An interesting PC - worth a shot maybe? \ VOGONS

An interesting PC - worth a shot maybe?

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First post, by Kaiketsu

Posted on 2015-10-10, 18:38

Kaiketsu Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 11
Joined: 2015-10-03, 18:40

Still looking for a good retro PC and I came across this one:

Compaq Deskpro XL 560 EISA

with:
Processor control card 430LX chipset with a Pentium 60 (socket 4)
8 mb RAM
Analog Devices AD1846 (OPL3 Yamaha)
Compaq QVision 2000+ (based on Matrox Athena R1)

However, someone warmed me that this computer requires quite specific ECU floppies to configure it,

So I'd be glad for any kind of info on the matter 😀

Another thing is that a mate warned me that this graphic card (the Matrox-based one) really screws up many DOS games and I should replace it for a typical S3 if I want to retro game on it. Any thoughts on this?

Cheers!

Reply 1 of 3, by NJRoadfan

Posted on 2015-10-10, 19:06

NJRoadfan Offline

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Location: Northern NJ

Go for it, another member here has one. Looks like a neat machine and PCI makes finding video cards easier (EISA ones were rare and slower).

Compaq Deskpro XL 560

Lots of nice stuff built right in too. Standard SCSI and Ethernet (likely only 10Mbit, easy to upgrade to 100BaseTX with a EISA card) means this machine wasn't cheap new. Just be aware that RAM needs to be installed in pairs and that board may require 36-bit parity SIMMs.

Reply 2 of 3, by Kaiketsu

Posted on 2015-10-10, 21:35

Kaiketsu Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 11
Joined: 2015-10-03, 18:40

It also comes with an extra card (with Pentium 133mhz processor), extra PSU and an original keyboard, though the keyboard suffers from yellowing.

I'm definitely interested, but what's with the Matrox cards, can they really act up in DOS environment?

Reply 3 of 3, by ODwilly

Posted on 2015-10-11, 06:29

ODwilly Offline

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Yes, there have been a lot of post I have read about issues with Matrox cards and DOS. But an S3 Trio64 pci card would set you back $5 shipped on ebay and be the perfect DOS compatible card 😀 EDIT: Just thought that I would add that a Pentium 60 has around the performance of a highend 486 and has the advantage of a fast floating point. Also the fact that they are rare systems really helps with the overall value. EISA is super rare as it is, so that feature alone makes it worth getting 😀

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

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