First post, by lihinian
- Rank
- Newbie
Hi everyone, new member here with a new project!
Today I became the new owner of this nice Tulip 486dc/33i TC38.
I was on the lookout to find a tulip for quite a while so I was quite pleased when one finally showed up in decent condition. Or so I thought.
Upon arrival I heard loose things rumble around in the case. Opening It up I found out it was most of what was left of the old corroded battery holder. Almost entirely shattered.
Even both ends of the 10pin cable + led circuit + pc speaker has been severly corroded. Not to mention what the leakage has done to the case. 😠
Even the 10 pin connector on the motherboard had corroded pins, as if it was sucked all the way through the cable 😒
The motherboard luckily seems to be in good condition.
Specs:
486dx33
Cirrus Logic GD5428
1mb on board video memory
4mb on board ram
It has no cache 🙁
I got a lot of cool upgrades and gear on the way including a matching keyboard and tulip speakers. 😎
Update 1:
Keyboard arrived, needed some good cleaning.
Next step: cleaning and restoring corroded case,still waiting for new pc speaker, led and cmos battery.
More stuff on the way:
Intel overdrive DX4ODPR75
16MB Ram
Genius Mouse GM-6
Tulip Computer Speakers
Gravis PC GamePad
Yamaha YMF719E-S ISA Soundcard
Gotek
StarTech IDE to CF reader
Update 2:
Today I picked up a LG Flatron 795FT Plus 17" monitor along with some respectable 90's pc speakers.
I was planning on using the Tulip speakers, but those just sounded tinny and weak.
I got rid of the corrosion and rust with vinegar,baking soda and sandpaper. However, new black rust quickly formed all over the place in new spots. Will have to dry it faster next time.
Soon I'll start fixing the front led/pc speaker/cmos situation.
However, I'm still waiting on a pc speaker with a cone, It's an old new stock from the 1970's. Which I believe will sound much better.
Still waiting for:
Intel overdrive DX4ODPR75
Genius GM-6 Mouse, I might end up using the newer Genius mouse though.
When I started I was aiming for an 80's look. But ended up in the 90's stratosphere instead. That might Change If I can get ahold of a cool vintage vga Tulip monitor.
Gotek Floppy Emulator
Gravis Gamepad
Update 3
Redid the case again, this time I only used sandpaper and made sure I dried it right away.
I didn't manage to clear out the rust inside the screw mounts completely. Will have to figure something out for that. The only viable option seems to be sandblasting, which might be pricey.
PC speaker arrived. It had a lot of rusty spots. But not anymore 😀
New gravis gamepad! It came with joystick attachment, manual and CD.
Update 4!
With some luck I picked up another exact same tulip vision line a few weeks ago. It's in great condition and came with monitor, keyboard, mouse and a ct2290 sound blaster 16. So that's what I'v been using. Wasn't really feeling like sharing it, because I wanted to make it work first. 😒 But now It does, so celebration update! 😎
I've got both of my sandisks cf cards to work now. What I did was install ezdrive, and manually install dos becuase none of the dos bootdisks I tried booted into the dos setup. I had to use format c: and then sys c:. Instead of format c: \s to make it work.
And for the battery pack, which is completely intact. I use rechargeable eneloop batteries. They're 1.2v but work perfectly.
I wont use the recharge setting (jumper on J14), because I'm not sure it would work correctly on these batteries. I can charge them myself, if I have to.
I ordered another ide to cf adapter, so I can use the other cf card on the other Tulip.
It will be fun to have 2 different systems, so I can set them up with different sound setups. Maybe get a gravis ultrasound someday or something else.
I have that YMF719E-S still, but that would be kinda samey and thus boring. For now, at least the systems have different pc speakers 😀
Benchmarks:
Keen 4 boot screen without memory optimization:
After qemm optimization and fiddling with config.sys settings. note: dos shouldn't be loaded into high memory, otherwise keen won't have the extended memory available...
...Which is useful for running keen mods like keen ep58! It eats memory, and won't play music in many levels without it.
Update 5:
Nearing completion!
The reason I got into this project was to get a system similar to the old 80286 tulip we had at home decades ago, but with some extra horsepower.
For some games this was too much , and had to install a nice tool like Mo'Slo to make them work.
These Dolch Keycaps help to make this computer look a little older that it actually is. They're really good quality, and actually thicker than the original keycaps.
All in all, I had a lot of fun with this project. The only thing left now is fixing the other tulip. But for now I'm taking a break. 😎
Dolch Double Shot Alps Keycaps from Tai Hao:
Mo'Slo Deluxe 3.3 in action: