haha hey old computers are quirky. It is funny what they dont like. i went through 8 sticks of ram to get an emachines to boot with 1gb. it was soooooo picky!

ODwilly wrote:

haha hey old computers are quirky. It is funny what they dont like. i went through 8 sticks of ram to get an emachines to boot with 1gb. it was soooooo picky!

I had a Packard Bell motherboard do that. It was insane, but sadly I never could use the board for anything. The keyboard port ended up not functioning anymore, kept on saying keyboard error... it was a nice motherboard too... Intel 486 OverDrive chip man! Oh well. I tried everything I could to try to fix that but... 😵

This Acer will certainly be quite special to work with at least! 😀

Email on its way Reese, hope it works =)

Bullmecha wrote:

Email on its way Reese, hope it works =)

Many many thanks to you! I so appreciate it! 😎

It worked out pretty good. Only problem was the mouse drivers on the floppy for it's own gui wouldn't load. Weird characters in the file name, but that doesn't effect anything really. The numbers it asks for on the side of the tower worked as well!

Now I believe the Acer CPR CD-ROM here is a slight different version than the one we originally had with our tower due to some very minor differences, but regardless I'm quite happy with how things turned out. 😀

Some pictures of all the on-going process.

The last picture was one of the things that were different. From what memory I have, it wasn't even saying Buttons for DOS on our old machine, it was a menu similar with boxes. Probably something Acer may have customized more back then. Whether this was an earlier or later version of the CD-ROM, I don't know. I'm not going to complain either. 🤣

Glad I could help you get it going again 😎
I don't own an Acer anymore myself. I did have a Pentium 75 desktop model back in the day though, probably where the disk came from.

MmmmmmMmm. Do I spy a Roland SC-55 or 88 and MT-32 modules back there? Noice!

Bullmecha wrote:

Glad I could help you get it going again 😎
I don't own an Acer anymore myself. I did have a Pentium 75 desktop model back in the day though, probably where the disk came from.

Sounds like what I once had. Though thanks so much again!

Artex wrote:

MmmmmmMmm. Do I spy a Roland SC-55 or 88 and MT-32 modules back there? Noice!

Yep, the SC-88 and MT-32 is right!

The keyboard port ended up not functioning anymore, kept on saying keyboard error

It was almost certainly a bad keyboard fuse. The fuse is usually soldered to the motherboard near the keyboard port. They can be replaced with a soldering iron. It's a pretty easy fix. If you still have the board you can try it.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

The keyboard port ended up not functioning anymore, kept on saying keyboard error

It was almost certainly a bad keyboard fuse. The fuse is usually soldered to the motherboard near the keyboard port. They can be replaced with a soldering iron. It's a pretty easy fix. If you still have the board you can try it.

Yeah I do have that Packard Bell motherboard still, actually. Some keyboards refused to work, and one did sorta work, but the lights were very dim. I was thinking it was a voltage issue, before.

It's pretty easy to test a fuse with a multimeter using the continuity setting.

ReeseRiverson wrote:

ODwilly wrote:

haha hey old computers are quirky. It is funny what they dont like. i went through 8 sticks of ram to get an emachines to boot with 1gb. it was soooooo picky!

I had a Packard Bell motherboard do that. It was insane, but sadly I never could use the board for anything. The keyboard port ended up not functioning anymore, kept on saying keyboard error... it was a nice motherboard too... Intel 486 OverDrive chip man! Oh well. I tried everything I could to try to fix that but... 😵

This Acer will certainly be quite special to work with at least! 😀

Oddly enough my 486 board has the same issue, but the keyboard works and It has never had any negative effects. Does your 486 board have a removable keyboard bios by any chance?

Also I just want to add in that I am REALLY jealous how white your Acer is. Mine the plastic is all yellowed and aged looking

ODwilly wrote:

Oddly enough my 486 board has the same issue, but the keyboard works and It has never had any negative effects. Does your 486 board have a removable keyboard bios by any chance?

I'll have to take a look and find out. It's kinda stored away at the moment.

ODwilly wrote:

Also I just want to add in that I am REALLY jealous how white your Acer is. Mine the plastic is all yellowed and aged looking

Hahaha, well, I hear you could restore things to being white again. I have information saved in an email somewhere, do you want me to find it for you?

Oooh do you mean Retro-brite? I think that is what it is called. Im pretty sure that there is a thread around here somewhere about that to. Thanks but I will hold off, to many systems and not enough time 😊 my dang SSD died this week.

ODwilly wrote:

Oooh do you mean Retro-brite? I think that is what it is called. Im pretty sure that there is a thread around here somewhere about that to. Thanks but I will hold off, to many systems and not enough time 😊 my dang SSD died this week.

Haha, I know what you mean. I never tried Retro-brite either. I need to on a couple of IBM 5150s I have here. 🤣

Someday I may get to everything.