First post, by ceeker
Hi all - I lurked a lot on this forum over the past couple of months, and found a tons of useful info here.
I just finished my first build (pic attached):
486 DX/33 CPU
OPTI-486WB (VERSION 2) Motherboard (ISA Slots only)
256KB cache (I had the chips...might as well)
8MB RAM
Trident TVGA8900CL (1MB) ISA Video Card
Connor 200MB Hard Disk
ES1869 "AudioDrive" Sound card
Sony CD-ROM
Running DOS 6.22 and Win 3.1
It was honestly a much bigger headache than it should have been. I had a huge amount of difficulty finding parts, even things sold as "tested and working" had a 50/50 shot of actually being dead - so i've got two possibly dead motherboards, two VLB graphics cards (not sure if dead), several processors, a hard drive, a dud compact flash to IDE adapter, and so on.
I was dead set on a 13" or 14" CRT monitor, but the first one I got (again, sold as "tested and working") had a broken connection in the VGA cable, so it couldn't display red colour - I hired someone to help replace it and he royally screwed it up. 🙁 So I had to track down a second monitor.
After a while I stopped keeping track of how much I was spending on this thing.
...but it works! Ultima 7, Red Baron, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D...as I remember them. 😁 (Well almost - Doom runs a little slow, but it's quite playable)
The machine is quite a bit older than I'd like - still lots of fun, but I'd rather get a VLB-era machine up and running, because i'd settled on an AM486 DX4/100 just so I could play games from after 1994ish. I'm also gathering pieces for a Pentium 2 machine which I've managed to get booting, but I don't have a suitable hard drive yet.
I suppose as far as questions go...
1. Where do you guys find reliable parts? I'm becoming iffy with the 50/50 chance of something being dead (I groan every time I get a card in the mail that has been shoved haphazardly inside bubble wrap...)
2. What should I upgrade, to squeeze the most out of this rig? The video card is probably a bit crappy, but it seems to work OK with everything that I'm likely to play on this. I've already debated a CF card solution as well. I don't think I can upgrade the CPU, which is the main bottleneck.
3. As for sound cards, I have an AWE64 value (CT4520) card in the mail that I had intended to put in the Pentium 2 machine, would this be better than the ES1869 and worth using in this rig though? What other alternatives are out there for a cheap card that can do true FM synthesis? This card seems okay, but certain games have some terrible sounds that I might be unfairly attributing to the card (eg. Dune 2).
4. Where do I find old school plastic motherboard risers? I have a AT mini tower I'd like to mount a board in, but I don't really have anything that works. This current rig had the motherboard already mounted in the case, which was nice.
Thanks 😁