Episode 6, parts and upgrades.
Now a bit tedious part. In order to once again be a proper office beige box from ~25 years ago, it needs some proper parts. Also, I would like to improve it just a tiny bit. So I went through my boxes and drawers, and other stashes of parts and found some stuff, which, I think, would be appropriate for a computer like this one.
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As you can see these parts are just as uninteresting and unexciting as the box it self. Which is good, it was not designed to be a great computer in the first place and really, no amount of parts would make it such. Anyway, let's talk about it.
Memory
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Actually I've spent quite a while testing various memory configurations on this thing and I have to say, this is one picky bastard of a PC when it comes to memory! Basically the more memory I've tried to put in it, the more upset it got. Looks like it is mostly happy with anything bellow 128MB, there for let's go with period correct 98MB of SD-RAM sold in 1998, at least it'll make a wooden joke 😄
Video Card
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If somebody at Compaq, involved in making this PC, would have decided not to be so stingy with the Video Memory and would have used 2 megs instead of 1, I would not have any issues to actually use the integrated card. And I've actually tried to. I ran into issues in some DOS games, when 1 meg of video ram was an issue, especially the great Duke 3D, some textures were missing or blinking, sometimes there, sometimes not. At least it can be disabled in the BIOS. There for, I'll use pretty much the same S3 video card, but with 2 megs instead of 1. This card actually performs surprisingly well for DOS and offers great compatibility with software and games. However, depending on the manufacturer and the Video BIOS version, and the like. Some of these might not play well with LCD monitors, some games would go out of sync, sometimes it would look weird and so on. But on CRT these are always great experience!
Sound
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If you want MIDI audio experience while playing DOS games, then Compaq has managed to screw you up real good with this one! Not only they have removed the Gameport/MPU interface without leaving any chance of soldering it back in, but they also did not actually managed to disable them properly. There for, if you use external card for that, welcome to the resource conflict galore! Then to add some insult to injury, the MPU interface that they have removed was really one of the better ones! Haha, you stingy bastards, who buy the cheapest models! No MIDI for you! But otherwise, this is actually a pretty good card. It offers great compatibility with both Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 (New version) and the original ESS AudioDrive. It has it's own authentic ESS FM synth, which really does sound very nice. The drivers are also very easy to use and do not waste any precious memory! I'm missing the original Compaq PC speaker contraption tough.
Storage
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For storage I will be using these Kingston 512MB CF cards, just because I have a big stash of them. They are not ideal for such build, however, really, for Pentium DOS builds it would be much better to use 2 gig CF cards, since Pentium can handle newer games, which tend to take a few hundreds of megs each, so I'll probably have to make a card for each bigger game and a card with those older, smaller games. Fine by me. One thing to be cautious when using these cheap CF adapters from Ali Express with love, is that they can some times allow to insert the card backwards... Just don't ask me how I know.
Also I have managed to find a rather nice 36x CD-Rom drive, which is direct drive and aesthetically looks a lot like the drives offered back the day by Compaq. I'll combine it with a classic Mitsumi 3.5" Floppy drive.
Cooling
Initially I have used a Socket 462/370 heat sink, however, it looks weird to me, so I've found a Socket7 heat-sink with fan. It is a bit too tall, so fan would not fit. Only Compaq would leave a lot of unused space directly in front of the front air went, but would place the CPU in tightest space under the 3.5" drive bay! I sometimes really wonder, what were those guys smoking??? Anyway, I think, I can manage to mount this little fan on the side of the heat-sink. At least the motherboard provides 5Volts as well as 12Volts through the fan pins. So I can run this little fan from the 5Volts and it still spins fast enough while being completely inaudible.
P.S.
I have also found a proper CPU for this box. A Pentium 200MMX. I think it should be appropriate, since the box probably shipped with exactly the same CPU long time ago. Also, this one features a locked multiplier, so it's like meant to be, a real Compaq Special! A locked CPU in the motherboard with a set mull switch! By the time I've done, I'll probably shall be a master of their drunken ways!