Hi, I really had fallen off the retro PC train because of school, but now that everything is sorted out (finally!) I started to have the retro PC hunger that needed to be appeased. So after some Ebaying later I got my hands on this. And oh boy, is that the greatest thing ever!

Do you just think what the hell is wrong with that machine? Just take a look at the other picture.

It is teeny tiny machine! I love those! 😁

Under the hood beats very unique CPU - I am sure that it is nothing new to you, but to me it was something completely new and strange.

It is 1V (!) CPU VIA Eden ESP3000. I have never seen anything like that. One freaking volt. How can it run on such low voltage?

It was built as Windows XP ready client for banks and other institutes, it was meant to mount on the back of display. But - XP with 64 megs of RAM and 300MHz CPU? No way I am installing that! It will be my tiny machine for playing retro games.

When I powered it up, it was running something called Thintune OS, which I googled later and found out that it is based on Novell Netware.

Nope.avi . DOS 6.22 it will be!

But then I ran into some limitations. I knew that 32MB disk was nowhere near what I need, so I grabbed the smallest HDD I have found (dimensionally) and tried to fit it. Well, I failed miserably. That thing is so small it just can't fit inside anything more then what is inside already. I would have to remove the CPU cooler and RAM, but that would be very much contraproductive.

Some technical details:

That speed!!!!
Ok, I admit it, the CPU is garbage. It is supposed to be PIII-ish time CPU, but it computes worse than K6 at 166MHz. But hey, for my DOS gaming it will suffice and I read that this package of the CPU is very rare, so yays, I guess?

And then - my ultimate test. Will it run Commander Keen?

Yes, it will, and even with QEMM installed it will run Keen 9, which none of my computers managed to run!

But, the integrated AC'97 sound chipset is garbage and the drivers are FREAKING HUGE, so I decided that the only expansion slot will be filled with this sound card. It should be OPL3 but I am not really sure about that. I love soundcards but they are so hard to understand? I don't even know what I have in my stash.

Now it works like charm. I have to sort out some problems. First one I already managed - removed those ugly ass blue LEDs that can be shown on picture 3 and replaced the power one with green and the networking one with red. Then I rewired the networking LED to HDD activity because networking will never be used on this computer, at least I think so. I am not going to for sure.
Second - I have to come up with some creative way to do storage. Right now I have the HDD pulled out of the case, but it is unsafe, as a matter of facts I got a big 230V jolt from the PSU because I stuck my hands in wrong spot. I am thinking about finding some 1GB SSD-ish thing, like what was already in there, but with bigger capacity, at least 512MB, better 1GB.

Or CF -> IDE adapter. That might work too but I have to order some from China and I am sure that it won't come this year. Will see
Next problem - the PSU runs hot. Very hot. I am thinking about refurbishing it by replacing all of the caps. And yes, I am stupid, Why didn't I look up the values, I could have bought them. Oh well, next year...

Next - I didn't manage to run Duke Nukem 3D. And that is what I need the help with. How can I run it? It shows those fancy screens with unpacking all the graphics and sound, but after that it should show the nuclear symbol with music starting but that doesn't happen. Nor in Blood - it gets stuck right after the unpacking screen. Maybe something about DOS4GW? Or Build engine? I need help with that, I really want it to run, because if it will, then it will be the best machine ever! Thanks 😀