VOGONS


Greetings & My Rig

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First post, by FastMHz

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Greetings everyone! First post here, long time lurker, retro gaming fantatic...that about sums it up about myself.

I got my first real computer, a 486SX 33MHz in 1993. I was 11. To this day the 486-586 era, and even the 8088 and 286 days are precious to me.

This is my main retro-rig. AMD K6-2 @ 500MHz on iWill XA100Plus motherboard, 256MB memory, 160gb single-platter IDE HDD, SB16 ISA w/Yamaha DB50XG daughterboard, SBPro 2.0 ISA w/Genuine YMF-262 FM chip, PCI Network card, 3DFX VooDoo 2, ATI Rage 128 AIW w/VBE2.0, 5-1/4 and 3-1/2 floppy drives, Front loading CompactFlash for easy file transfer, 48x CDROM, and IBM Track Point keyboard:

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Also in my retro-rig collection are 2 IBM PCJrs with internal 640k memory, 2 IBM XT 8088s and XT expansion chassis with dual 10MB HDDs, a generic 286, IBM PS/1 (486), IBM XT Portable PC, IBM Aptiva (P-II), and I'm currently building a FreeDOS rig with a completely overkill Core2Duo.

It's an addiction! Cheers!

Reply 2 of 9, by Bancho

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Looks like a great machine loaded with nice components. Love the IBM keyboard!

Reply 3 of 9, by Tetrium

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Welcome aboard!

You're not using a fan on your CPU heatsink?
And what's that in the top external 5.25 drivebay of your black case?

And it's kinda nice to see someone having build a retro rig with only a single Voodoo 2, or is SLI still being contemplated 😜.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 4 of 9, by FastMHz

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The top drive is a removable IDE sled which makes it easy for me to bulk load media content onto the HDD. That media content includes 138,000+ MOD/XM/S3M/IT files totaling 60 gigs and 3700+ ADLIB/OPL music files and over 2 gigs of DEMOs from the era. I've been collecting retro media files for a long time!

There is not a dedicated fan on the CPU heatsink; the air from the fan with orange blades at left blows over the fins and the fan in the PSU sucks it right up and out.

I also forgot to list my IBM PS/2 which was a 286 model and there is some sort of 486 upgrade chip in there. I must look more closely to find out what it is.
I'll post some pics of these other system internals too. Here are some pics from one of my XTs and PCJrs:

IBM 5160 XT – AMD 8088: 4.77MHz CPU w/FPU Chip, 10mb MFM Full Height Hard Drive, 360k 5-1/4 Full Height Floppy, 640k RAM, 256k VGA graphics, 130watt PSU:

internals.jpg

IBM PCJr – NEC V20: 8MHz CPU, 360k Half Height Floppy, 640k RAM (Internal), 96KB CGA Plus graphics, SN76489 3-Voice Sound:

pcjr.jpg

A note on that Jr. Most units would never have 640kb internal memory and instead it would be in sidecars. But some hacker made this special board with a V20 and the full memory expansion on a single card that plugged directly into the 8088 socket:

jrcpu.jpg

Reply 5 of 9, by 386_junkie

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I usually like older hardware... 386's and under.

I'd have to say that those IBM's are pretty tremendous.

I like the memory expansion card you have for the Jr... a special piece that is.

Compaq Systempro; EISA Dual 386 ¦ Compaq Junkiepro; EISA Dual 386 ¦ ALR Powerpro; EISA Dual 386

EISA Graphic Cards ¦ EISA Graphic Card Benchmarks

Reply 6 of 9, by FastMHz

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Thanks! My goal is to get all of these set up as a sort of private museum of sorts. I even have the original keyboards, mice and monitors for these machines.

So my curiosity just got the best of me and I popped the cover off my PS2 to get a pic of the 486 in a 286 socket. Anyone seen anything like this?

PS2_486_Upgrade_Chip.jpg

Reply 7 of 9, by chinny22

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I've always wanted to put a black 5.25 1/4 drive into a black case, Something pre beige and post beige in perfect unison.
But as I have never had a IBM formatted 5.25 disk in my life, my drive is still safely tucked away at my parents, on the other side of the world.

Looks like your off to a good start with all your systems. Are these all more recent purchases or you had them stored somewhere all these years and just dusting them off now?

Reply 8 of 9, by FastMHz

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With the exception of the K6-2 build, these have been in my family since brand new. One of the PCJrs and one of the XTs were my first experience with PCs.

Reply 9 of 9, by FastMHz

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So I've abandoned the Core2Duo FreeDOS build, that sucker just wouldn't communicate with an ISA sound card. The IRQs are all wonked out. So I pulled that SBC and popped in a PIII SBC to continue the build with a more compatible CPU. So far so good - it runs some of the pickiest games and demos so far. I popped in a SB16 with actual jumpers (CT1790) to avoid the need for PnP drivers and it works a charm. Next I want a GUS - I never had one of those...

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