just got an epson equity II+ with monitor and keyboard \ VOGONS

just got an epson equity II+ with monitor and keyboard

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First post, by scottie4442

Posted on 2024-10-08, 18:38

scottie4442 Offline

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Joined: 2020-11-15, 15:11

I live in small town in SE Arkansas and am know locally as the old computer guy. I just had someone bring me an Epson Equity II+ with an MCH-4095E monitor and Q503A keyboard, missing a couple of key caps. opened it up and it looks really clean, although I have not had a chance to test anything yet. I do know that it has a memory expansion board installed just not sure how large.

couple of questions, how hard is it to find the key caps or a replacement keyboard (is this a regular AT style keyboard?)

This is a 286 and has 16 bit ISA slots, what is a really good VGA card for this, I am planning ahead if this monitor does not work.

I think this came with DOS 3.2 originally, I am debating trying to find the original or just going ahead and putting 6.22 on it.

Reply 1 of 2, by Shponglefan

Posted on 2024-10-08, 19:07

Shponglefan Offline

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Nice! The Epson Equity II+ was our first family computer, so I've got a lot of experience (and nostalgia) with that model. 😀

The Q503A keyboard is an interesting layout and was used on early Epson models. I would recommend seeking out an Epson Q203A keyboard, which is a more traditional AT-style keyboard. The Q203A is what came with our original family Epson Equity II+ back in the late 80s.

For video card, any basic VGA card with 256kB or 512kB of RAM should work. I'm currently using an Acumos AVGA1 graphics card in my Equity II+. VGA gaming performance will be largely limited by the 286 processor, so a fast VGA card isn't terribly relevant. These systems originally shipped with EGA cards, which it sounds like your may have if you've got an MCH-4095E monitor.

If you're looking for a period correct OS, I recommend DOS 3.3. This is what was included with our original Equity II+. Later versions of DOS will work fine as well.

If you want more info or ideas for this system, I have a thread where I re-created our original family Epson Equity II+ based on a computer units I acquired: Recreating our original family PC (plus upgrades): Epson Equity II+ (286 12 MHz / VGA / Roland LAPC-I / Adlib)

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 2 of 2, by Half-Saint

Posted on 2024-11-07, 12:07

Half-Saint Offline

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Found this while looking for information about Q203A keyboard. What's interesting is that Epson still has some manuals available for Equity II+ online 😁
https://files.support.epson.com/pdf/e2p___/e2p___pg.pdf

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