First post, by Baoran
I got my hands on an old compaq prolinea 486 pc. I generally don't like pre-built PCs because of non-standard parts that are not easy to replace if something breaks.
It seems this compaq pc has some good things about it though:
1) it seems to have ps/2 ports for both mouse and keyboard.
2) It has a coin battery on the motherboard so no leaking.
3) Based on the jumper settings diagram it seems to be able to accept lots of different 486 CPUs.
4) There does not appear to be any electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard. At least I have not been able to find any.
5) The PC appears to be quite small, so it doesn't take a lot of space.
I have not been able to test it because the vga connector on the motherboard appears to require a vga cable that has 1 pin missing, but the person who I got it from says that it works.
Before I decide if I want to keep it or not, I have few questions for anyone who has experience of these prebuilt systems.
1) is the power supply that these compaqs use a standard AT power supply that can be replaced?
2) Do these have PCs any cache on the motherboard?
3) If they have cache, how much ram can be cached?
4) Are there anything else good or bad about these PCs that I should consider when I decide to keep or not to keep it?