VOGONS


New to the community: My Win9X system.

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First post, by LunarG

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Hi everybody. I'm one of those, probably many, people who have been lurking in the shadows of this forum. I've been reading a lot, but so far only posted once, but a few weeks ago, I started a retro project, so I thought I'd better get involved here, as this seems to be the best place to find interesting information about old hardware.

Yesterday I went to a fleamarket just to have a look for old computer stuff, and I ended up buying 2 old LCD screens for almost nothing, two brand new in box KeyTronic KT2001 PS/2 keyboards and a few packets of 3.5inch floppies, also brand new in sealed boxes. The big scoop didn't happen until I dropped my folks off at their house though, as a quick chat with one of their neighbours revealed that she had an "old computer" sitting around that she hadn't used in years, which I was free to take if I wanted. Turns out it was a PIII based Compaq Deskpro EN, complete with a fairly nice CRT screen (which I wiill be using for my other retro build). It wasn't the most exciting system, but at least it was a Compaq based on standard ATX components, and not their mid-90's all integrated and no expansion slots stuff. So, after adding a few parts I've had sitting around I ended up with the following system:

Specs.
Pentium III 800MHz, running on a Compaq built motherboard using the i815 chipset.
512MB PC133 SDRAM, 10GB Maxtor HDD, NEC DVD-RW drive (just so it can read DVD's) and 3,5inch floppy drive.
NVidia Riva TNT2 Pro 16MB, and more importantly: my old Yamaha WaveForce 192XG sound card.

The system is running Windows 98 Second Edition, and I'm going to use it mainly for playing late 90's Win9x games. I've hooked it up to one of the LCD monitors I got on the fleamarket, as it allows for a much nicer desktop resolution. It's also connected to my LAN on a 100Mbit port, so I'm posting this from the PIII at the moment 😀

I'm going to need to get a better graphics card for it, as I doubt the TNT2 with only 16MB RAM will cut it for 3D games. For nostalgia purposes, a Matrox Millennium G400 MAX + Voodoo 2 SLi would be awesome, but I expect that would cost a bit. A Voodoo 5 might actually be more viable, but any suggestions for an appropriate card would be appreciated. Back in those days I think I'd probably just upgraded to a GeForce256 DDR (around the turn of the millennium), but those are quite rare as well I think.

Anyway, that's it, hope to be able to contribute on this forum in the future.

WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.

Reply 1 of 28, by vetz

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Welcome! Need some pictures!

Nice system to start out with 😀 You're a bit similar to me which started out with an almost unmodified Compaq (see link in description), but now I own several systems all thanks to inspiration from this forum basically 😜

I would suggest you to place some wanted ads around for hardware you are looking for. Maybe you'll get lucky. People that have an old Voodoo card laying around normally sell them if you give them a fair offer. You suggestions for a viable card is pretty good, though as you probably know a voodoo card for playing Glide games is almost compulsory for the time period your computer is covering. The Geforce DDR is actually pretty easy to find cheap on Ebay. Just keep looking if you want one 😀

Also nice to see some other Norwegian signing up. I had just started to believe it was only me as active poster here 😜

3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
3D Acceleration Comparison Episodes

Reply 2 of 28, by LunarG

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Just got out my old dvd copy of "The Moment of Silence", which I can't play on my main system anymore thanks to the stupid Star Force copy protection. It plays perfectly on this Compaq fortunately 😁 Also had a go at The Curse of Monkey Island, and the sound is just awesome running through my home theater system. I guess I should get some crap quality grey plastic box speakers though.
I'll try to sort some pictures later, but I need to tidy my place up a bit, it looks like a dump at the moment.

WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.

Reply 4 of 28, by LunarG

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Okay, I said I'd sort some pictures, so here are a few. Only got a simple compact camera, so please don't mind the quality.

Compaq_Front.jpg
Here's the machine in all its errr, glory.

Compaq_Front2.jpg
Close up of the front bezel, looks a lot more nicotine yellow in real life unfortunately. (Not my fault, I don't smoke).

Yamaha_WF192XG.jpg
This is my old Yamaha WaveForce 192XG. This came out around the same time as the original SB Live or perhaps a little bit earlier. I remember when I first installed this in my K6-2 300MHz back in the days. Sound would hang, system crash, and nothing worked like it should, until I figured out that I needed new "VIA All-in-One" drivers. After that, I was completely blown away by the midi quality of this card. I'm really happy it's got a second lease on life 😀

Compaq_Internals.jpg
Here's the insides of the Deskpro EN with sound card and 512MB ram installed. The ram I had sitting around on an old broken TUSL2 board. Broken, but never binned. Never know when you might need a couple of old sticks of ram or a Celery 800.

Compaq_Vogons.jpg
And here's the system with Firefox 2.0.0.20 showing the Vogons forum 😁

WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.

Reply 6 of 28, by LunarG

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Yeah, I do realize that plastic yellows with age, but it does yellow from cigarette smoke as well. I expect this one isn't really yellowed from smoke though, but the colour is pretty much the same.

WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.

Reply 7 of 28, by cdoublejj

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i use kernel-ex it lets you run newer xp stuff like newer version of firefox or firefox-palemoon and flash.

Reply 8 of 28, by LunarG

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cdoublejj wrote:

i use kernel-ex it lets you run newer xp stuff like newer version of firefox or firefox-palemoon and flash.

Hmm... That sounds interesting. Not that I really need a very modern browser on this system, it's just for running older Win9x era games anyway, so browsing was just for fun. Did a run of 3DMark99MAX and 3DMark2000, and the TNT2 Pro (16MB) looks to be a severe bottleneck compared to the CPU. Also, tried installing a 120GB HDD, which was detected just fine by the BIOS, but fdisk only reports roughly 48GBish. I guess the problem could be from the HDD being two-platter or something, not sure. It's a Seagate Barracuda drive. I think the 10GB drive will end up being too small for this system, but I'm not really too keen on paying for another drive when I got this spare one already. Any chance something like Partition Magic would allow me to partition and use the full 120GB? As far as I remember, Win98se allowed for up to 137GB, so I'm surprised it's not working.

WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.

Reply 9 of 28, by Gamecollector

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Yes, Partition Magic will do the work.
You can boot from the WinXp cd and use Xp partition manager. But AFAIR - this tool can't create FAT32 volumes with more then 32 GB in size (MS limitation to migrate users from a FAT32).
Plus - 137 GB isn't FAT32 limitation. It is Win9x limitation, because Win9x isn't supporting LBA-48 specification.
And yes, Win98 Fdisk is bugged. 64GB limit. AFAIR - this is fixed in WinME and you can download the modified Fdisk.exe for Win98 and Win98SE.

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 10 of 28, by LunarG

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Okay, one session with Partition Magic later, and the system now has "120"GB split into 3 partitions. 32GB for system and applications, 40GB for file storage and 40GB for games. Removed the old drive, just to discover that what the BIOS reports being a 10GB drive, is actually a 20GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8. I wonder why the BIOS only reports it being 10GB. The only jumper that is set is Cable Select.

WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.

Reply 11 of 28, by cdoublejj

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LunarG wrote:
cdoublejj wrote:

i use kernel-ex it lets you run newer xp stuff like newer version of firefox or firefox-palemoon and flash.

Hmm... That sounds interesting. Not that I really need a very modern browser on this system, it's just for running older Win9x era games anyway, so browsing was just for fun. Did a run of 3DMark99MAX and 3DMark2000, and the TNT2 Pro (16MB) looks to be a severe bottleneck compared to the CPU. Also, tried installing a 120GB HDD, which was detected just fine by the BIOS, but fdisk only reports roughly 48GBish. I guess the problem could be from the HDD being two-platter or something, not sure. It's a Seagate Barracuda drive. I think the 10GB drive will end up being too small for this system, but I'm not really too keen on paying for another drive when I got this spare one already. Any chance something like Partition Magic would allow me to partition and use the full 120GB? As far as I remember, Win98se allowed for up to 137GB, so I'm surprised it's not working.

can be useful if you are like me and brave enough to use it get various files and maybe look up some stuff.

Reply 12 of 28, by leileilol

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Be careful with that drive in Win9x. Go beyond writing a certain gigabyte and you'll lose everything

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 13 of 28, by zstandig

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I know that machine anywhere. The ones I had were were a little different, they had a proprietary psu, and no agp. Sound and graphics were integrated.

They could only boot with a maximum of 512MB which ticked me off because why put three slots in if you can't go to 768MB?...well anyway, I suped them up the best I could, with max ram, better gpus, and cpus, then I let my Dad give them away to elderly homebound clients who needed a machine for email and light browsing.

Reply 14 of 28, by leileilol

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zstandig wrote:

The ones I had were were a little different, they had a proprietary psu, and no agp. Sound and graphics were integrated.

Sounds like the small form factor variation that use a riser

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 15 of 28, by zstandig

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Indeed they were.

Reply 16 of 28, by LunarG

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Thanks to the magic of ebay, this system is going to receive Voodoo 2 SLi for 3D gaming. Only 8MB cards unfortunately, but I'm sure it'll be good enough. Don't know if I will replace the 2D card as well at some point, but for now I guess the TNT2 "Pro" (Compaq specific card from the look of it) will do for desktop graphics.

WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.

Reply 18 of 28, by LunarG

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Next up is another system. This one pretty much only happened by accident, but I though, well, now that I've got it, I better get some use out of it, hence the Voodoo2's.

I've been gathering up parts for a more proper retro build. A 486. It's going to be all the things my PC wasn't back when a 486 was my main computer.
I'm currently staying with my fiance in England, but when I get home, I've got a load of parts waiting for me to put them together into a working gaming rig.

Specs should end up being:
Spring Circle SiS496/7 based PCI Motherboard
It's ST486DX4 100MHz
2 x 32MB FPM RAM
4GB CompactFlash Card with IDE adapter
48X CD-ROM drive
Matrox Millennium 2MB PCI
Gravis Ultrasound (1MB)
D-Link DE220 10Mbit Ethernet Adapter
145W AT PSU
Cooler Master ATX case (Temporary, until I can get my hands on a suitable AT tower case).

The motherboard came with an intel 486DX2/66 CPU installed, and naturally with the correct jumper settings for this. I've been finding it difficult to find any documentation for this motherboard, but I've found pics of the same motherboard with a DX4 installed, so I hope I can compare the jumper settings to get mine set up correctly. If not, well, I'll just run it with the DX2 for now. I'm guessing it'll be hard to get by with GUS as the only sound device, so I'm expecting to get an SB16 for better compatibility.

WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.

Reply 19 of 28, by SquallStrife

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LunarG wrote:

Thanks to the magic of ebay, this system is going to receive Voodoo 2 SLi for 3D gaming. Only 8MB cards unfortunately, but I'm sure it'll be good enough. Don't know if I will replace the 2D card as well at some point, but for now I guess the TNT2 "Pro" (Compaq specific card from the look of it) will do for desktop graphics.

I have a bunch of Dell-specific ATi Rage 128 Pro Ultra cards, and the ATi-supplied Rage drivers won't work with them, you have to use Dell's drivers.

Hopefully this "TNT2 Pro" is different, but there were a lot of OEM shenanigans going on in those days, so I wouldn't be surprised if it needed Compaq specific drivers. 😒

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