Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-08, 02:15:

dormcat wrote on 2024-10-07, 23:33:

Most Baby AT MB with ATX power connector can fit within an ATX case but with I/O shield unoccupied. If dust or foreign objects is a concern then you could cover it with adhesive tape or cardboard. Not pretty, but it works.

There are IO shields specifically for AT motherboards in ATX cases. Don't know how common they are these days, but they are another option.

(Or I suppose just buy a blank IO shield and punch out a hole for the keyboard.)

There is also one over on Thingiverse that can be downloaded and printed for those who have access to a 3D printer. I have it saved in my collection, just in case I ever need it. It looks like it would work well.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4743927

Horun wrote on 2024-10-08, 04:24:

Guess I should look thru my other stuff and see what might work for a beginner in Pentium but expert in computers 😀

Beginner in Pentium but expert in computers is... quite accurate. Had large-OEM store bought systems back in the day, and the computer magazines I knew of didn't really talk about hardware/components the way the online places like AnandTech and Tom's Hardware would.

Was looking on eBay at a P100 system, and that reminded me of another problem I had forgotten - Dallas RTC chips. Obviously a surmountable problem, but... yet another little wrinkle.

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-09, 23:25:

Was looking on eBay at a P100 system, and that reminded me of another problem I had forgotten - Dallas RTC chips. Obviously a surmountable problem, but... yet another little wrinkle.

It should be pretty easy to find Socket 7 boards with coin cell batteries. Most of the Socket 7 boards I've come across have coin cells.

Dallas chips were a bit more common on Socket 3/5 in my experience.

Asus liked them a bit too much on 7 but gave them up for super 7 IIRC

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-09, 23:33:

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-09, 23:25:

Was looking on eBay at a P100 system, and that reminded me of another problem I had forgotten - Dallas RTC chips. Obviously a surmountable problem, but... yet another little wrinkle.

It should be pretty easy to find Socket 7 boards with coin cell batteries. Most of the Socket 7 boards I've come across have coin cells.

Dallas chips were a bit more common on Socket 3/5 in my experience.

These Dallas chips are one of those things that are just... hard to understand. Apple was using those cylindrical batteries that turn out to explode and destroy motherboards 20+ years later (oops), but it just seems bewildering that they'd actually solder a battery inside a chip, even if they thought the battery would outlast the life of the device. I assume there was a reason people thought this was a good idea...

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-10, 01:34:

These Dallas chips are one of those things that are just... hard to understand. Apple was using those cylindrical batteries that turn out to explode and destroy motherboards 20+ years later (oops), but it just seems bewildering that they'd actually solder a battery inside a chip, even if they thought the battery would outlast the life of the device. I assume there was a reason people thought this was a good idea...

I thought about that too .... and concluded that the Dallas were an improvement in not keeping cmos ram+time chip plus an external battery on board was a part+space saver.
Then the chips companies started putting the cmos ram+time in southbridges which led to coin cells. Just my thinking of why they were common from early to late 1990's...

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-10-09, 23:42:

Asus liked them a bit too much on 7 but gave them up for super 7 IIRC

Funny you mention that. Just saw a listing on eBay for a lovely Asus motherboard + RAM + Pentium MMX combo and I was thinking to myself 'self, too bad this isn't ATX, this would be perfect otherwise'. And then I saw a photo of the board POSTing that showed a CMOS battery error... and I thought about your post... and... well, I can't see a coin-cell battery. No Dallas chip that I can see, but there's an 'Odin' chip that looks like it very well could be the same thing.

Oh well, this is a multi-month project. Since it seems no one suggested anything wildly different from a traditional full AT/ATX desktop, I think the first step might be to find a case I like...

I think they lasted longer than the lithium packs velcroed inside 5170 ATs, those seemed to give out at about 8-10 years while Dallas, despite smaller battery seemed to do 10-15.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-10-10, 01:46:

I think they lasted longer than the lithium packs velcroed inside 5170 ATs, those seemed to give out at about 8-10 years while Dallas, despite smaller battery seemed to do 10-15.

Yes they do last longer, have seen original 1999 dated Dallas RTC still working proper just recently. Never get that from a coin cell or a lithium pack of the 80's 😀

added:

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-10, 01:46:

Oh well, this is a multi-month project. Since it seems no one suggested anything wildly different from a traditional full AT/ATX desktop, I think the first step might be to find a case I like...

Keeping looking around, you might get lucky and find a full working Pentium system in a good looking case for very reasonable. Check the thrift stores and ebay often !

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-10, 01:46:

No Dallas chip that I can see, but there's an 'Odin' chip that looks like it very well could be the same thing.

There are a number of different manufacturers of these chips: Dallas, Benchmarq, Odin, ST, are some of the ones I've seen on boards.

Most types can be swapped with modern replacements. If they're already socketed, it's just a drop-in replacement.

StriderTR wrote on 2024-10-08, 14:45:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-08, 02:15:

dormcat wrote on 2024-10-07, 23:33:

Most Baby AT MB with ATX power connector can fit within an ATX case but with I/O shield unoccupied. If dust or foreign objects is a concern then you could cover it with adhesive tape or cardboard. Not pretty, but it works.

There are IO shields specifically for AT motherboards in ATX cases. Don't know how common they are these days, but they are another option.

(Or I suppose just buy a blank IO shield and punch out a hole for the keyboard.)

There is also one over on Thingiverse that can be downloaded and printed for those who have access to a 3D printer. I have it saved in my collection, just in case I ever need it. It looks like it would work well.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4743927

I 3D Print all of my IO shields anymore. You can also buy "blank" metal IO shields and put the holes in them yourself.

It amazes me all of the configurations of IO shields over the years. I have a whole box that I've never found a motherboard for yet.

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-08, 01:53:

Well, my loyalties are... flexible... when it comes to retro systems. Already built a 98SE machine on AMD/VIA, which is somethin […]
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chinny22 wrote on 2024-10-07, 23:32:

If you're a member of team Intel, then a MMX is definitely what you want for dos games.
Problem is it's a very popular platform so motherboards are already expensive, I wouldn't limit myself to 1 specific board, rather leave it to fate and go with what is available in your price range.

Well, my loyalties are... flexible... when it comes to retro systems. Already built a 98SE machine on AMD/VIA, which is something I would never have touched back in the day.

And I suppose there's something a bit ironic about a dude who wouldn't touch non-Intel on a modern system in almost 25 years having mostly non-Intel retro systems... 😀

Are there any non-Intel options here, though, other than the somewhat obvious K6-2s on SS7?

Anything non-Intel during the Win95/98 years was to be avoided IMO. Just too many issues with chipset drivers, performance, etc. I had a small side business where I built PC's (during that timeframe) and I would not touch them as I'd inevitably spend way more time trying to get non-Intel chipsets to run properly.

Now, I did and still do run an AMD K6-2 on certain Intel Chipset boards (HX and TX) but the 233MMX processors are so close to those in performance that there's not really a lot of reason to do so anymore as prices are cheap-ish on both of those chips.

Pentium MMX computers seem like they should be Win9x computers to me. They rarely shipped with DOS. They did Win 9x fine. My experience was that Dos 6.022 was way in the rear view mirror by that point. And those late DOS games generally played nice with Windows, so using Windows wasn't prohibitive.

I did a lot of DOS on 8088 computers, but I have a hard time working on them today. Watching their little brains struggle to print the output of a DIR command on the screen is fun for a second, but painful in large doses. And a key part of the late DOS experience was artfully arranging TSR's and device drivers into upper memory blocks. It's just not quite the same interest if the config.sys doesn't have EMM386.

So that's why for me, the golden age of DOS was the 386 20Mhz. They were the "Ship of the line" so to speak from 1988 to 1990. If you had one of those in 1991 you might not have the latest greatest, but you had a solid computer. They were still the "Minimum Viable Product" up through 1994. Good enough to fidget about in Windows 3.x as needed and not only did they handle DOS 6 (MS or DR) fine, it ran better than all the previous versions of DOS. And for developers during that time, if your software didn't run on a 386 with 4MB of ram, you didn't have market mass. They were around for a long time, they were almost as plentiful as the original PC & XT, and like the originals, they set the base line performance for a generation of software.

Doom and Win95 finally smothered the life out of those systems, forcing them into obsolescence during 1995, but the 386-20 had a good run up to then. So that's why for me, DOS is a 386-20.

douglar wrote on 2024-10-10, 15:44:

Pentium MMX computers seem like they should be Win9x computers to me. They rarely shipped with DOS. They did Win 9x fine. My experience was that Dos 6.022 was way in the rear view mirror by that point. And those late DOS games generally played nice with Windows, so using Windows wasn't prohibitive.

And I guess I would view retro machines the other way around. Look at what makes good 98SE retro machines - many of them would have shipped with Win2000 or even XP. And most of the good XP machines shipped with 7, maybe Vista, maybe even the dreadful Windows 8. To me, that is how the Wintel PC platform rolls - the best hardware for a given OS comes out years after that OS stops being the default preloaded on most machines.

By that logic, I think Pentium MMXes or even 440BX PII/PIIIs are DOS machines. Aren't there Win3.1 drivers for TNT2 cards?

Maybe this is just my trauma speaking, but the only DOS machine I ever had back in the day was an AST 486DX2/50 that got upgraded to Win95 on August 24, six months later. Learned a lot about DOS, memory management (go QEMM), all kinds of other things in those six months though. If I am going to relive that DOS experience (something I thought was behind me forever 29 years ago)... don't I want a better machine than my mediocre 486?

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-10, 16:31:

By that logic, I think Pentium MMXes or even 440BX PII/PIIIs are DOS machines.

You can't slow down a Pentium 2 with the same degree of precision as a Pentium MMX. The test registers which SetMul uses for that don't apply to P2/P3 CPUs.

Aren't there Win3.1 drivers for TNT2 cards?

Not stable ones, as far as I'm aware. Just some beta versions that may or may not work. From that era, Voodoo 3 (or rather Velocity) cards have official Win 3.1 driver support, which works quite well. Matrox Millennium G400 drivers for Win 3.1 should also work fine.

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-10, 16:31:

Maybe this is just my trauma speaking, but the only DOS machine I ever had back in the day was an AST 486DX2/50 that got upgraded to Win95 on August 24, six months later. Learned a lot about DOS, memory management (go QEMM), all kinds of other things in those six months though. If I am going to relive that DOS experience (something I thought was behind me forever 29 years ago)... don't I want a better machine than my mediocre 486?

Totally hear what you are saying. "Why use a less than optimal hardware for a build if I don't have to?" Makes perfect sense. Nothing wrong with that. There's a certain thrill when you get to see things run better that the software developers could ever imagine.

Yet I always find myself working the other way. I end up with the hardware first and start pondering "What's the fanciest OS that I can put on it without making it a paperweight?". Back in the day, I upgraded my 386sx-20 to OS/2 2.0 beta and used it for daily DOS software development in 1992. I wouldn't recommend that build to people today, but it was functional once I got a Mach32 card for it. So I guess I've been pushing the OS limit for quite a while!

If I am going to relive that DOS experience (something I thought was behind me forever 29 years ago)... don't I want a better machine than my mediocre 486?

The thing about a "DOS" (Disk operating system) means that, especially older versions, would originally directly run off a floppy disk. In fact there is a certain fascination to me in early machines which explicitly dont even have a HDD. To me, a 486 has a more direct link to a real "DOS" experience. While later machines will still operate DOS 6.22 and the earliest Win95 also came on floppy disks, to me the 486 with Dos 6.22 always felt like the end of an era.

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-10, 16:31:

Maybe this is just my trauma speaking, but the only DOS machine I ever had back in the day was an AST 486DX2/50 that got upgraded to Win95 on August 24, six months later. Learned a lot about DOS, memory management (go QEMM), all kinds of other things in those six months though. If I am going to relive that DOS experience (something I thought was behind me forever 29 years ago)... don't I want a better machine than my mediocre 486?

A lot of it may come down to which era of games or software you want to use.

One of my favorite DOS system is my 486 DX-33. IMHO, it's an ideal performance sweet-spot for early 90s games. Fast enough to deliver decent performance, but slow enough for a lot of speed sensitive titles. And I can dial it down to a 386 level with a literal push of a button.

It's nice to have a system where I know that I can just turn it on and the games I want to play just work.

Aui wrote on 2024-10-11, 00:39:

The thing about a "DOS" (Disk operating system) means that, especially older versions, would originally directly run off a floppy disk. In fact there is a certain fascination to me in early machines which explicitly dont even have a HDD.

Spent many, many years (until early 1995 in fact) with a floppy-only Mac, so... been there, got the trauma. Can't imagine a floppy-only MS-DOS system would be materially different, except it would be missing the classic Mac OS's very clever floppy handling.

Funny thing is - things like FloppyEmus on the Mac side and Gotek floppy emulators on the PC side make floppy-only systems far, far more viable now than back in the day.

The one amazing thing about the floppy-only machines is that they are very, very, very friendly kid/experimenting friendly. Systems with fixed storage are not - a little wrong 'experimenting' and the parents are not getting any of their Important Adult Work done on the broken computer. Whereas with a floppy-only system, power off, put in the parent's boot disk, boom, back in business.

It's interesting - I was writing a big thing on Reddit a few days ago responding to someone who didn't understand why I called the classic Mac OS "interesting" when their memories of it are about as negative as my memories of my last six months with 98SE. And my conclusion there was that fundamentally, it's about nostalgia/fascination vs trauma. If you used something for daily use back in the day for a few years after it was past its prime (and presumably you did so because you were forced to, i.e. because you/your family couldn't afford something more modern), you've got decades of built-up resentment at the thing and can't understand how someone else could see anything positive in that hunk of e-waste. If you had something but stopped dailying it back when it was still respectably current, you are feeling nostalgic towards it. And if you're too young to have experienced a particular era, you're fascinated by it.

douglar wrote on 2024-10-10, 15:44:

Pentium MMX computers seem like they should be Win9x computers to me. They rarely shipped with DOS. They did Win 9x fine. My experience was that Dos 6.022 was way in the rear view mirror by that point. And those late DOS games generally played nice with Windows, so using Windows wasn't prohibitive.

Computer companies and retailers needed Win95 or any new OS for advertising purposes: the new Win95 GUI attracted many new users back then so companies didn't want to be branded as "still using DOS command lines," which was an important reason that discouraged many computer novices. Most of the time companies would offer an older OS ONLY when the new OS received too many negative user feedbacks (e.g. Vista).

1997 was a turning point though: games like Quake and Tomb Raider were DOS games in 1996, but their respective sequels released in 1997 switched to Windows. IIRC Fallout (happy 27th birthday!) was one of the last major masterpiece titles that could run under DOS.

Doom and Win95 finally smothered the life out of those systems, forcing them into obsolescence during 1995, but the 386-20 had a good run up to then. So that's why for me, DOS is a 386-20.

Had a 386DX-20 between 1990-6, had only 1 MB RAM for two years then upgraded to 4 MB afterwards. It started with MS-DOS 3.3 and was upgraded to 5.0 and 6.20 afterwards. Could run just about every 320x200 (Mode 13h) game and even could run selected games at 640x480 VESA, although running games with Doom engine was a bit choppy with limited framerates. Still keeping the CPU, although a matching MB would be rare and pricy.

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-10, 16:31:

Look at what makes good 98SE retro machines - many of them would have shipped with Win2000 or even XP.

Ditto. Have to admit that my daily Win98SE build has both MB and CPU designed in 2005 (Asus K8V-MX + Sempron 3100+), along with a 2003 GPU (Radeon 9600 Pro). 😅

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-10, 18:04:

Aren't there Win3.1 drivers for TNT2 cards?

From that era, Voodoo 3 (or rather Velocity) cards have official Win 3.1 driver support, which works quite well.

Just curious: were there official Win31 driver for Banshee? Similar questions had been asked at VOGONS as well as other retro forums but saw no finite answer or test result in replies. It's kind of strange seeing Velocity 100 (with Avenger core) had official Win31 driver yet Banshee that came out a year earlier didn't.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-11, 01:06:

One of my favorite DOS system is my 486 DX-33. IMHO, it's an ideal performance sweet-spot for early 90s games. Fast enough to deliver decent performance, but slow enough for a lot of speed sensitive titles. And I can dial it down to a 386 level with a literal push of a button.

It's nice to have a system where I know that I can just turn it on and the games I want to play just work.

Can't agree with you more! 👍 486DX-33 builds were very common back in 1993; I felt envious when I saw Doom with such fluidity never before seen on my 386DX-20. Coupled with 8 MB RAM and equipped with a turbo button, I'd say it could run every non-3D DOS game with ease.

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-11, 01:19:

The one amazing thing about the floppy-only machines is that they are very, very, very friendly kid/experimenting friendly. Systems with fixed storage are not - a little wrong 'experimenting' and the parents are not getting any of their Important Adult Work done on the broken computer. Whereas with a floppy-only system, power off, put in the parent's boot disk, boom, back in business.

That's why we need more lightweight OS capable of running on flash memory-based removable media. 😉