First post, by DECtape
- Rank
- Newbie
My old DOS computer shat itself, obviously that would not do and I needed a new DOS computer, because DOS Box is for boring people. I wanted to have a new DOS system that would be easy to move around to take to friend's places, and mostly I wanted an excuse to do a project using a VIA processor. Of the VIA boards I found on ebay the M1000 was the only one that had S-Video and RCA output, which I liked since it meant I could have the DOS computer with my classic game systems and run it on just about any TV, plus it came with ram, for a total of about $30s. The M1000 comes with a VIA C3 and S3 Unichrome AGP graphics, which presents some issues later on.
So when the board finally came I set it up on some hardboard, I had to use the power supply from my XP box since my normal test PSU only has 24 pin ATX power and the M1000 takes 20 pin ATX and no CPU power, and the CPU heat sink was in the way of the 24 pin connector.
When I first came up with the idea for this project I was worried that the board wouldn't support the right IRQs for the PCI sound card I had to use, an Aureal Vortex 8830, in some ways the board is strange about doing things but thankfully the sound card turned out to be fine.
Initially I had the system plugged into my normal LCD test monitor, but with EGA and a number of VGA modes the S3 graphics does some strange things with timing so anything that isn't an old school CRT monitor just panics, I found a very old CRT in my parts pile (1991!) and used that temporarily. I need to find a better monitor though for it since due to its age that CTX monitor has gone dim and some games like Doom and Quake are unplayably dark.
Some games like Lucas Arts adventure games and most later DOS games (Doom, Quake, Daggerfall, RCR 486) run fine with an LCD monitor, but games like the actually gameplay of lemmings (not the menu) trip up anything that isn't multiscan.
Once I figured out that everything worked I moved the hardboarded computer over to where I keep my retro games and changed it to be using the RCA out.
Here you can see it installing daggerfall, the resolution on the TV its plugged into is a lot lower than the monitor, this is a big reason why I want to get it a proper monitor, not only so I can play things like SRSE and Lemmings on it but so that it will look decent doing it.
I managed to find an ITX case with a 3.25 inch bay on the front, the Apex MI-008, and I ordered it from newegg for about $40, it came with a 250w power supply too which was nice, I was thinking I might use one of those tiny Thin ITX PSU's where the entire board is on the ATX connector since the whole system draws under 100 watts but this case came with a PSU so I used it instead, I'm not to worried about the quality of the unit since the system doesn't even draw half the PSU's rated power.
Heres the finished system, it's a pretty tight case and it was obviously designed with SATA in mind. Because of how the hard drive and the disk drive mount I had to run two seperate PATA cables for each, which were hard to route. I was able to find some nice folded jacketed pata and floppy cables which made things a bit easier at least.
Heres the system in its current home.
It runs Quake great, even when I run the game at 800x600, it doesn't seem to drop below 30, and at 480p or 360p it keeps a solid 60.
So the ITX DOS system isn't without issues, some games like Dune 2 refuse to see extended memory and won't even run unless I physically un-plug the disk drive, and even then without any speech. But most newer titles run just fine. Also some demos like Machines refuse to recognize the Aureal Vortex 8830, and games that don't like soundblaster compatibles don't like it either, of course. Also any games written in turbo pascal like Tyrian and Jazz Jackrabbit just flat out make the system reset. No matter what speed the processor is it or what tool is used to slow it down, it just restarts.
Overall I would say it was a fun project, its neat having a DOS computer I can use like a retro game system and for later games and things that don't use CGA, which the S3 graphics just refuses to do, or EGA it works just fine and it was a fun project.
May your frames be high and your temps be low.