Not a great day today, I went back outside to the shed where I'd stored all 4 of my 486 PCs. Even though they were wrapped up, I hadn't accounted for a disaster such as the shed roof falling apart and exposing it's contents to the elements.
All 4 systems are in a pretty bad way, rusted up. Most of the damage appears limited to the external casing and exposed Metal parts, but I haven't tested them all yet. 1 of them is a definite write off, at least as far as the PC case is concerned, another 2 may be ok once I've cleaned them up.
I've only gotten around to testing 1 of them so far, the least damaged of the 4 -
Dell Optiplex 425s/L (BIOS says it's an Optiplex 433s/L).
Intel 486SX @ 33MHz
28MB RAM
Did have a 1.6GB IDE Hard Drive with Windows NT 4 Workstation installed, but the drive is dead, so currently no HDD or OS.
Not tested it's IDE CD-Rom drive, but they're a dime a dozen so I'm not worried if it works or not. Floppy seems ok.
BIOS battery obviously dead & front LEDs are dead.
3Com Etherlink III 3C509B ISA Ethernet Card.
EDIT TO SAY: It stopped working. PSU and drives spin up, but no POST.
The other 3, not yet tested -
Dell Optiplex 433/LE, Intel 486SX 33MHz, 64MB RAM, 420MB & 820MB IDE Hard Drives. This is the one with the most severe damage to it's case, was probably the one closest to the shed floor. If it was working, it was previously dual booting Windows NT 4 Workstation & MS-DOS 6.22 with Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Also has a 3Com Etherlink III 3C509B ISA Ethernet Card. Also has a single speed tray loading CD-ROM drive, with it's own ISA controller card.
Generic Tower with the name "Intelec PC" on the front. No CPU installed, but it did previously have an Intel 486 DX4 100MHz (I have that in storage somewhere, but needs many pins straightening and needs me to find it's cooler). 32MB RAM, ESS 1688 ISA Sound Card & Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 ISA Graphics Card. 1.6GB IDE HDD installed. Seems to have both 30-pin & 72-pin SIMMs, all slots currently full. Motherboard chips marked Winbond CL-GD5428.
Generic Desktop PC with the name "Total Peripherals". AMD 486SX 33MHz, 25MB RAM (according to my previously documented specs), Tseng Labs 1MB ISA Graphics Card. No HDD installed. Has an IDE CD-ROM and a 5.25 Floppy Drive (floppy not originally from this system, I salvaged that years ago from an old 8088). The 3.5 Floppy bay is empty, I was previously using it for the HDD. Motherboard chips marked SIS 85C4. This also has my ISA Hercules Monochrome Graphics Card installed, probably just for storage purposes.
So, anybody know something good to remove rust? Lol. I'm glad that I only stored 5 PCs in that shed, the rest are safely indoors. I'll probably end up having to strip most of them down for parts, shame.