No, it makes almost zero sense, especially if you don't bother to install NT 3.51 or NT 4.0 on it 😀. If it's something that will bring you joy however... go for it. I always had a dream to own this historical piece of hardware and I did eventually get one and then even upgraded the motherboard from 440NX to 440FX. Takes a while to get NT4 up and running properly, but figuring it all out is part of the fun. Then, I tried a few games and... now it's sitting in storage 🤣

F2bnp wrote:

No, it makes almost zero sense, especially if you don't bother to install NT 3.51 or NT 4.0 on it 😀. If it's something that will bring you joy however... go for it. I always had a dream to own this historical piece of hardware and I did eventually get one and then even upgraded the motherboard from 440NX to 440FX. Takes a while to get NT4 up and running properly, but figuring it all out is part of the fun. Then, I tried a few games and... now it's sitting in storage 🤣

Thanks bro!
🤣
Now I'm curious about the specs of your garaged Pro and if it's for sale 🤣!

How did you manage to upgrade the motherboard? Did you replace the whole thing or was there a software patch?

I been wanting to build a dual Pentium pro build but they are rare today and expensive.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I been wanting to build a dual Pentium pro build but they are rare today and expensive.

Wow man!
You got a dual!!
Drooling
Do you also have the riser card for the slots? I wonder what brand? And what slots would come on it?
Wow, it "ONLY" wants ECC EDO RAM! Kind of picky, isnt' it?

Pentium Pro does make a good DOS/early Win9x machine. It's just that it's nothing special compared to a regular Pentium/Pentium MMX. I have one, and it's special to me, but I also got it really cheap.

I'm not sure why you need Windows NT on it (unless you have a dual CPU setup) — Win9x would work okay. It's a bit too much for Win 3.11 though.

jheronimus wrote:

Pentium Pro does make a good DOS/early Win9x machine. It's just that it's nothing special compared to a regular Pentium/Pentium MMX. I have one, and it's special to me, but I also got it really cheap.

I'm not sure why you need Windows NT on it (unless you have a dual CPU setup) — Win9x would work okay. It's a bit too much for Win 3.11 though.

Let's admit it... a Pentium Pro beast has its unique charm!

It's for a Windows NT workstation or server.

What about a Dec-Alpha ?

Intel486dx33 wrote:

It's for a Windows NT workstation or server.

What about a Dec-Alpha ?

FASCINATING!

Although I have no fond memories of it (as not only I never owned anything like that, but I never even used once its OS and software), I do have memory of looking at its rare ads on computer magazines and "feeling" like that was the beast of the super-pro beasts, the prohibited dream. Like one of those supercomputers you can only see in movies when things happen in the NASA or things like that offices and they're using those computers. That's the feeling of it when I was a kid. And, similar feeling I had about SGI workstations!!

Intel486dx33 wrote:

It's for a Windows NT workstation or server.

What about a Dec-Alpha ?

No x86 support unfortunately so while a special version of NT will run, there aren't many programs that work with it. At least, none that we would care about.

That said, man... what a piece of history.

I have a PPro 200 on a Tyan server motherboard. I built it mostly for the nostalgia factor, running NT4 and some old versions of software that I had back in the day (statistical analysis, Photoshop 5 etc). Sadly although the motherboard was designed for dual CPUs the version I have is cut down with the second socket and a bunch of components around it missing. I never tried running any games on it, no point, I have plenty of other systems for that.

jheronimus wrote:

I'm not sure why you need Windows NT on it (unless you have a dual CPU setup) — Win9x would work okay. It's a bit too much for Win 3.11 though.

Because the Pentium Pro is quite slow when executing 16-bit code.

tpowell.ca wrote:

Intel486dx33 wrote:

It's for a Windows NT workstation or server.

What about a Dec-Alpha ?

No x86 support unfortunately so while a special version of NT will run, there aren't many programs that work with it. At least, none that we would care about.

That said, man... what a piece of history.

Does it run Quake?

Errius wrote:

Does it run Quake?

🤣!

tpowell.ca wrote:

That said, man... what a piece of history.

↑

Errius wrote:

tpowell.ca wrote:

Intel486dx33 wrote:

It's for a Windows NT workstation or server.

What about a Dec-Alpha ?

No x86 support unfortunately so while a special version of NT will run, there aren't many programs that work with it. At least, none that we would care about.

That said, man... what a piece of history.

Does it run Quake?

It probably does. Quake source code is open, so install Linux on the alpha, compile a binary and transfer the game assets and it should run. It may run in software rendering mode though as I have no idea what video card OpenGL status is on the Alpha platform.

stamasd wrote:

Quake source code is open, so install Linux on the alpha, compile a binary and transfer the game assets and it should run. It may run in software rendering mode though as I have no idea what video card OpenGL status is on the Alpha platform.

Wow man! Quake on an Alpha! That would be a dream in a dream (in a dream)!

Besides the binary transfer megagalactic thing... (I wish I could do this stuff)... and besides that if you're able to install Linux on an Alpha and to re-write Quake to run on it, you must also be able to write a driver for Linux/Quake for the Alpha Video Card... (am I right?)... What about replacing the video card entirely? It had PCI slots! Just put a Linux-compatible S3 968 with 4 MB + a 3DFX Vodoo1... any idea?

aries-mu wrote:

Wow man! You got a dual!! Drooling Do you also have the riser card for the slots? I wonder what brand? And what slots would come […]
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Intel486dx33 wrote:

I been wanting to build a dual Pentium pro build but they are rare today and expensive.

Wow man!
You got a dual!!
Drooling
Do you also have the riser card for the slots? I wonder what brand? And what slots would come on it?
Wow, it "ONLY" wants ECC EDO RAM! Kind of picky, isnt' it?

I have one of those boards(*). It's from a Compaq ProLiant 800 - but the board in Intel486's picture seems to have lost it's CMOS battery socket.
It's a quirky machine in a few ways, and I'm not sure it can be tamed for enjoyable desktop use.
The biggest problem with it is that it's picky about video cards. The card that came with it is a Cirrus Logic PCI (CL-GD5480 I think?) with 1MB. And you can't just swap whatever you want - it won't POST.
I remember reading a discussion a long time ago where people were trying to find other video cards that would work with this board. I think people found 1 or 2 other cards that worked but they didn't figure out the reason why.

The power supply is proprietary, and mine died. But maybe the pinout is documented somewhere and could be adapted to a standard PSU.

* = Actually I have two of them. But I ruined the first board when I hotplugged a keyboard. That was when I learned not to do that. I would guess it just burned out a fuse or something, but I never could find what blew so I bought another.
That was back when Pentium Pro stuff was just old. When I bought the 2nd board for about $10, the seller looked through his junk and filled the board with RAM, a pair of 200MHz 512KB CPUs, matching VRMs, and matching heatsinks. I said thanks and he was like "no prob".
It was worthless and he wanted rid of it all. I should have bought him out. But it was worthless.

I have a pentium pro board and CPU lying around somewhere... I am tempted to play with it a little, but only because we had pentium pro posters all over the IT department at school and I thought they looked cool.

Dual processors aren't useful for gaming right up until maybe the late XP era (think early core 2 duo) and likewise with windows NT. Stick to 98 or XP (2000 wasn't bad either), but if I was 10 years older, maybe I would have used one in a productive environment

oohms wrote:

Dual processors aren't useful for gaming right up until maybe the late XP era (think early core 2 duo) and likewise with windows NT. Stick to 98 or XP (2000 wasn't bad either), but if I was 10 years older, maybe I would have used one in a productive environment

pft, wrong! don't you know the saying "more is always better"?
sure, Win9x cant use the 2nd CPU, and even in 2000 the 2nd CPU isn't really doing much on a games PC but, um, its just better!

Seriously though if its a good price I say grab it.
Even if you just keep it for a year or so and sell it on it'll keep its value and most likely increase as its would make a good base for a NT3+/OS2/Unix build which a small corner of this community enjoys doing