port for IRed
and it is beige
-------------------

It seems the eBay seller is just pasting generic specs for all the Unisys systems he's selling, so he's reusing the ones from the Cwd4002 model. Can anyone confirm that these are really P166's instead of 486's?
 
When I looked at them I assumed they were Pentium boxes, but I second guessed myself and looked close - it has an "Intel Inside" sticker, no specific processor listed. This typically means it's a 486, but the stickers for that are usually red or blue, so who knows. Anywho personally I was looking for a 486 anyway. If I'm gonna have a Pentium box it's gonna be huge and laden with Voodoo cards and the like - that's on the backburner though, due to lack of funds. Until then I'm setting up my huge full-height Socket 5 Artec as my Pentium box.
 
Raven said:
When I looked at them I assumed they were Pentium boxes, but I second guessed myself and looked close - it has an "Intel Inside" sticker, no specific processor listed. This typically means it's a 486, but the stickers for that are usually red or blue, so who knows. Anywho personally I was looking for a 486 anyway. If I'm gonna have a Pentium box it's gonna be huge and laden with Voodoo cards and the like - that's on the backburner though, due to lack of funds. Until then I'm setting up my huge full-height Socket 5 Artec as my Pentium box.
Click to expand...

I'm on the same boat... Looking for a compact 486. I really don't have much space these days.

Do you happen to know if Creative ever made an ISA Sound Blaster with an external SCSI connector? Would be nice to add a CDROM option, for some games of the "multimedia" era (such as Wing Commander III).
 
As far as I know, they did not (but I'm not an expert on that). However you have a few alternatives:

- Use this box for other things (lol, this is my plan. xD).
- Put a huge HDD in it and store the disk data and mounting software (SHSUCDX can do some stuff like that).
- Host the disk data on a network share and map drives to it when you're going to play a particular game.
- There are parallel ports on these, though, and parallel port CDROM drives aplenty (they aren't rare yet).

I'm not sure which of these might be too slow, but I'd imagine that expecting a 1x or 2x drive the software can't be tooooo picky about the speed.

I surprised myself with how many ways to do this I thought of.. I've been spending WAY too much time with DOS it seems... yay.
 
Raven said:
As far as I know, they did not (but I'm not an expert on that). However you have a few alternatives:

- Use this box for other things (lol, this is my plan. xD).
- Put a huge HDD in it and store the disk data and mounting software (SHSUCDX can do some stuff like that).
- Host the disk data on a network share and map drives to it when you're going to play a particular game.
- There are parallel ports on these, though, and parallel port CDROM drives aplenty (they aren't rare yet).

I'm not sure which of these might be too slow, but I'd imagine that expecting a 1x or 2x drive the software can't be tooooo picky about the speed.
Click to expand...

The parallel drive idea is enticing... Although, I'm not sure what would be the max speed on that. I remember most games that were worthwhile required 2x or 4x, so 300 ~ 600KB/s.

Mapping/mounting a network share emulating the original CD(s) might work, but some of these games had multiple CDs, so that might be tricky.

Where there's a will, there's a way... I will have my compact 486 with every feature needed to play any game that did not require a Pentium processor. You'll see.

(Then there's always the T6600C.........hehe)
 
EddieDX4 said:
1 serial lookin port for IRed
Click to expand...

IRed?

EddieDX4 said:
Can anyone confirm that these are really P166's instead of 486's?
Click to expand...

I found a PDF for old Energy star compliance data, and it showed that model as a P-200. So you research and mine has shown that machine to be a Pentium class machine, though the exact speed is still a mystery.

Raven said:
- Use this box for other things (lol, this is my plan. xD).
Click to expand...

Slap a second NIC into it and install Smoothwall onto it and you have a very powerful and customizable router. I am toying with this as an idea.

Anyone got specs on those 4002 models?

I might pick one up of each and drive down there to get them (they are about an hour from me).
 
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lutiana said:
Slap a second NIC into it and install Smoothwall onto it and you have a very powerful and customizable router. I am toying with this as an idea.

Anyone got specs on those 4002 models?

I might pick one up of each and drive down there to get them (they are about an hour from me).
Click to expand...

You're lucky - so much of this stuff ends up in CA somehow or another, and I've gotta spend $30+ shipping to get it here.. ($28 or something for the Unisys and it's tiny!)

The router software of choice for me is Coyote Linux, but maybe I'm out of touch with the router OS world. :p

As for specs, this site was created as they started to poof into the surplus world:
http://www.sworks.com/keng/unisys.shtml
 
Sorry to bump this thread, but I had one of these and couldn't resist to post something!

I was in the UK at uni at that time and got one from ebay. Mine had a 486DX4-100 installed. Yes the cooler is passive, there was a metal clip with a thin metal cooler. I used the machine for a long time and it never had any problems. I even took it to Australia where I studied another year. I still regret having sold it, I have great memories.

I ran Windows 95 on it. It was very slow though, but enough to write assignments.

The CF adapter is very clever, never thought of that... I uses a parallel port Iomega Zip drive to install software and games and I had a ISA Soundblaster installed.

Such a nice little machine...

I sold it many years ago to someone in Germany. Hope he looks after it!
 
Just to confirm that the boxes with the "intel inside" sticker ARE pentium. 486s never had these stickers, Intel started this marketing campaign with the Pentiums...

The slowest Pentium supported by this unit (according to the Unisys System Board Configuration document) runs at 75 MHz and even this cpu gets a Norton SI 8.0 score of almost 240!

A 386 DX 33 gets only 35 points, so keep this in mind of you thinking of using this machine to play old DOS games :-D

Question: Are the motherboards of the 486 and Pentium unit interchangeable? I kinda like the look of the pentium unit a bit more...

The 486 units are the ones that have the slim floppy drive, the Pentiums are the ones with a normal desktop size floppy drive.
 
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Mau1wurf1977 said:
Just to confirm that the boxes with the "intel inside" sticker ARE pentium. 486s never had these stickers, Intel started this marketing campaign with the Pentiums...
Click to expand...

Nope, this is wrong... The Intel Inside campaign and stickers were used with 486's. Many AST machines in the early 90's used them. The campaign called for the word Pentium in the slogan (when used on a Pentium system), later on. I have a few OEM 486's with the Intel Inside stickers that I can take pictures of, as evidence.

ADDITIONAL INFO:

"The important role of the microprocessor was being communicated, but to be truly effective the ingredient status of the microprocessor needed to be dealt with. In 1991 Carter launched the Intel Inside® coop marketing program. The heart of the program was an incentive-based cooperative advertising program. Intel would create a co-op fund where it would take a percentage of the purchase price of processors and put it in a pool for advertising funds. Available to all computer makers, it offered to cooperatively share advertising costs for PC print ads that included the Intel logo. The benefits were clear. Adding the Intel logo not only made the OEM's advertising dollar stretch farther, but it also conveyed an assurance that their systems were powered by the latest technology. The program launched in July 1991. By the end of that year, 300 PC OEMs had signed on to support the program."

Taken from: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/intel_inside.htm
 
EddieDX4 said:
I'm on the same boat... Looking for a compact 486. I really don't have much space these days.

Do you happen to know if Creative ever made an ISA Sound Blaster with an external SCSI connector? Would be nice to add a CDROM option, for some games of the "multimedia" era (such as Wing Commander III).
Click to expand...
Creative did market a 16-bit ISA card that supported a CD-ROM. I no longer have the card or the drive, but I do still have the installation software. The particular disk is "SoundBlaster CD-ROM INSTALLATION (CR563) P/N 1213331003 PMP". I believe that software supported that particular CD only and was not generic to others. I have never seen a Blaster with a SCSI connector but who knows, could be such an animal and it would be kool.
Also, I have a model 420 4X portable CD made by EXP Computer Inc, Syosset, NY, which can be internally powered by 8 AA batteries or and external power pak. It comes with a RCA jack for audio out. The interface is via a PCMCIA card and dedicated cable. The setup software supports DOS/Win 3.1/Win95. There was a parallel port option for the drive that I never had. The primary mission for this setup was to give early laptops CD use.
 
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EddieDX4 said:
Nope, this is wrong... The Intel Inside campaign and stickers were used with 486's. Many AST machines in the early 90's used them. The campaign called for the word Pentium in the slogan (when used on a Pentium system), later on. I have a few OEM 486's with the Intel Inside stickers that I can take pictures of, as evidence.
Click to expand...

My classmates' 386SX boxes had Intel Inside stickers on them. Intel started doing that when AMD and Cyrix started gaining ground. Particularly the AMD 386s. Low-tier OEMs like Packard Bell loved that campaign, because it strongly suggested the only difference between their machines and an expensive PC like an IBM or Compaq was the name. In the early days, Compaq flip-flopped between participating in the campaign and not participating, and Compaq even tried to pressure some retailers into removing the stickers from all display PCs, though that wasn't very successful.

The Intel and Compaq reps never came to visit the store at the same time, when I was selling computers at retail. And they always managed to get a swipe in at the other company whenever I talked to either of them.

Agent Orange said:
Creative did market a 16-bit ISA card that supported a CD-ROM. I no longer have the card or the drive, but I do still have the installation software. The particular disk is "SoundBlaster CD-ROM INSTALLATION (CR563) P/N 1213331003 PMP". I believe that software supported that particular CD only and was not generic to others. I have never seen a Blaster with a SCSI connector but who knows, could be such an animal and it would be kool.
Click to expand...

I remember a SCSI Soundblaster, but I think it was an internal connector. I suppose with a cable and bracket you could make it external. It wasn't a good seller though. I had a Pro Audio Spectrum with a SCSI connector. It came bundled with a 2X SCSI drive. The main reason I bought it was so I could move the drive into my Amiga 2000 when I upgraded, but the drive died before I could follow through on that plan and I ended up replacing it with a cheap IDE drive. The PAS connection was internal as well.
 
EddieDX4 said:
Nope, this is wrong...
Click to expand...

My comment was regarding the Unisys CWD machines (you asked this question)

The models with the intel stickers are Pentium machines, not 486 as some have suggested.

Or look at the floppy drive, the ones with the regular floppy are pentiums, the ones with the thin size floppy are 486 machines.

The CWD is a cute machine but it only has a single ISA slot and that slot is also quite short.

With soundcards you already need to make a choice. Stick with something like a Soundblaster or go with a Roland MPU401 interface...

The machine has a parallel port, so using an IOMEGA Zip parallel drive works really well. CF upgrades for the IDE drive is also very doable.

Creative made cards with SCSI but not external... You could use a SCSI card, but then you wouldn't have any sound...

A IBM PS/1 might be another option, at least it has 2 ISA slots...

Creative also had IDE type CD rom support. The drives supported are from Matsushita and should be easy to find. But again, internal only...

From my perspective a later model Sound Blaster 16 or Sound Blaster AWE64 (the non golden ones) are the perfect length to fit into these machines. Coupled with a Parallel port ZIP and / or CD Drive or a Parallel to SCSI adapter and you are golden.

REgarding getting on of these, there is ebay seller in the USA who has whole lot of them. The auctions have been running for quite some time, so I expect these to go on for a while. Shipping for me to Australia however is the killer. It's just way to expensive.
 
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Cloudschatze said:
Umm... The one I posted a photograph of on the first page of the thread is a 486 with an "Intel Inside" sticker. :)
Click to expand...

I understand that but the question was regarding the machine on sale on ebay...

EddieDX4 said:
It seems the eBay seller is just pasting generic specs for all the Unisys systems he's selling, so he's reusing the ones from the Cwd4002 model. Can anyone confirm that these are really P166's instead of 486's?
Click to expand...

And someone said that because it has the intel sticker it will likely be a 486...

Raven said:
When I looked at them I assumed they were Pentium boxes, but I second guessed myself and looked close - it has an "Intel Inside" sticker, no specific processor listed. This typically means it's a 486
Click to expand...

The ebay seller sells two models.

4002 without sticker and with the slim type floppy drive. These are 486 machines. They should take cpus from 486SX 25 MHz to 486DX4 100 MHz. It had one of these units and I remember that the jumpers where marked clearly and it was easy to configure. Mine didn't have a sticker either and it was a DX4 100 unit.

I saw that the descriptions where incorrect, so I mailed him and he checked and changed the specifications. They should be correct now.

5001 with sticker and with a standard floppy drive. These are pentium machines. They should take Pentium 75 MHz to 166 MHz.

I thought about buying 1 or 2 from that seller, but communication was very slow and shipping fees very steep. I made an offer once which timed out and in general the conversations just didn't fill me with confidence. He only sold a few units so far, with a lot of "offers" in the system. So these will be around for a long time, skimming the market.

Anyway the single ISA slot really is the deal breaker for me... At a price like that I want a better package...

EDIT: Question: What soundcard do you use in your CWD and do you use it to drive the Roland CM module? Does this work for most games, because AFAIK the Sound Blaster midi interface is not fully roland MPU401 compatible. I know there is a patch for Sierra games, but I guess other games are affected?
 
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I stuck an SB16 in mine.. I don't use it though, because unfortunately the damn front panel broke off and it's held on with tape - bothers me to even look at it because it's so frustrating.

Personally in a 486 system I typically use two ISA devices as far as "must-have" goes - and that's SB16 and networking. These machines have onboard networking, so I pop in an SB16 and I'm good as far as that's concerned..

Can anybody here fix a plastic case cover? The plastic clips that held it on are gone. I tried melting them back on, gluing the case into one piece.. all that worked was tape, but it looks horrible and is loose.
 
Try K-B Weld. Get it at most any hardware store. Comes in two tubes which you mix apportionately (I beleive that's a word). Does a real good job and its fairly cheap.
 
Can someone please help me getting a soundcard working in my unisys 4002 486/66.
None of my soundcards work, there must be something wrong with the jumpers or the bios.
i have testeed my aztech, ess, ct4170, ct1370, none are found. what lies on 220 i7/5 dma1 ?

Thank you very much.
 
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