VOGONS


First post, by ReeseRiverson

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Well sort of, I may find a 486 based motherboard to put back in, but for now, a 75MHz Intel Pentium shall do, right? 😁

Well, to start off, this case is one of my favorites, that I had gotten years back, which had a 486 motherboard in it. Which worked well until it had beep codes... check the second motherboard and description here: Questions on a few pieces of hardware...

Then I ended up having some brainiac idea of modding the case at some time, and kind of mucked up/lost the 3.5" bay tray, which held the harddrive and floppy. 😵 Fortunately 5.25" to 3.5" bay adapters exist! Well, this only answers the issue for a floppy drive, doesn't it? Well, yeah, but I will just use a compact flash to IDE adapter to remedy the HDD part. 😀

This motherboard has one of those Real Time Clocks too, an ODIN OEC12C887A with a dead battery. Through some research I learned that Real Time Clocks are not rechargeable and yada yada... so until I can source a replacement (If anyone knows of any good matches to this one?), I hacked it up to be wired into a pair of double A batteries for the needed 3 volts. After that, my settings got saved!

One of my favorite features of this case, is the built in speakers... I know they arn't the greatest things but I don't care, I just love how it has a built in amp and LED meters!
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It isn't tidied up yet, right now it was more of getting it working sort of deal going on here:
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Rear side, and when I got it, they had cables leading outside the case to some adapter to a 3.5mm jack for the mic and speaker connectors. Well, no need with the MB_Pro header on the soundblaster cards. 😁
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Hack job done to the Real Time Clock... Temporary solution until I get a replacement:
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Then some Day of the Tentacle! Okay, not a major stress test on a 75MHz Pentium, but hey, it's a great game!
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I have 16MB of RAM installed currently, as well as Windows 95. (Yes, Windows 95 on an 8GB Compact Flash Card. I don't honestly know why some people seem against the use of the OS on a CF card, but it runs well enough for me, and plus I have no choice. 🤣 )

I'm still tempted on a 486 back in this sort of case, but I don't know at the moment. Doesn't Pentium based systems need a case with a case fan or something or would I be fine?

Also excuse me for the terribly yellowed optical drive. I need to get more decent optical drives and floppy drives that actually work. 🤣

Reply 1 of 19, by swampfox

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You can replace that ODIN with a Maxim Integrated (formerly Dallas) DS12887A.
You can get them from Mouser or Digi-Key. They're pretty cheap.

Swampfox's Computing - Google+ and YouTube: https://plus.google.com/108854180391399268575

Reply 2 of 19, by ReeseRiverson

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swampfox wrote:

You can replace that ODIN with a Maxim Integrated (formerly Dallas) DS12887A.
You can get them from Mouser or Digi-Key. They're pretty cheap.

So these then, huh? http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/DS12 … 87%2B-ND/956874

Do they even have a battery in them? Picture looks like it's only a thin chip.

Reply 3 of 19, by Mau1wurf1977

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You can get replacements (DALLAS):

Biostar MB-8433UUD-A

They are available cheap on eBay. But if yours is hacked, then why worry about it? All it needs is the external battery...

That case looks awesome. Never seen anything like it. With the LED lights and some retro music going 🤣

CF cards are fine. They have an issue with write performance of very small files, but how often does this actually happen on a Widows 98 build? I used 4GB Microdrives and the performance was fine. I think we often get carried away in wanting the best, totally forgetting just how SLOW old hardrives really were.

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Reply 4 of 19, by ReeseRiverson

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

You can get replacements (DALLAS):

Biostar MB-8433UUD-A

They are available cheap on eBay. But if yours is hacked, then why worry about it? All it needs is the external battery...

Nice looking board there!

Also, because I just would like the cleaner look of it. Plus I guess just me being a tad nervous about modifying a part I never did have too much knowledge on. Was a pain to hack into but I am glad it worked. 😀

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

That case looks awesome. Never seen anything like it. With the LED lights and some retro music going 🤣

Thanks! I should definitely just record a video of it playing with my camera. 😀

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

CF cards are fine. They have an issue with write performance of very small files, but how often does this actually happen on a Widows 98 build? I used 4GB Microdrives and the performance was fine. I think we often get carried away in wanting the best, totally forgetting just how SLOW old hardrives really were.

Well, Windows 95 in this case, but I see your point. 😀

With that said about how slow the old harddrives are, the same can be said about reliability. 😀

Reply 7 of 19, by ReeseRiverson

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Okay, update! I took a couple of drives out of another machine that may not be used much, to put in here for now, and I looked through my pile of 3.5" bay covers and found one that'll fit nicely. Much cleaner now!

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Tiremaster400 wrote:

That is a nice computer, I like the early Pentium socket 5 processors. I see a Voodoo 1 in there.

Thanks, and yeah! 😀

zstandig wrote:

That's gotta be one of the cooest cases I've ever seen.

I have to agree 100%. 😁

I'd like to get the metal all cleaned up on this case too, getting rid of some surface rust and all.

Reply 9 of 19, by chinny22

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Never seen anything like at, and with 2 mic sockets! cool little juke box.
Is the Mhz display for the clock speed? if so why no 75?

Reply 11 of 19, by sliderider

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I love the case,too.I know back when multimedia was the buzzword manufacturers did a lot of crazy things like that, some to better effect than others.That one looks like one of the better efforts to come out of that time period.

Reply 12 of 19, by Mau1wurf1977

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Sorry if I asked this question before. That monitor is 16:9 or 16:10 and has a 4:3 mode?

How well does it work with different resolutions / graphics card like 3DFX / pinball games?

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 13 of 19, by ReeseRiverson

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chinny22 wrote:

Never seen anything like at, and with 2 mic sockets! cool little juke box.
Is the Mhz display for the clock speed? if so why no 75?

It used to, but sadly and most unfortunately I don't know where that part went. 🙁

RacoonRider wrote:

I love that case! No, seriously, it's the best case I've ever seen. And it has an actual lock, not some universal key thing.

When I got the case, it came with out a key years back. So I have to keep it unplugged due to to being in locked position.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Sorry if I asked this question before. That monitor is 16:9 or 16:10 and has a 4:3 mode?

How well does it work with different resolutions / graphics card like 3DFX / pinball games?

It's a 16:9 monitor, that has a 4:3 and a 5:4 mode you can choose from.

It seems to do fine so far on everything I had run on it from my computers. Day Of the Tentacle seems good, MS-DOS seems good, Descent seems good, Rayman 1 seems good, Wacky Wheels seems good, 3DFX powered games seem good, such as Rayman 2, Descent 2, Need for Speed II SE...

I haven't tried Epic Pinball on it yet.

However, it seems to look the best if I use my DOS system with the Matrox G200 PCI card. As if the signals are not quite strong enough on the S3 cards I have for this display, while they are great on my CRT monitors, such as my Sony FW900 and such.

Reply 14 of 19, by nforce4max

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Now that is an impressive case 😮
High 5 on the CF card and great build. Use 90% rubbing alcohol to remove the name from off the back that is written in permanent marker.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 15 of 19, by ReeseRiverson

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nforce4max wrote:

Now that is an impressive case 😮
High 5 on the CF card and great build. Use 90% rubbing alcohol to remove the name from off the back that is written in permanent marker.

Thank You, and also great suggestion, I'll try that out.

I still plan to clean the case up, such as getting rid of the surface rust. Deserves some care for sure!

I'm also considering using a different motherboard and configuration internally in this case. I'm not quite sure what yet, but I do have some concerns about the current motherboard.

Strangely, MS-DOS and Windows 95 both only detect a CD-ROM drive when I have it hooked to the same IDE connection as the compact flash card. IT just will not work if I use the secondary IDE header... yet the second one will work fine on harddrive detection. 😦

Reply 16 of 19, by ReeseRiverson

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I know it's an old thread of mine, but since it's this same machine, and I don't feel it necessary to start a new thread just to diagnose a recent problem, I'll re-use it.

Not long ago I ended up upgrading the audio card to have a AWE32 CT3980, with S/PDIF header, worked great, used this system for a while, and today, after I powered it on, forgetting that I had the keyboard unplugged, the BIOS stated there is either a keyboard error or missing keyboard. So I plugged one in, rebooted, powered off, powered back up, and still he same issue. Tried different keyboards, same error.

The dang keyboards light up, so I don't get what the deal is, anyone have an idea? I tried another extension cable even.

What do I do know? Is there a problem with whatever chip controls the keyboard now? Or something else?

It's been a great machine, I'd love to fix whatever has gone wrong, even if it means replacing a keyboard IC on the motherboard. 😵

Reply 18 of 19, by ReeseRiverson

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Chewhacca wrote:

Does the keyboard work in DOS? If so, go into the CMOS setup and set "Keyboard Installed" to "No".

Unfortunately, it won't let me progress. The POST screen does tell me to press F1 to continue or DEL to enter the BIOS, but it doesn't do either. The keyboard does flash its lights after the RAM test, though.

Reply 19 of 19, by TheMobRules

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ReeseRiverson wrote:
Chewhacca wrote:

Does the keyboard work in DOS? If so, go into the CMOS setup and set "Keyboard Installed" to "No".

Unfortunately, it won't let me progress. The POST screen does tell me to press F1 to continue or DEL to enter the BIOS, but it doesn't do either. The keyboard does flash its lights after the RAM test, though.

Maybe you could try to clear CMOS so that the "Keyboard Installed" option gets defaulted back to "No"?