First post, by Hellistor
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Hello everybody!
I've wanted to get a 486 Battlestation up and running for quite some time now. They are however quite rare around here so it took me a long time to find something suitable.
A week ago I picked up a 486 System in my area. The previous owner had it set up for some old games and sold it to me for a good price.
When I got it home I immediately went to cleaning everything up.
I also changed the frontpanel, soundcard, hard drive, and I added a 5 1/4' floppy drive.
Then I installed MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 on it.
I originally tried to get MS-DOS 7.10 to work (Because FAT32) but the sound driver would not work on Win 3.11 under that version of DOS.
Here's the full hardware spec sheet:
Motherboard: Aopen/Acer VI15G
CPU: AMD AM486DX4 100Mhz
L2 Cache: 256KB
RAM: One 32MB Stick of 72Pin 60ns EDO RAM
I/O Controller: Goldstar VLB I/O Controller, Serial 1&2, Parallel, Gameport (Disabled), IDE, Floppy
Graphics Card: Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 VLB Card with 1MB VRAM
Soundcard: Terratec Maestro 32/96 (SB Pro compatibility and built in High Quality Midi)
CD Drive: LiteOn CD/RW Drive
Floppy Drive A: Alps 3,5' 1,44MB Drive
Floppy Drive B: Mitsumi 5 1/4' 1,2MB Drive
Hard Drive: 4GB Western Digital (Two 2GB Partitions)
Peripherals:
Monitor: Fujitsu Siemens C775
Keyboard: Cherry G80-1100 With Cherry MX Black switches. (I replaced it with an IBM Model M after I took the Pics.)
Mouse: Microsoft Serial Mouse 2.0A
Speakers: NEC Stereo Speakers
In the future I want to add a NIC to make file transfer easier. Now it's either a truckload of floppies, burning CDs or plugging the HDD into another system.
I have my main retro rig, which has USB 2.0. I'm going to use that as a "File server" of sorts to be the middle man between my modern PC and my older USB-less machines.
Now, Here's some Pictures! A full album with the high resolution versions can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/WTTxC
Finished Product first:
This is it running Ultima 6 - The False Prophet. To run this game I needed to disable the internal cache. Otherwise the game runs too fast and the music becomes garbled garbage.
Here's a full inside view.
Closeup of the expansion cards. I ordered them by size to make it look neat. I really like the look of that Terratec Maestro 32/96.
You can see the CPU cooler under the IDE cable.
Rear I/O. From Left to Right and Top to Bottom: Din Keyboard Port, 25 Pin Serial Port, DE-9 Serial Port, Parallel Port, Cirrus Logic SVGA Port, Terratec Maestro 32/96 with Speaker out, Line in 1, Line in 2, Microphone, and Gameport.
The Turbo Button works! With the Turbo on it runs at the full 100MHz speed. Setting the display correctly was a lot of trial and error. I couldn't find a schematic anywhere.
With the Turbo off it runs somewhere between a 40MHz 386 and a 33MHz 486 so I picked 35 cause it looks neat.
NOW ONTO SOME GAMES!
Jazz Jackrabbit! A DOS gaming classic.
Tyrian 2000. I love this game especially because of the kickass soundtrack
One Must Fall 2097. Great fighting game with a great soundtrack.
Master of Magic. I only have this on here because the previous owner couldn't get it to work and I wanted to figure out how he can get it running on his other PCs. Looks Fun though.
DOOM, enough said!
Last but not least, Windows 3.11
I don't really have much use for it now but I figured, why not? It's useful for file managing.
I welcome any suggestions for games and useful software for both DOS and Windows 3.11. Right now I still have 1.6GB free on the C: Partition and the D: Partition is still untouched. I need to fill that!
For you curious people on here the computer that the monitor is sitting on is an IBM 300Pl.
It's running a 550MHz "Katmai" Pentium 3, with 256MB PC100 RAM, a Diamond Voodoo Banshee 16MB, Onboard Cirrus Logic CS 4235 soundchip, 13GB HDD, 1.44MB 3 1/2' floppy drive and a CD Drive.
I'm planning on making a post like this for it soon.
The guitar amp in the background is a Hughes and Kettner Coreblade with Groove Tubes USA 6l6GC tubes and a Harley Benton 212 cabinet with Vintage 30s.
So this is it, my newest toy.
I hope you like it!
UPDATES:
Since I put up this thread I have added a Roland MT-32, a Roland SC-33 and a Quickshot Squadron Commander.
I have also switched out the keyboard for an IBM Model M. I also had to switch out the speakers, since they were slightly defective.
You can find the updates on page 2 and 3.