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Optiplex 745, for my "vintage" needs?

W

Webecedarian

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Joined
May 8, 2023
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I have a very old computer which is expected to die any day now. I've been looking for something difficult: A desktop that has BOTH an A-drive for floppy and USB ports, for my vintage WordPerfect DOS.

A place is offering me a Dell Optiplex 745 for $150. Although he also rattled off a list of other things: Optiplex 780, and a bunch of Dimensions, 4400, 4550, 4600, GX 270. They are pushing a Gateway because it's handy, but I think I'd rather have a Dell.

I haven't been there in person yet, but I figured I'd ask here for any opinions. Does the Optiplex 745 seem like a good option?

I should add that I'm a complete ignoramus about this. My existing computer was a custom-made gift, so I never had to give this any thought. So I'd like to buy in person, not online, even though that would likely be cheaper, and my options are limited, since this kind of thing is hard to find.
 
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/optiplex-745/docs is the webpage that lists all the manuals for the 745. Make sure the system described there matches what you are thinking of buying. Sometimes, model numbers get reused.

It does appear to have a 34-pin floppy connector on the motherboard and 2 front panel USB ports so there is a good chance it will meet requirements. Note that some Dell systems manufactured during that time used unconventional power supply connectors so a standard replacement power supply could ruin the motherboard. Make sure it runs before buying.
 
I had a half dozen of those at work back in the day (bought as off-lease refurbs). Several of them eventually suffered from the capacitor plague. If you don't mind recapping it then go for it (or maybe it has already been recapped).
 
I have a similar machine doing the same thing and it does an excellent job, to the extent I’ve worn out a few floppy drives writing disks with this computer. $150 seems like a little much but if it already has the floppy drive in it it’s absolutely worth it.
 
Webecedarian said:
I should add that I'm a complete ignoramus about this.
Click to expand...

My advice is to hire a local consultant who understands the needs of WordPerfect for DOS. It's not so easy as buying a newer computer, the Optiplex 745 or anything else. If the computer you buy won't run the DOS system needed by WP, what will you do? Will you be troubleshooting this installation yourself? If your floppy disk drive does not work, or your USB ports won't work with DOS/WP, will you be able to troubleshoot these issues?

Can you install FreeDOS? Do you know what that is? Can you confirm that FreeDOS will run your WP program?

What Modern OS will be be using? Windows 10? Win 7 or 8? Vista? Can you run a Virtual DOS under those systems by yourself?

I say all of this because you admitted to being a complete ignoramus about this stuff. This is not a trivial exercise. DOS and WP are old technology and will require a significant level of expertise to get working on a "modern" computer that was not even remotely designed to run DOS. It will require some emulation of some sort. Pretty technical stuff.

See here as an example:

If you cannot do this stuff yourself you will need to hire a consultant who can manage it for you. I would let the consultant advise you on what computer to purchase.

Or, move on. Learn to use something else that will run on a modern computer with a modern OS.

Seaken
 
Thanks, Cami. (Sorry, the way this forum functions, I'm not sure if the quoting works or not). This is very helpful about the money. I'm sure I could find it cheaper, but I can get any broad information on what companies made what models with both A-drives and USB ports. The pro who was supposed to help me shop and set it up had been ill and now not returning my calls, and I can't even motivate the store to look at their inventory. So frustrating!
 
Webecedarian said:
Thanks, Cami. (Sorry, the way this forum functions, I'm not sure if the quoting works or not). This is very helpful about the money. I'm sure I could find it cheaper, but I can get any broad information on what companies made what models with both A-drives and USB ports. The pro who was supposed to help me shop and set it up had been ill and now not returning my calls, and I can't even motivate the store to look at their inventory. So frustrating!
Click to expand...
It's hard for them to say because both a floppy drive--or everything in the computer to support one except for the drive itself, plus USB was actually the norm for quite a long time, basically every PC made from around the introduction of USB in 1996ish (though it took a few years until USB 2.0, and flash drives, for USB to actually be useful), until around 2009 or so, either had a floppy drive or was "floppy drive ready" in that you could open up the case, put a drive in, and hook it up as the internal connector wasn't missing yet.
 
Okay, I find this forum system very odd, and I can't tell whether or not it's clear that this is to Seaken or not.

In general, I appreciate your points, and I theoretically did have a tech who was going to help me. However, he was sick last month, sick enough to be briefly in the hospital, and although he later said he was fine, he's now not returning my calls and - cell phones being what they are - I have no idea if he's deathly ill or just tied up with another project.
And, let's face it, I have no idea how many consultants are knowledgeable about WP5.1 in the whole U.S, much less locally.
 
I'm sure there is someone. But maybe not locally to you. As I see it, you are going to have to learn something about keeping the hardware running if you are going to stay with that old software. You will have to be able to fix a "new" computer also. You might as well learn how to keep your current system going since you have to learn some repair skills anyway.

Is there no other option than WP 5.1 for DOS? Surely you could solve this issue by switching to different software?

Seaken
 
I've found this posting:

5.25" floppy on Optiplex 745? will this work

I have an optiplex 745 that shows that has a space for a 3.5" drive so I assume the motherboard will work with a floppy drive. If I install a 5.25" floppy drive in the 5.25" slot above, will it work? If so what type of cable do I need to get. Thanks, Chris
www.dell.com www.dell.com

Looks like it also supports 5.25" Floppy's.


Larry
 
It looks like that’s a post from someone that hasn’t actually tried it. I’m not saying that it won’t work, but I’ve got a 10 year old Dell with a floppy controller on the motherboard that has no options for selecting the drive type, only enabled or disabled, so it seems to only support 1.44MB drives. That might be able to be worked around in software later, I’ve not tried it.
 
Even if the BIOS doesn't support 5.25" Floppy Drives, I'll just insert a V4 Greaseweazle along
with the floppy drive I need, and use the Greaseweazle's USB from my Debian Linux OS to
write the floppy. Simple and very Flexible conversions with the HxC Software.

HxC Formats:
Code: 
 HFE file (SDCard HxC Floppy Emulator file format)(*.hfe)
 VTR file (VTrucco Floppy Emulator file format)(*.vtr)
 MFM file (MFM/FM track file format)(*.mfm)
 AFI file (Advanced File image format)(*.afi)
 IMG file (RAW Sector file format)(*.img)
 CPC DSK file(*.dsk)
 Oric DSK file(*.dsk)
 IMD file(*.imd)
 ADF file(*.adf)
 ADZ file(*.adz)
 T199/4A V9T9 DSK file(*.dsk)
 TRS80 JV3 file(*.jv3)
 TRS8O DMK file(*.dmk)
 Dragon VDK file(*.vdk)
 Zx Spectrum TRD file(*.trd)
 Speccy SDD file(*.sdd)
 PC88 D88 file(*.d88)
 ATARI ST ST file(*.st)
 ATARI ST MSA file(*.msa)
 ATARI ST DIM file(*.dim)
 ATARI ST STX file(*.stx)
 ATARI ST STW file(*.stw)
 Thompson FD file(*.fd)
 HFE file (HDDD A2 Encoding support)(*.hfe)
 HFE file (Rev 2 - Experimental)(*.hfe)
 HFE file (Rev 3 - Experimental)(*.hfe)
 HFE file (Stream - Experimental)(*.hfe)
 Arburg file(*.arburgfd)
 KF Stream file(*.raw)
 SPS IPF file (WIP)(*.ipf)
 SCP file(*.scp)
 BMP file(*.bmp)
 BMP file (disk)(*.bmp)
 XML file(*.xml)
 NSI file(*.nsi)
 H8D file(*.h8d)
 QD file (Quickdisk HxC Floppy Emulator file format)(*.qd)
 Apple II DO (Dos 3.3) file(.do)
 Apple II PO (ProDos) file(.po)

Larry
 
I got my Dell Optiplex 745 today and it had a 3.5" Floppy Drive along with DDVD ROM and DVD Writer
that were SATA. The BIOS does not have a choice for 5.25" floppy drive, but does have a USB Floppy
Drive in the Setup program. The only thing I had to do was insert a new CR2032 Battery, and insert
the MSDOS 7.1 SATA Hard drive and it booted to MSDOS 7.1.

Now, I'm waiting on my Greaseweazle v4.

Larry
 
An Optiplex 745 is worth maybe 1/4 of that asking price if it's fully working, on a good day. There are so many much newer Dells sitting around for less, you can't throw a rock without hitting a pile of them.
 
Both the 745 and 780 minitowers are solid machines for their age. But, $dayjob still has one of each in production; the 745 even has a Core 2 Quad 6600 in it, which gives reasonable performance for the application it's running.

For my own 5.25 archiving machine I have a Gigabyte Z370-HD3P with an i5-8400 and 16GB of RAM, with a Catweasel MK4 in the bottom, 32-bit PCI slot (GeForce GTX 1070 graphics). Runs Debian 12 like greased lightning.
 
An Optiplex 745 is worth maybe 1/4 of that asking price if it's fully working, on a good day. There are so many much newer Dells sitting around for less, you can't throw a rock without hitting a pile of them.

Sorry, can't figure out how to get the quoting function to work.

Rittwage, I'm sure you're right that I could get something for less ... somewhere ... but It's not something I'm capable of vetting online, and the guy who was supposedly going to help me is ill. So I'm reduced to the ONE store I've found in Phoenix that actually has some stock, and even they aren't willing to be much help.
 
It's hard for them to say because both a floppy drive--or everything in the computer to support one except for the drive itself, plus USB was actually the norm for quite a long time, basically every PC made from around the introduction of USB in 1996ish (though it took a few years until USB 2.0, and flash drives, for USB to actually be useful), until around 2009 or so, either had a floppy drive or was "floppy drive ready" in that you could open up the case, put a drive in, and hook it up as the internal connector wasn't missing yet.

Don't know why I can't get the "quote" to function, but this is interesting, Makefile, because I was told that the period when I'd find both A-drive and USB ports was fairly short, from about 1999-2004.
 
Looks like it also supports 5.25" Floppy's.


Larry
Sorry, Larry. Didn't occur to me to specify that it's 3.5 I'm looking for.
 
Webecedarian,
I know 100% that it supports a 3.5" floppy, as I've tested it with Debian 12 - 64 Bit.
Not so sure about a 5.25" floppy as I haven't taken the time to test it yet.
I sent you a Direct Message about were I bought mine and the price. Read about
it in the DM..

Larry
 
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