Yesterday I tried to build a ~1996-97 Windows 95 PC using a 430HX motherboard w/ Pentium 200MHz MMX. In retrospect that time period was really exciting for me, yet there was a lot going on with the 3D revolution that I couldn't really get in on. I'm in the mood to play games from that time - some that I never finished, and some that I've never played at all.
Made the Win95 driver floppy for an Intel 82558 PCI card, but it wouldn't actually work. It installs and sees the card, but then it just tells me the device isn't working properly.
Could not hook up a PS/2 mouse because my mouse bracket does not have the same pinout as the motherboard.
I just recently bought a Diamond 3D Monster card, which I was intrigued by back then but couldn't consider paying for. I wanted it for this build. Got frustrated with nothing working on Windows 95, and the Diamond driver CD required a mouse to install so I hit a dead end.
I decided to install Windows 98 so I could at least confirm if this card works.
Windows 98 made some things easier, but I still wasn't able to get the Voodoo card to actually do anything other than be detected in the control panel. Realized I don't know what I'm doing with Voodoo cards, I've never used one before. Stumbled around and got frustrated. Realized the motherboard's PS/2 and USB headers both have strange pinouts that I cannot use with my brackets. My sparse documentation for the board (FIC PT-2200) doesn't explain the pinout.
Thought about using my Tyan Super-7 board from ~1999 w/ AGP and headers that I can actually plug things into. Don't like the anachronistic-ness of that though.
Found mention of a Tomb Raider 3Dfx demo for MSDOS that apparently programs the Voodoo card directly without needing any drivers or other nonsense. Should serve as the simplest possible test that my ignorance can't possibly screw up. If that doesn't work I'll probably make a thread.
