informatyk wrote on Yesterday, 11:59:

After years of searching, I finally found a Compaq Prolinea in perfect condition and good price. It has 12 MB of RAM and probably the original 300 MB hard drive, on which the German version of Windows 95 RTM was installed.
I now need to find a way to install a 5.25-inch floppy drive, but it’s missing some unusual mounting rails.

I love that front power switch... Feels much better than these modern micro switches.

I picked up this old clone from a friends balcony today... The case is nothing to write home about but the hardware seems decent

It's been outside for a while so I'll give it 24h before firing it up. The PSU is definitely a weird one. No detailed specs to show but there is some diagram on the top

Shader_BiH wrote on Today, 16:16:

I love that front power switch... Feels much better than these modern micro switches. […]
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informatyk wrote on Yesterday, 11:59:

After years of searching, I finally found a Compaq Prolinea in perfect condition and good price. It has 12 MB of RAM and probably the original 300 MB hard drive, on which the German version of Windows 95 RTM was installed.
I now need to find a way to install a 5.25-inch floppy drive, but it’s missing some unusual mounting rails.

I love that front power switch... Feels much better than these modern micro switches.

I picked up this old clone from a friends balcony today... The case is nothing to write home about but the hardware seems decent

It's been outside for a while so I'll give it 24h before firing it up. The PSU is definitely a weird one. No detailed specs to show but there is some diagram on the top

Heh, I absolutely had that exact case back in the day. Came with a P75 - multiplier unlocked and able to run at 100 MHz no worries. Made it last until I was able upgrade to a PII-350.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on Today, 05:38:

I have 4/50@66 as well as Deskpro XE 466. Both use the same chassis, they have only slightly different front plates and naturall […]
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informatyk wrote on Yesterday, 11:59:

After years of searching, I finally found a Compaq Prolinea in perfect condition and good price. It has 12 MB of RAM and probably the original 300 MB hard drive, on which the German version of Windows 95 RTM was installed.
I now need to find a way to install a 5.25-inch floppy drive, but it’s missing some unusual mounting rails.

I have 4/50@66 as well as Deskpro XE 466. Both use the same chassis, they have only slightly different front plates and naturally motherboards. I’m personally a big fan of these 93-94 Compaqs, they were still from the era when these big manufacturers hadn’t raced to the bottom and these systems still had high build quality. As LPX style computers, these also have nice small desk footprint. And as MB has all the important things integrated, the three ISA slots are usually just fine. I also have Presario 425 AIO with originial peripherals. I do wish that that system would have three ISA slots instead of the two.

I also originally installed 5.25 floppy drive on my system, but I changed it to PAS16 multimedia kit, that is PAS16 sound card and MediaVision branded Sanyo 2x SCSI cd-rom. I also have NIC and MPU-401 card installed in it, both of which are quite common with my 486 builds. In fact, I network all my vintage boxes as it just makes life so much easier with data transfers.

If you can access 3D printer, there should be printable rails in thingiverse (or printables, can’t remember which).

You also might be interested with this project, if you have the correct motherboard:
https://github.com/wichers/Compaq-Cache-Module-197005-001
Compaq (197005-001) cache module - open source reproduction

You most likely don’t have original cache module, so adding thah reproduction module gives a nice boost on some games and applications.

Awww, I momentarily got pretty excited as I have an identical-looking Deskpro XE 450 - but nope, that project only works with Presarios. ☹️ Pretty cool for those who can benefit though!

Got one of the most undesirable monitors of all time, the VGA monochrome. This one is a Sunshine MO-14 with a nice and bright CRT.

Mandrew wrote on Today, 18:08:

Got one of the most undesirable monitors of all time, the VGA monochrome. This one is a Sunshine MO-14 with a nice and bright CRT.

I guess that one mixes the three color channels which makes it a little bit less undesirable.

Mandrew wrote on Today, 18:08:

Got one of the most undesirable monitors of all time, the VGA monochrome. This one is a Sunshine MO-14 with a nice and bright CRT.

Don't know why it would be undesirable... but it's got a lot of charm. That "Low radiation" writing in the corner 🤣

weedeewee wrote on Today, 18:37:

Mandrew wrote on Today, 18:08:

Got one of the most undesirable monitors of all time, the VGA monochrome. This one is a Sunshine MO-14 with a nice and bright CRT.

I guess that one mixes the three color channels which makes it a little bit less undesirable.

Though Trident cards will do that if they only sense 75ohm load on the green pin.

Mandrew wrote on Today, 18:08:

Got one of the most undesirable monitors of all time, the VGA monochrome. This one is a Sunshine MO-14 with a nice and bright CRT.

They were a little desirable back in the day for the following reasons, i) they were much shorter and lighter than colour, an advantage when space was a problem while still maintaining screen size. ii) they were low fatigue for poring over logs or dumps in console. iii) the discount over a colour monitor was relatively huge if you were trying to save a buck.

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 18:54:

Mandrew wrote on Today, 18:08:

Got one of the most undesirable monitors of all time, the VGA monochrome. This one is a Sunshine MO-14 with a nice and bright CRT.

They were a little desirable back in the day for the following reasons, i) they were much shorter and lighter than colour, an advantage when space was a problem while still maintaining screen size. ii) they were low fatigue for poring over logs or dumps in console. iii) the discount over a colour monitor was relatively huge if you were trying to save a buck.

I had a BW VGA monitor with my Amstrad PC 2086. The most annoying thing with it was that as most VGA software wasn't designed for BW, the palette used could cause issues with the BW display. For example, bright red looks like black on the BW monitor and if you have for example red font on black background... good luck.

Otherwise I found it a pleasant display to look at.

Shader_BiH wrote on Today, 16:16:

I love that front power switch... Feels much better than these modern micro switches. […]
Show full quote

informatyk wrote on Yesterday, 11:59:

After years of searching, I finally found a Compaq Prolinea in perfect condition and good price. It has 12 MB of RAM and probably the original 300 MB hard drive, on which the German version of Windows 95 RTM was installed.
I now need to find a way to install a 5.25-inch floppy drive, but it’s missing some unusual mounting rails.

I love that front power switch... Feels much better than these modern micro switches.

I picked up this old clone from a friends balcony today... The case is nothing to write home about but the hardware seems decent

It's been outside for a while so I'll give it 24h before firing it up. The PSU is definitely a weird one. No detailed specs to show but there is some diagram on the top

You lucked into getting a legendary Socket 7 motherboard for free! Oldie Tuning: Asus P55T2P4 with AMD K6-2+/500