Gz on the CT2230. Best Soundblaster card imo if you want everything in one card. No hanging note on it, waveblaster connector ,less noisy than the CT17XX models and OPL3 chip.

vetz wrote:

Gz on the CT2230. Best Soundblaster card imo if you want everything in one card. No hanging note on it, waveblaster connector ,less noisy than the CT17XX models and OPL3 chip.

Yes Vetz, very happy with the SB16 surprise!

How can you be sure there's no hanging bug ?
Its a 4.16 ?

sunaiac wrote:

How can you be sure there's no hanging bug ?
Its a 4.16 ?

I've tested/using it myself and I've not noticed any hanging notes. If you read the wholehanging note thread I can't see any other user who claim it got the bug. The following Vogon users report no hanging notes:

-Cloudschatze
-samudra
-DonutKing
-Ace
-Vetz (myself)

The thread also mentions that some AWE32 models have the bug occur less often, so it might be possible that the bug do exist in the CT2230, but it is very rare.

From what I've read here, and more on quest studios, the bug happens with some combination of I/O chipset and the v413 version of the chipset.
I'll soon receive my XR385, so i'll test on the following combinations :
- CT2760 v413
- CT3900 v413
- CT3990 v413
- CT2230 v413
- CT2910 v413

😀

Guys what could I put in that empty rack?
Would a multicard reader be a viable option? I guess not because of connections. So only option would be another floppy drive?

Pingaloka wrote:

Guys what could I put in that empty rack? Would a multicard reader be a viable option? I guess not because of connections. So on […]
Show full quote

Guys what could I put in that empty rack?
Would a multicard reader be a viable option? I guess not because of connections. So only option would be another floppy drive?

A ZIP drive?

sliderider wrote:

Pingaloka wrote:

Guys what could I put in that empty rack? Would a multicard reader be a viable option? I guess not because of connections. So on […]
Show full quote

Guys what could I put in that empty rack?
Would a multicard reader be a viable option? I guess not because of connections. So only option would be another floppy drive?

A ZIP drive?

That could be an option yes, but I'm not much fond of zip drives.

I ended up going with an ISA PCMCIA card reader in one 486 and a CF adapter in another. You can view it here,
The World's Fastest 486

One other option is a tape drive.

That is one fine looking case!

Exactly the kind of cases I'm looking for for mines 😀
Congratz !

feipoa where did you buy the External IDE CF-card Reader, or which model did you buy?
I'm looking for one in white.

Also can a PCMCIA Card Reader IDE / ISA Type 1 & 2 or type 3 read CF and SD? I'm a complete ignorant on this matter.

In terms of speed is it better a CF-card reader or a PCMCIA Card Reader?

Glad you guys like the case this baby!

The white/beige external CF card reader in my 486 is made by Addonics. I think I got it for $16 on eBay within the past 2 years. It connects to any IDE/ATA port with an IDE cable. You can also connect it to a SCSI controller with an ACARD AEC7720U adapter.

If you want to use a CF card as a bootable harddrive, you'll want a CF-to-IDE adapter like this. The PCMCIA adapter connects through a 16-bit ISA BUS, whereas the CF-to-IDE connector will be on a 32-bit PCI bus. While you can use the PCMCIA adapter with a CF PCMCIA card, it will not be bootable. I'm also not sure if you can find DOS drivers for it. I did test the PCMCIA adapter in Win98SE and WinNT 4.0 with a PCMCIA-to-CF card adapter and it worked fine. The PCMCIA is also more versitle, especially if you want to test out many other PC cards. Unfortunately, I still have not found a 16-bit USB 1.x PC card for it.

By the way, will SD card in SD to IDE adapter be bootable as well? I'ts easy to find cheap new SD card and I haven't seen CF in my life.

Yes, I've used such a card in the past successfully. If it doesn't boot, like the CF cards don't sometimes when bought new, I just wipe them using the clearhdd utility( which I've attached here). Then all you have to do is create a new partition and format it.

feipoa wrote:

The white/beige external CF card reader in my 486 is made by Addonics. I think I got it for $16 on eBay within the past 2 years. It connects to any IDE/ATA port with an IDE cable. You can also connect it to a SCSI controller with an ACARD AEC7720U adapter.

If you want to use a CF card as a bootable harddrive, you'll want a CF-to-IDE adapter like this. The PCMCIA adapter connects through a 16-bit ISA BUS, whereas the CF-to-IDE connector will be on a 32-bit PCI bus. While you can use the PCMCIA adapter with a CF PCMCIA card, it will not be bootable. I'm also not sure if you can find DOS drivers for it. I did test the PCMCIA adapter in Win98SE and WinNT 4.0 with a PCMCIA-to-CF card adapter and it worked fine. The PCMCIA is also more versitle, especially if you want to test out many other PC cards. Unfortunately, I still have not found a 16-bit USB 1.x PC card for it.

thanx for the info feipoa. As I'm working primarily on DOS environment I think I'll go with the CF-to-IDE adapter.
Don't seem to find any white/beige on ebay, only in black...

Just got this for the 486 today. It is supossed to work both in Windows and Ms-DOS, it allows Hot Swap and can also boot in DOS.
It has 2 slots in the front: PCMCIA-ATA compatible with type I/II/III + HDD ATA.

I Haven't tried yet. Would I need to find DOS drivers in order for this to work?

Pingaloka, your at case looks realy awesome.
Also a great motherbord you have there 😀 which bios does it run?

The dual CF-IDE interface is a great find, however i believe CF cards can act up in slave vs master mode on one ide channel, personally i would have loved to try an scsi or ide zip drive to fill the gap.
As for storage i always love to use harddisks, except conner because they are so slow.
Put a quantum fireball in your system...

Btw an am5x86 runs SW or Blood perfectly fine, no problems there, high fps just like early pentiums.
Only make sure to set up 32mb ram or more and have enough buffers in dos for the hdd, buffers=30 will do just fine and run it on a trio64V+ good performance.

JaNoZ wrote:

Pingaloka, your at case looks realy awesome. Also a great motherbord you have there :-) which bios does it run? […]
Show full quote

Pingaloka, your at case looks realy awesome.
Also a great motherbord you have there 😀 which bios does it run?

The dual CF-IDE interface is a great find, however i believe CF cards can act up in slave vs master mode on one ide channel, personally i would have loved to try an scsi or ide zip drive to fill the gap.
As for storage i always love to use harddisks, except conner because they are so slow.
Put a quantum fireball in your system...

Btw an am5x86 runs SW or Blood perfectly fine, no problems there, high fps just like early pentiums.
Only make sure to set up 32mb ram or more and have enough buffers in dos for the hdd, buffers=30 will do just fine and run it on a trio64V+ good performance.

Hi janoz why do you recommend a quantum fireball? SCSI or IDE?

Just made a picture of the case fully packed janoz, it is poetry!:

I have the same CD-ROM. Might wanna replace it at some point. It is noisy as hell.

A perfectly matching white/beige 486-era case. Be sure to match the case badge to whatever graphic card you end up using!