VOGONS


First post, by red_avatar

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In March, I was lucky enough to buy a new house which has a nice size attic with regular stairs leading to it so my dream of having a game room finally could come true.

At the moment, I already have my modern PC there, my arcade cabinet, 4 tall CD cabinets contained my hundreds of original DOS & Windows games and 4 big shelves showing my favorite big box DOS games.

The idea is to also fully set up my old IBM PCs of which I have three:

IBM PS/1 386SX 25Mhz
IBM Aptiva 486SX 33Mhz
IBM Aptiva P1 150Mhz

I want all three to share a single screen, keyboard, mouse and speakers. The keyboard I already bought (IBM KB-8926) and I'm currently looking for a Logitech Mouseman with three buttons for maximum game compatibility

ltmm3u.jpg

Now, I have a few problems which I could use some help with:

a) the IBM PS/1 no longer works. A few years ago I bought an Italian version of it (same specs) which also didn't work - I'm tempted to try and Frankenstein the two into one working one BUT I lack the original software which I really want. The original was in Dutch but English is fine as well. It had IBM DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 with a bunch of IBM specific software + when you quit Windows, you got a blue menu to help you navigate to DOS, Windows or DOSSHELL. Anyone have any idea where I might find this software? The drive originally had recovery data on it which was deleted to make more space (it took a whopping 15MB of a 85MB drive so you can imagine why it got deleted).

b) I would like an easy way to transfer stuff to the two oldest PCs. Right now, I have to take out the drive, use a IDE box to hook it up to my PC, transfer the files, unhook it, put it back in the old PC and put everything back together again which is a pain in the ass. Does anyone know of anything that might be handy to use for this?

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870

Reply 1 of 3, by oeuvre

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2 suggestions... ISA network card and FTP for transferring files back and forth... or buy an IDE to USB adapter. Saves me countless hours.

HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7
ws90Ts2.gif

Reply 2 of 3, by RJDog

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I am having the same debate of data transfer method between two of my older machines... I would really like an ISA network card, but I just can't bring myself to pay more for a decent (i.e. 3Com) Ethernet card than I paid for the system itself... so what I plan on doing is using a LapLink parallel port cable (I happen to have one, but a null-modem serial cable would work fine too) with INTERSVR and INTERLNK programs in DOS. Seems like that will fit the bill (for me).

Reply 3 of 3, by 95DosBox

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RJDog wrote:

I am having the same debate of data transfer method between two of my older machines... I would really like an ISA network card, but I just can't bring myself to pay more for a decent (i.e. 3Com) Ethernet card than I paid for the system itself... so what I plan on doing is using a LapLink parallel port cable (I happen to have one, but a null-modem serial cable would work fine too) with INTERSVR and INTERLNK programs in DOS. Seems like that will fit the bill (for me).

Laplink for DOS for sure. You can use the serial cable or parallel cable. The serial cables were a bit slower but since these all had LPT ports I recommend the Laplink Parallel Port cables for easy transfer of files. It's still slower than a network card but a lot more convenient. Or if you wish you can go sneakernet and use a ton of floppies. The good old days of networking. You could go one step further and go with 120/240MB Colorado tape drives.