Nice to see another Cyrix 6x86 being restored, they are done a lot less often these days. That's a more unusual ST made version too. I'd go with a DOS 6.2/Win 3.1 on that machine myself, the S3 Trio 64 is a VERY good card for DOS games & Win 3.1 will feel snappy on that machine, you also don't need to bother upgrading the RAM then either, 16MB will be more than enough.
I don't think you'll have much luck with getting USB working unless you go to win95B however(I could well be wrong, there may well be modern patches for DOS I don't know about). Serial mice arent expensive or hard to find(last time i looked) though if that is your main reason for having USB.
make sure you have a good heatsink & fan for the CPU, also I'd use thermal paste. Those original 6x86 did run pretty warm & I've heard stories that the ST made ones due to manufacturing ran hottest of the lot.

Best regards,
Chris

The fan is actually kinda not working. It seems to wobble and stops spinning every few seconds. I ordered another 50mm fan to replace it.

I read somewhere that while hot the Cyrix CPUs don't really need much cooling (ie. they can take the heat). That's why they didn't even use thermal paste back then...

I did buy already some cheap Deep Cool Z3 "Thermal greese" but I'm having doubts about 'dirtying' the CPU with it. How easy do these things clean up?

The new fan seem to have some sort of sticky pad in the photo. Not sure how easy to remove that is going to be either.

The USB extension board was cheap and I ordered it just because I was amazed the motherboard had USB 1 pins! Then I figured I could use it for the mouse. I will also buy an used serial mouse probably (new ones seem too expensive for a mouse).

The motherboard also has PS2 mouse pins but I'm unable to find a separate port with motherboard pins.

Not sure where you are from but EDO ram shouldn't be that rare, specially if you have to pay for shipping of the entire Compaq!
If you go with BSA's recommendation of a dos only PC you wont need a mouse unless its for a game anyway.
Personally I would duel boot with Windows of some sort, just makes system management bit more easy.

Cool you still have your first PC, I'm also one of the lucky ones that kept his, people here spend lots of money to recreate theirs and usually have to compromise on things like the case.

With my PC (a 486) even back then I upgraded the RAM to the maximum 64MB, larger HDD, added a network card, this was more out of necessity then anything, but when I restored it few years ago I upgraded the SB16 to a AWE32, the CPU, Floppy to a gotek, but it just didn't feel right and removed all the stuff I added.
Thing is I have a P3 that's better suited for my dos gamming anyway. If I relive my childhood I'll fire up the 486, If I want to play the game with everything on high settings I'll use the P3.

No matter which you OS you choose, add a network card. alot of people use ftp, but I like Windows for Workgroups for dos PC's, Its about the only reason you'll ever go into windows and works all the way upto WInXP without any problems.

Large HDD is also nice, or again what I do, C:\ is a authentic old IDE drive for all those authentic startup sounds. D:\ is a IDE to CF/SD card with plenty of space for all my games, you'll know when you get the balance right for you

I will certainly use Windows. Originally I had Windows 95 on the machine, then 98. But I believe Windows 3.1 might be a better fit.

> If I relive my childhood I'll fire up the 486, If I want to play the game with everything on high settings I'll use the P3.

Oddly enough I didn't even play that many games but I *made* a few small ones. We were not allowed games on the school PCs so I wrote some in Pascal which we compiled from source to play in recess. So... I might enjoy Turbo Pascal more than Quake.

95 is just fine for a 6x86 😀

I like Cyrix 😀