Thank you for your suggestions. The FreeDOS DEVLOAD utility did do the job. The challenge was to have the CD ROM drive on drive letter D:, which is reserved for the ZIP drive by ASPIDISK.SYS in CONFIG.SYS. Since no parameters are documented for ASPIDISK.SYS, you cannot assign it to another drive …

I play early and late DOS era games on real 486 hardware. If you have a lot of TSR - i.e. due to Win 3.11 and many expansion cards that need a driver loaded at start - then this reduces your free conventional memory. However, some DOS games require quite a lot of free conventional memory to launch …

Hey pano69, yes, the internal speaker is custom. I purchased a higher quality internal speaker, and cut a hole into the case to make the speaker point outwards. With AT minitowers, typically the speaker was mounted directly below the 3,5" HDD cage, at point blank onto cage. Having a speaker mounted …

I use a Monacor IMG Stageline MMX-30. While this one gives you only 3-inputs, here are some pros of that product that you may want to watch out for while selecting yours: Mixes all input channels in stereo Absolutely no audible noise on the outputs High quality power supply, so no loss or distortion …

P . I . X . E . L . I ================ My 486DX4 retro-PC For starters, just a quick post inside this gallery. Maybe I open up a dedicated showcase somewhen later, including all (troublesome) experiences during assembly. System Specifications CPU -- Intel 486DX4 100 MHz Mainboard -- Asus VL/I- …

This retro-PC is all about pure passion. Back in youngster days I couldn't afford these sound cards. Now I can play my favorite DOS games such as Monkey Island, Loom and Dune with MT-32 music. Also late DOS era games with General Midi music sounds much better with a real Roland Sound Canvans than …

Lucky me found a Russian collector of old sound cards. As he was just about to disband his collection, he sold off to me four sound cards with their original boxes and accessories: Roland LAPC-I Roland SCC-1 Yamaha SW-60XG Turtle Beach Tropez Plus I have carefully cleaned the LAPC-I and the SCC-1 …

Hey GigAHerZ, thank you for the hint. I've already stumpled on the dirty tag issue in this post: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=69382 I checked my BIOS with CTCM already, and as you hinted, it shows my mainboard suffers from it too. I'll get back to this topic later once I have solved more …

System: - 486 with MS DOS 6.22 - Adaptec AVA-2825 SCSI controller - Plextor PX-83CS SCSI CD-ROM drive - Iomega ZIP-100 SCSI internal drive Target: Just for ease of mind, I would like to have drive letters assigned this way: - Plextor CD-ROM drive on D: - Iomega ZIP drive on E: Problem: - Right now, …

You were both right. Summarized notes for anyone who encounters the same problem: - I missed the whole thing about exchanging the additional TAG-RAM chip (9th DIP). - I tested with a set-of-4 chips setup as suggested. One of the ISSI chips turned out to be damaged / non-functional. - The different …

Thank you for the hint, majestyk. Definitely this is one missing piece of the puzzle. I was not aware about the TAG-RAM chip. I have at hand a 9th ISSI chip of the same size that I could use as TAG-RAM. However, before I potentially damage my mainboard, can you tell if the ISSI pinouts from the …

I am building a high-end 486 system. My Asus mainboard can take up to 64 MB RAM. I am aware that 64 MB is way more than I need. 8 or 16 MB was typical around 1994. Question: Do you know of any popular DOS game released after 1988 that has trouble with a 64MB setup? Thanks a lot 😀

While building a high-end 486 retro-PC, I tripped over a L2-cache / SRAM DIP problem. System: - I've got an Asus VL-I-486SV2GX4 mainboard. - This mainboard came with eight pre-installed SRAM chips, 28-pins, 256 kByte Cache in total. Type is Winbond W24257AK-15, see datasheet attached. - These DIPs …

It's a few months back since the last post in this thread, so I hesitate to post here. Yet, this is an evergreen topic, and I like it when I find all related information in one place. By this post I just want to provide to fellow PC-builders some info that I have been looking for while planning my …

Thank you for the feedback. I didn't know of Serdaco's project yet, a valuable hint ... I must admit I am tempted ... but so much high-tech in a retro-PC, I don't know. Already the neighbouring AWE64 Gold anno '96 feels a little out of place, as my DX4 is designed to match with '95, but the AWE64 …

Hello fellow retro-PC builders, I'm trying to assemble a PC that I couldn't afford back in the golden nineties, which includes a Roland LAPC-I. I know, there are workarounds such as the combination of multiple sound cards with external MIDI-boxes that are still available on eBay, MUNT or the like. …