2 Jun
2016
2 Jun
'16
1:21 p.m.
Here's what I'm currently looking at (all 486's, but I'd consider 386s
and
original Pentiums, too):
* Compaq Prolinea systems
* Canon ObjectStation
* NEC Powermate
* HP Vectra
* IBM Aptiva or PS/1
Not considering:
* Beige Packard Bell with Microsoft Sound System and a 1M graphics card.
:-)
I'm doing my Spring cleaning. I have way too much crap, and the particular
type of crap that's lowest on my list of "things to keep" is PeeCee crap.
I simply have too much and a lot of it are the parts I used to make PCs
bearable at the time (like combo serial/LPT cards). I'm not all that happy
that PeeCees even exist, yet I have over 20 of them last I checked. I
think I'm going to rid myself of the vast majority of gear that Greg
Douglas of Reputable system used to haze me for keeping, calling it
"PeeCee crap", and that was 16 years ago.
I was asking myself, why do I have all these junky plastic laptops from
the early 2k era? They are mostly soulless trash (except maybe my Sony
Picturebook - yes the cute one with the Transmeta Crusoe). Wouldn't I
rather purge a gaggle of laptops and a few old crappy PCs and instead have
a single "special" (but much slower) 486-era box ? Yes, I would. I'm
actually pulling stuff out and playing with it more. Warehousing crap is
becoming less and less an attractive pastime.
So, I'm thinking I'll consolidate as much of the fun hardware from the
1990's as I can in one box. That will make me feel better about ditching
the considerable horde of junk I'm looking at. To that end, I have a few
bits I believe are considerably more desirable compared to others and I
want to get as many as I can in one box. Chime in if you have suggestions.
So, here we go, in no real order:
* I want to stick with desktop or tower units only, no laptops, I'll
probably have to add some PCI cards to get to "ultimate" status :-)
* I'd use it with one of these OSs: *BSD, Linux, Solaris x86, OpenStep,
BSDi, Unixware, Minix, MS-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, or OS/2. Thus the more
compatible stuff is worth considering. Windows compatibility isn't
something I care about ('cept maybe for comic relief, which I can get
much more easily from politics these days).
* Anyone know of a box with a built-in (integrated) Gravis Ultrasound?
That'd save me a slot. However, there isn't much to compete with that
card from the 90's. The SB16 was ubiquitous and worked well enough, but
I didn't feel it could compete with a GUS. The SB16 wasn't the
"ultimate" for sure.
* Hmm, Symbios, LSI, or Adaptec on the SCSI controller.... OR! Maybe
someone knows of a cool PC that had a built-in SCSI controller. I don't
think I could abide PATA/IDE disks and for-sure no MFM/RLL drives (the
horror). The nice stuff in the 90's was always SCSI, IIRC. I remember
some NEC PCs that were pretty attractive and came with integrated SCSI.
* I hate machines that used custom RAM. I guess it wouldn't be a deal
breaker if it was already maxxed.
* I'd certainly prefer PS/2 keyboard ports.
* Slimline or other nice case designs are very much something I'll look
for, but I need at least one PCI slot, methinks. Unless I could get a
GUS and SCSI controller both integrated (man, wouldn't that be
something!). Anything different or spacey is preferable to a beige box,
even if it's just white or black.
* Hmm, what was the ultimate PC framebuffer from the 1990s? I guess it
depends on if you care about 3D or think it was too crappy in the 1990s
to consider. I'm mostly in the latter camp. So, I'm more inclined to go
for maximum 2D performance and maximum OS compatibility. Number Nine?
Orchid? I guess I need to find some 2D performance benchmarks from 1999
or something similar. Matrox might work out. The MGA Millennium II comes
to mind. I liked 3DFX, too, but I'm worried they were too 3D centric,
plus they were ignored by the commercial Unix players. More video memory
is great so it can run higher res where possible.
* I'll use a 3Com 3c905, but I remember there being even better stuff. I'm
just not sure which one is going to work best for all my OSs. Maybe the
3C509 is a better choice, but it's 10mbit and ISA, IIRC. I just remember
that card works in more OSs than anything I've ever seen. Realtek is
out. I won't use those PoSs ("fool me once" and all that). I'm also
not
a fan of Broadcom (again they burned me too often).
* NTSC Video capability would be nice, but I'll probably just add it in
the form of an old Happauge PCI WinTV. I need to find out what OpenSTEP
and others supported. This is just a "nice to have" for me. I really
liked things like the MacTV (all-in-one with NTSC tuner) back in the
day.
* Since I'm mostly looking at 486's, I'm mainly targeting the 486/66. I
have nothing against Cyrix or exotic x86 processors from the era.
-Swift
2 Jun
2 Jun
2:02 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 1:21 PM, Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs at gmail.com> wrote:
Here's what I'm currently looking at (all 486's, but I'd consider 386s
and
original Pentiums, too):
* Compaq Prolinea systems
* Canon ObjectStation
* NEC Powermate
* HP Vectra
* IBM Aptiva or PS/1
Not considering:
* Beige Packard Bell with Microsoft Sound System and a 1M graphics card.
:-)
Dell made a mean 486 PC
I have been very happy with my Dell 486 66 Win 3.11 system. I put in an
ethernet card, nice VGA and sound cards, joystick card, dual hard drives, 5
1/4" and 3.5" disks. No CD. Back then Win 3.11 was pretty versatile and I
dare say a better OPsystem than its early 90's UNIX contemporaries
(*ducks*)! Note I am saying Windows for Workgroups v 3.11 not 3.1.
http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=626
I was using it today to serve as a terminal with my VAX 4000 (win terminal)
while browsing the LoneStar.org gopher system using Netscape 2.0
The only thing I need is nicer VGA display, the DELL display I have is not
as nice as the card driving it.
2:49 p.m.
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, william degnan wrote:
I have been very happy with my Dell 486 66 Win 3.11
system.
I've had a few OptiPlex machines as workstations given to me by my
corporate masters. They were decent machines. I'm a little put off on Dell
for servers after working in a shop where we got both Dell and HP (or
Compaq) DL series systems. When I worked at Oracle from 2003 to 2007, we'd
often get both (Dells for the hosted data centers and HP DL series for
lots of lab environments). The failure rate for the Dell systems was much
higher out of the box, and slightly higher in production as well. That was
just my anecdotal experience.
I put in an ethernet card, nice VGA and sound cards,
joystick card, dual
hard drives, 5 1/4" and 3.5" disks.
I'll probably put in a SCSI ZIP drive and a combo 3.5" / 5 1/4" drive if I
go with a big honkin' case. If not, I'll just do a 3.5" floppy if I gotta
choose. I wonder if any of those "big floppy" style drives supported
standard 3.5" floppies, too? Didn't the old LS120 and Sony HiFD do
backwards support of older 1.44MB floppies, too?
No CD. Back then Win 3.11 was pretty versatile and I
dare say a better
OPsystem than its early 90's UNIX contemporaries (*ducks*)! Note I am
saying Windows for Workgroups v 3.11 not 3.1.
I remember those days. You have to understand that, even though I was a
pre-teen / kid, I considered myself a hardcore DOS user when Windows came
onto the scene. I liked a lot of things about DOS (hated some others).
Once 3.1 was released, I realized how serious Microsoft was about Windows.
I just couldn't stand it. Nothing was going in a direction I liked. I felt
a kind of despair that I wasn't going to be a "computer guy" like I
planned because if I had to work with Windows for my whole career I'd
rather just dig ditches. That was about the time I got introduced to Unix
(around 1992). That "saved" me. I went coocoo for coco puffs and I never
looked back. So, I've never really used Windows that much. I've played
some games on it, off and on. At my jobs (systems programmer, sysadmin,
etc..), I always use a Unix variant. If they trick me or change the
desktop OS policy, I laugh in their face until I turn purple and quit the
gig using my middle finger.
Bottom line, Windows isn't a consideration for me. No offense meant. It's
just my background.
Cool. Reading that for fun.
I was using it today to serve as a terminal with my
VAX 4000 (win
terminal) while browsing the LoneStar.org gopher system using Netscape
2.0
Heh, right on. You are having fun with it, I don't begrudge anyone that!
The only thing I need is nicer VGA display, the DELL
display I have is
not as nice as the card driving it.
Heh, maybe pick you up one of those 2007FP that are going cheap lately.
That's the one folks recently piped up on the thread about 4:3 and square
LCDs. That is a real steal nowadays and I'd agree it's a hella-nice bit of
kit.
-Swift
4:31 p.m.
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, Swift Griggs wrote:
I'll probably put in a SCSI ZIP drive and a combo
3.5" / 5 1/4" drive if I
go with a big honkin' case. If not, I'll just do a 3.5" floppy if I gotta
choose. I wonder if any of those "big floppy" style drives supported
standard 3.5" floppies, too? Didn't the old LS120 and Sony HiFD do
backwards support of older 1.44MB floppies, too?
MOST of the "2.88M" drives (2.81MiB) drives could also do 1.4M; same FDC
but needed device driver and twice the data transfer rate for 2.8M.
And the "Floptical"s; SCSI! 20M on a 3.5" sized disk!
> No CD.
Why no CD-ROM? 2/3G storage; SCSI or
proprietary interfaces, even
parallel port adapters. Unless you created your own software, required
MS-DOS 3.10 or above. CD-ROM was less work for installing Windoze
3.10/3.11 than a couple dozen floppies.
4:43 p.m.
> I'll probably put in a SCSI ZIP drive and a
combo 3.5" / 5 1/4" drive if I
My friends use parallel port zip drives as their way of getting software
to/from their old PCs. They seem work well, the software wasn't bad, 100MB
is a lot of dos software.
On my Dolch luggable which is a much newer Pentium era box, I always have
to boot into Windows 98 to pick up the USB thumbdrive. I copy stuff off
then reboot into DOS usually.
--
Ethan O'Toole
6:13 p.m.
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, Fred Cisin wrote:
Oh, that was someone else. I'll put in a SCSI CDROM, probably a Plextor or
Pioneer.
MOST of the "2.88M" drives (2.81MiB) drives
could also do 1.4M; same FDC
but needed device driver and twice the data transfer rate for 2.8M.
Heh, 2.88" disks were like unicorns. I heard all about them, but I never
saw them for sale or people using them. That was probably just my limited
view at the time. The 20M floptical in the SGI Indy is like a tooth fairy
riding a unicorn, I've seen pictures, but I've never actually seen one (or
the disks) in person.
> No CD.
Why no CD-ROM? 2/3G storage; SCSI or proprietary interfaces, even parallel
port adapters. CD-ROM was less work for installing Windoze 3.10/3.11
than a couple
dozen floppies.
Or installing SLS or Slackware with 40 floppies. :-)
-Swift
6:16 p.m.
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, Swift Griggs wrote:
Oh, man, that brings back memories. Trying to bang Linux onto a 386SX-16
with 4 Meg RAM and some puny little hard drive ... My first NAT box! It
was pretty excruciating to use, LOL. I bet the throughput could be figured
in kpps... ;)
Best,
Sean
CD-ROM was
less work for installing Windoze 3.10/3.11 than a couple
dozen floppies.
Or installing SLS or Slackware with 40 floppies. :-)
-Swift
17 Jun
17 Jun
8:36 p.m.
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, Sean Caron wrote:
Oh, man, that brings back memories. Trying to bang
Linux onto a 386SX-16 with
4 Meg RAM and some puny little hard drive ... My first NAT box! It was pretty
excruciating to use, LOL. I bet the throughput could be figured in kpps... ;)
I had an experimental early Linux Ethernet bridge installation on a
386SX-16 PC with 2MB of RAM IIRC and 5 NE2000 clones (as many as there
were ISA slots left after filling in an HGC adapter for the console and a
multi-I/O adapter for the hard disk), driving a network of some 200 PCs.
The (non-mainline-Linux yet) bridge module was a bit too experimental
back then in that it didn't do MAC address ageing/purging, which drove
people angry as they sometimes moved their PCs between network segments
and lost connectivity to other segments. The advantage however was the
bridge didn't lock up, unlike DOS `kbridge' software previously used,
which did it frequently, driving even more people angry.
Somewhat unexpectedly bridging performed very smoothly, however the load
from frame passing between the primitive NE2000
interfaces was so high
that there was a multiple-second console echo latency
observed when typing
characters!
Maciej
18 Jun
18 Jun
3:17 a.m.
It was thus said that the Great Maciej W. Rozycki once stated:
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, Sean Caron wrote:
I managed to install Linux on a 486 based Laptop with 4M RAM and 120M
harddrive. It was ... interesting. Some of my notes at the time:
http://boston.conman.org/1999/12/13.4
http://boston.conman.org/1999/12/15.1
http://boston.conman.org/2000/01/06.2
I don't recall if I had networking (of any kind) installed or not. But I
suspect I still have that laptop in storage ...
-spc
Oh, man, that brings back memories. Trying to
bang Linux onto a 386SX-16 with
4 Meg RAM and some puny little hard drive ... My first NAT box! It was pretty
excruciating to use, LOL. I bet the throughput could be figured in kpps... ;)
I had an experimental early Linux Ethernet bridge installation on a
386SX-16 PC with 2MB of RAM IIRC and 5 NE2000 clones (as many as there
were ISA slots left after filling in an HGC adapter for the console and a
multi-I/O adapter for the hard disk), driving a network of some 200 PCs.
2 Jun
2 Jun
7:09 p.m.
> No CD.
Why no CD-ROM? 2/3G storage; SCSI
or proprietary interfaces, even parallel
port adapters. CD-ROM was less work for installing Windoze
3.10/3.11 than a couple
dozen floppies.
Or installing SLS or Slackware with 40 floppies. :-) 
7:16 p.m.
On 06/02/2016 03:13 PM, Swift Griggs wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, Fred Cisin wrote:
2.88M 3.5" floppies were a huge mistake (there were also 2.88M 5.25"
ones as well). The media was expensive (I think I paid nearly $50 for
box of 10 DSED floppies and the drives needed FDC support. That being
said, most P2 and later boxes did have 2.88M FDC support. Drives were
uncommon (e.g. Teac FD235J). I think that I've seen all of about five
floppies in for conversion over the last 20 years in 2.88M format.
Not sure about the need for drivers, however. I guess it depends upon
the type and version of your OS. I never had the need of them. Simply
declaring the drive as such in the BIOS setup was sufficient.
There were 3.5" flopticals, and then there were the 3.5" WORM
drives--both at about the same time. The WORM drives were write-once
and could not compete with CD-R when those came out.
--Chuck
MOST of the "2.88M" drives (2.81MiB)
drives could also do 1.4M;
same FDC but needed device driver and twice the data transfer rate
for 2.8M.
Heh, 2.88" disks were like unicorns. I heard all about them, but I
never saw them for sale or people using them. That was probably just
my limited view at the time. The 20M floptical in the SGI Indy is
like a tooth fairy riding a unicorn, I've seen pictures, but I've
never actually seen one (or the disks) in person.
8:09 p.m.
New subject: 2.8M Floppy (Was: thinking of the "ultimate" retro x86 PCs -
I hope that Chuck will correct some of the errors that I made below:
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Not sure about the need for drivers, however. I guess
it depends upon
the type and version of your OS. I never had the need of them. Simply
declaring the drive as such in the BIOS setup was sufficient.
No need for drivers IFF your hardware (FDC and BIOS) and OS were new
enough. I think that SOME FDC boards that supported 2.8M data transfer
rates had BIOS chip to "update" the system BIOS. If not, DRIVER.SYS or
DRIVPARM=. If the OS was too old to know that drive format (<4.00?), then
it called for a relatively simple block mode device driver.
Remember that PC/MS-DOS
1.00 supported 160K
1.10/1.25 supported 320K
2.00 supported 360K (and 180K)
2.10 tolerated slow Qumetrak 142
2.11 (MS-DOS) was OEM'd, and LOTS of OEMs added other DOS formats
(including 3.5")
3.10 was first to support CD-ROM (MSCDEX and [undocumented] network
redirector?)
3.20 added 720K (first PC-DOS to support 3.5")
3.30 added 1.4M
Was it 4.00 that added 2.8M?
Those drives could, of course, be used on previous OS versions with device
drivers.
On MS-DOS 2.11 and 3.31, always look for which OEM it was from! MODE.COM
sometimes handled different videos (internal/external on portables!), and
OEM versions handled any special floppies. For example, Gavilan 2.11 was
SS 3.5", 2.11J and above were DS (but NOT same format as PC-DOS 3.20),
IIRC 2.11K brought it into line with PC-DOS 3.20.
And, for example, early HP 3.5" was not the same format as PC-DOS.
DRIVER.SYS V DRIVPARM=:
DRIVER.SYS permitted using formats that were newer than the SETUP program
knew about, such as 720K 3.5" on 5150 and 5160, or pre 3.5" 5170.
DRIVER.SYS created an additional drive letter, so the 3.5" drive would end
up as drive D:
DRIVPARM changed the specs of the drive without creating a new letter, so
your 3.5" could still be B:
DRIVPARM was undocumented in PC-DOS 3.20 and 3.30, but it WAS there, and
worked just fine with generic BIOS.
BUT, I was surprised to find it FAILING with real IBM BIOS (or image
thereof) in the same machine! Good reason to leave it out of the manual!
Both DRIVER.SYS and DRIVPARM= used format #9 for 2.8M
0 = 360K
1 = 1.2M
2 = 720K
3 = 8"SD
4 = 8"DD
7 = 1.4M
9 = 2.8M
You could also specify drive type using T:x/N:y (tracks and sectors), but
disappointingly, it only used those to identify which one of the ones in
its table; you could NOT use that to specify a 35 track or 70 track drive.
BTW, if you had four floppies installed, and the BIOS understood, then
your floppies would be drives A:. B:, C:, and D:. and you hard drive would
be drive E:. But some programs were "hard-wired" to assume C: as the hard
drive, including the INSTALL for MS-DOS 5.00! MICROS~1's answer: "Install
it on drive C:, and then copy it to the hard drive that you want it on."
I refused to install it to a 3" disk, so I installed on a different
machine, and created a 360K boot disk, plus copied all of the other files
to a sub-directory on the hard disk (E:).
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
8:48 p.m.
New subject: 2.8M Floppy (Was: thinking of the "ultimate" retro x86 PCs -
On 06/02/2016 05:09 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
I hope that Chuck will correct some of the errors that
I made below:
I think you've pretty much got it.
No need for drivers IFF your hardware (FDC and BIOS)
and OS were new
enough. I think that SOME FDC boards that supported 2.8M data
transfer rates had BIOS chip to "update" the system BIOS.
If the 2.88M-capable FDC wasn't part of the motherboard, it generally
had a BIOS on the card for the extra stuff. This was certainly true of
the CompatiCard IV and a few other "special" FDCs (i.e., those with a
separate connector for a 2.88M drive).
NT 4 had no problem with the drives, but then, it could also support
3-mode drives (1.23M 360RPM 8x1024 format). I believe that pin 4 on the
floppy interface was used to switch speeds.
Was it 4.00 that added 2.8M?
Sounds right--but it may also be a matter of *which* 4.0. MS or IBM?
DRIVER.SYS V DRIVPARM=: DRIVER.SYS permitted using
formats that were
newer than the SETUP program knew about, such as 720K 3.5" on 5150
and 5160, or pre 3.5" 5170. DRIVER.SYS created an additional drive
letter, so the 3.5" drive would end up as drive D:
DRIVPARM changed the specs of the drive without creating a new
letter, so your 3.5" could still be B: DRIVPARM was undocumented in
PC-DOS 3.20 and 3.30, but it WAS there, and worked just fine with
generic BIOS. BUT, I was surprised to find it FAILING with real IBM
BIOS (or image thereof) in the same machine! Good reason to leave
it out of the manual!
DRIVPARM was sort-of-disabled on PC-DOS 3.2 and 3.3. You had to suffix
the "DRIVPARM" with three control-A characters (hex 01) to get it to
work. At some point, the device types for SD and DD 8" drives were
nulled out, but I don't recall when.
BTW, if you had four floppies installed, and the BIOS
understood,
then your floppies would be drives A:. B:, C:, and D:. and you hard
drive would be drive E:. But some programs were "hard-wired" to
assume C: as the hard drive, including the INSTALL for MS-DOS 5.00!
MICROS~1's answer: "Install it on drive C:, and then copy it to the
hard drive that you want it on." I refused to install it to a 3"
disk, so I installed on a different machine, and created a 360K boot
disk, plus copied all of the other files to a sub-directory on the
hard disk (E:).
At some point, MSDOS decided that the hard disk would always be C:, with
any additional removable drives trailing that. That probably helped a
lot. And there was always a drive B:, whether or not a physical drive
was present (if not, it mapped to drive A: with suitable prompting
messages).
--Chuck
11:09 p.m.
New subject: 2.8M Floppy (Was: thinking of the "ultimate" retro x86 PCs -
> I hope that Chuck will correct some of the errors
that I made below:
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I think you've pretty much got it.
Was it 4.00
that added 2.8M?
Sounds right--but it may also be a matter of *which* 4.0. MS or
IBM? At some point, MSDOS decided that the hard disk would
always be C:, with
any additional removable drives trailing that. That probably helped a
lot. And there was always a drive B:, whether or not a physical drive
was present (if not, it mapped to drive A: with suitable prompting
messages).
That seemed to be their intent starting with 5.00
However, when I put 5.00 on a 5160 with four floppies and motherboard
switches properly set for that, the MS-DOS 5.00 INSTALL choked on wanting
C:, but it worked fine when put on without using INSTALL.EXE (FORMAT/S on
another machine with it installed, boot from that DOS5.00 boot floppy,
SYS the hard drive, copy the files.)
That still worked when I replaced that 5160 motherboard with a 386 and
generic AT four drive floppy controller! The OS didn't seem to care about
processor.
(But, I was surprised that the Cordata laser printer software refused to
try to run on mewer than 8088 processor. But, I had 4 different interface
boards (such as Eiconscript) connected to an ABCD switch on that CX
engine)
Thank you for the Ctrl-A tip on DRIVPARM. Strangely, PC-DOS DRIVPARM
worked for me with generic BIOS, but not real IBM BIOS on the same
machine. The FAIL with IBM BIOS was "Unrecognized command in
CONFIG.SYS"!
I don't know which versions and/or which OEM'd versions had 8" support.
Probably ended with 6.00
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
3 Jun
3 Jun
2:27 a.m.
New subject: 2.8M Floppy (Was: thinking of the "ultimate" retro x86 PCs -
On 06/02/2016 08:09 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
Some GOOGLEing seems to show it as being 5.00
I'll swear that that's not right. MS/PC DOS 5.0 didn't come out until
1991; IBM was putting 2.88s out in 1988, the same year that PC DOS 4.0
came out. And PCDOS 4.0 came out before MSDOS 4.0--MS wisely held back
on releasing that bug-ridden beast. It could be that 2.88 was in one
of the PCDOS CSDs--heaven knows, there were enough of them.
At any rate, I'll check my copy of the printed manual and see if it says
anything about ED floppies.
Was it 4.00 that added 2.8M?
Sounds right--but
it may also be a matter of *which* 4.0. MS or IBM? I don't know which versions and/or which OEM'd
versions had 8" support.
Probably ended with 6.00
Oh, I think the device types were stubbed out long before that. After
all, there's no standard PC BIOS call that supports that. Probably
left in for the PC98 crowd (the NEC APC used 8" floppies).
--Chuck
3:18 p.m.
New subject: 2.8M Floppy (Was: thinking of the "ultimate" retro x86 PCs -
On 06/02/2016 11:27 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
At any rate, I'll check my copy of the printed
manual and see if it
says anything about ED floppies.
I checked my July, 1988 first edition PC DOS 4.0 manual and it doesn't
mention ED floppies at all. So ED must have come in during one of the
(several) corrective service updates.
I haven't booted up 4.0 to see if DRIVPARM or DRIVER understands the
reference to ED, however. Printed manuals longa, Software brevis.
--Chuck
5 Jun
5 Jun
7:36 a.m.
New subject: 2.8M Floppy (Was: thinking of the "ultimate" retro x86 PCs -
On 3 June 2016 at 08:27, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
I'll swear that that's not right. MS/PC DOS
5.0 didn't come out until
1991; IBM was putting 2.88s out in 1988, the same year that PC DOS 4.0
came out. And PCDOS 4.0 came out before MSDOS 4.0--MS wisely held back
on releasing that bug-ridden beast.
Mine own thought.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
8:04 a.m.
On 3 June 2016 at 01:16, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
2.88M 3.5" floppies were a huge mistake (there
were also 2.88M 5.25"
ones as well). The media was expensive (I think I paid nearly $50 for
box of 10 DSED floppies and the drives needed FDC support. That being
said, most P2 and later boxes did have 2.88M FDC support. Drives were
uncommon (e.g. Teac FD235J). I think that I've seen all of about five
floppies in for conversion over the last 20 years in 2.88M format.
That's more than I've seen.
I'm surprised at your evaluation, though. It did seem to me that if
the floppy companies & PC makers had actually adopted them wholesale,
the floppy disk as a medium might have survived.
The 2.8MB drives never really took off widely, so the media remained
expensive, ISTM -- and thus little software was distributed on the
format, because few machines could read it.
By 1990 there was an obscure and short-lived 20MB floptical diskette format:
http://www.cbronline.com/news/insites_20mb_floptical_drive_reads_144mb_disks
Then in 1994 came 100MB Zip disks, which for a while were a
significant format -- I had Macs with built-in-as-standard Zip drives.
Then the 3?" super floptical drives, the Imation SuperDisk in 1997,
144MB Caleb UHD144 in early 1998 and then 150MB Sony HiFD in late
1998.
None of the later ones could read 2.8MB diskettes, AFAIK.
After that, writable CDs got cheap enough to catch on, and USB Flash
media mostly has killed them off now.
If the 2.8 had taken off, and maybe even intermediate ~6MB and ~12MB
formats -- was that feasible? -- before the 20MB ones, well, with
widespread adoption, there wouldn't have been an opening for the Zip
drive, and the floppy drive might have remained a significant and
important medium for another decade.
I didn't realise that the Zip drive eventually got a 750MB version,
presumably competing with Iomega's own 1GB Jaz drive. If floppy drives
had got into that territory, could they have even fended off CDs?
Rewritable CDs always were a pain. They were a one-shot medium and
thus inconvenient and expensive -- write on one machine, use a few
times at best, then throw away.
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11:19 a.m.
On 06/05/2016 05:04 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
I'm surprised at your evaluation, though. It did
seem to me that if
the floppy companies & PC makers had actually adopted them wholesale,
the floppy disk as a medium might have survived.
I doubt it. The ED floppy did not come at a good time. Clone (okay,
second-source) manufacturers had adopted the HD format wholesale and the
price of HD floppies themselves had dropped to the level of DD prices.
By 1990, most if not all, new PCs had HD droves and even Apple was able
to understand the PC format. When ED floppies were released to the
general unwashed public, integrated FDCs largely could not handle the
1Mbps data rate, so adopting the format meant changing the FDC (fraught
with problems if said FDC was integrated into the motherboard) and
buying a new drive and expensive media. Perhaps the media price would
have fallen if adopted. That's not a sure thing, however--prices never
fell on floptical (3M superdisk, Caleb SHD, etc.) media.
Also, by 1990, IBM was no longer an industry leader in PCs, nor did it
set the technical standards (MCA pretty much did that in).
But I don't think that a high-capacity Zip would have made a dent in the
CD-R market. I'm not aware of many consumer-grade audio players that
can handle Zip disks of any stripe.
Too little, too late is probably another aspect.
--Chuck
6 Jun
6 Jun
10:44 a.m.
On 5 June 2016 at 17:19, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
I doubt it. The ED floppy did not come at a good
time. Clone (okay,
second-source) manufacturers had adopted the HD format wholesale and the
price of HD floppies themselves had dropped to the level of DD prices.
By 1990, most if not all, new PCs had HD droves and even Apple was able
to understand the PC format. When ED floppies were released to the
general unwashed public, integrated FDCs largely could not handle the
1Mbps data rate, so adopting the format meant changing the FDC (fraught
with problems if said FDC was integrated into the motherboard) and
buying a new drive and expensive media. Perhaps the media price would
have fallen if adopted. That's not a sure thing, however--prices never
fell on floptical (3M superdisk, Caleb SHD, etc.) media.
Also, by 1990, IBM was no longer an industry leader in PCs, nor did it
set the technical standards (MCA pretty much did that in).
But I don't think that a high-capacity Zip would have made a dent in the
CD-R market. I'm not aware of many consumer-grade audio players that
can handle Zip disks of any stripe.
Too little, too late is probably another aspect.
Hmm. I got a blog post out of this:
http://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/49563.html
... where I developed the idea slightly.
Others on FB agree with you.
The HD 3.5" (1.4MB under MS-DOS) floppy itself was a big leap from the
DD (720kB) one. Most of the 16-bitters never made it: the disk
controllers of the Atari ST, Amiga, etc. couldn't handle it. AFAIK
there's only one ZX Spectrum interface that did -- the Czech MB02:
http://www.benophetinternet.nl/hobby/mb02/
I must confess I rather fancy one. :-)
So, yes, ED was a big step, but so was HD in its time. I think the IBM
PS/2 (1987) was the origin, right?
And there was never a 720kB IBM standard, only on things like Apricots.
According to Wikipedia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Sizes.2C_performance_and_capacity
... the 3.5" timeline was:
* 1983 -- SS/DD
* 1984 -- DS/DD, probably the most widespread
* 1986 -- HD, the PC standard
* 1987 -- ED, the 2.8MB ones that didn't catch on
* 1991 -- 21MB floptical
* 1994 -- 100MB Zip
* 1996 -- 120MB floptical
* 1997 -- 240MB floptical
That gap from '87 to the equally unsuccessful 21MB format, was the
killer, IMHO. If everyone had adopted the ~3MB disks, it might have
lived, but that probably wasn't enough on its own. Thus my speculation
as to whether pure magnetic ~6MB diskettes might have been viable
around 1988-1989 and ~12MB ones around 1990.
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11:08 a.m.
On Mon, 6 Jun 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
And there was never a 720kB IBM standard, only on
things like Apricots.
Could you explain?
720K was just as much of an IBM "standard" as 360K. Starting with PC-DOS
3.20, ("/F:2"). Sure, other companies used the same media for different
formats, but nowhere near as much as 5.25".
"Convertible", PS/2, optional in and external to AT.
If a good 150RPM ED drive were to have been readily available, then 2.8M
could have been retrofitted to all 1.4M systems, including Amiga, etc.
But would that, and the Barium-Ferrite disks have been worth it for just
twice the capacity?
11:28 a.m.
On 6 June 2016 at 17:08, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Mon, 6 Jun 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
I thought you might chime in on this.
AIUI -- not sure -- the 720 kB *format* was mostly used on 5.25" DS/DD
80-track disks, no?
Apricot and other vendors shipped MS-DOS machines with only 3.5"
DS/DD/80t drives. The same format was the standard diskette type of
the Atari ST, too.
But AFAIK IBM never shipped machines with DS/DD/80t track drives as
standard, did it? *Possibly* as a 2nd drive, but not as the stock. I
thought the IBM PC-compatibles came with:
#1 DS/DD/40t, 5.25", 360 kB (PC, PC-XT etc., 1981)
#2 DS/HD/80t, 5.25", 1.2MB (PC-AT, 1984)
#3 DS/HD/80t, 3.5", 1.4MB (PS/2, 1987)
And finally the not-widely-copied DS/ED/80t 2.8MB drives.
And there was never a 720kB IBM standard, only on things like Apricots.
Could you explain?
720K was just as much of an IBM "standard" as 360K. Starting with PC-DOS
3.20, ("/F:2"). Sure, other companies used the same media for different
formats, but nowhere near as much as 5.25".
"Convertible", PS/2, optional in and external to AT. If a good 150RPM ED drive were to have been readily
available, then 2.8M
could have been retrofitted to all 1.4M systems, including Amiga, etc. But
would that, and the Barium-Ferrite disks have been worth it for just twice
the capacity?
Wouldn't they have got much cheaper if every cloner had used them?
The cloners copied the 1.2MB and 1.4MB drives, but not the 2.8 ones.
Was media expense the main problem? Or expensive FDC chips? Or both?
--
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2:31 p.m.
On 06/06/2016 08:28 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Slow-spinning floppy drives are at best, a kludge. Like a lot of other
physical phenomena, the energy induced in a read/write head is roughly
proportional to rotation speed. Low speed -> low output. So not such a
good idea. I liked the idea of the 600 RPM 3.5" Sony drives.
--Chuck
AIUI -- not sure -- the 720 kB *format* was mostly
used on 5.25"
DS/DD 80-track disks, no?
I'm not sure what you consider 720K, so the question is hard to answer.
On MS-DOS machines? Perhaps, but there weren't a lot of them in
comparison to the IBM PC and its ilk.
But IBM offered the "slimline" 3.5" drive pretty early on; see the O&A
section on it--and it was indeed a DD "720K" formatted application.
(FWIW, the earliest drives on the 5150 were used as 160K and 320K format
implementors.)
If a good
150RPM ED drive were to have been readily available, then
2.8M could have been retrofitted to all 1.4M systems, including
Amiga, etc. But would that, and the Barium-Ferrite disks have been
worth it for just twice the capacity?
Wouldn't they have got much cheaper if every cloner had used them?
4:06 p.m.
>> And there was never a 720kB IBM standard, only
on things like Apricots.
> Could you explain?
> 720K was just as much of an IBM "standard" as 360K. Starting with PC-DOS
> 3.20, ("/F:2"). Sure, other companies used the same media for different
> formats, but nowhere near as much as 5.25".
> "Convertible", PS/2, optional in and external to AT.
On Mon, 6 Jun 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
I thought you might chime in on this.
AIUI -- not sure -- the 720 kB *format* was mostly used on 5.25" DS/DD
80-track disks, no?
It was used on 5.25" DSDD 80 track, by MANY companies other than IBM at
640K to 800K, and marketing people called it "quad density".
Superbrain/Intertec called it "Super Density", and abbreviated it
"SD"!!
(therefore a Superbrain DSSD meant 800K)
IBM did not go there much. They did use that on the PCJX, but not on
anything in USA.
BUT, the 720K 3.5" was heavily used.
MS/PC-DOS 3.20 ushered in the official acceptance of 3.5" 720K.
(A few MS-DOS OEMs had had 3.5" already, such as Gavilan, DG-1, Toshiba)
That was the only drive choice for the "Convertible", IBM's not
especially successful first attempt at a laptop, and the PS/2 model 25
and 30. (Didn't some of those use a cut-down model M keyboard w/o a
numeric pad?)
IBM sold external 3.5" drives to add to PS/2, 5150, 5160, 5170, but they
were not very popular - kinda expensive. Some PS/2 owners added
external 5.25", but most PS/2 owners didn't need an additional 3.5" drive.
IBM sold a 3.5" 720K drive with oversize faceplate and cradle to fit 5170.
With the PS/2-286, IBM added 1.4M with PC-DOS 3.30.
The 80286 and above PS/2s were available with either 720K or 1.4M drives,
but with no significant price differential, nobody but the most ignorant
college administrators (still in trauma from 360K/1.2M) would pick the
720K.
Lack of a media detector in IBM's PS/2 1.4M drives meant that many
users unintentionally, or without caring, formatted 720K disks to 1.4M.
The coervicity was close enough (600? V 720? Oersted) that it was believed
by most that that was perfectly acceptable.
We all think that 2.8M support came sometime in DOS4.00 or 4.01, but
Wikipedia level of non-authorities say 5.00.
Apricot and other vendors shipped MS-DOS machines with
only 3.5"
DS/DD/80t drives. The same format was the standard diskette type of
the Atari ST, too.
and early Amiga (#1000, etc.)
But AFAIK IBM never shipped machines with DS/DD/80t
track drives as
standard, did it? *Possibly* as a 2nd drive, but not as the stock. I
thought the IBM PC-compatibles came with:
#1 DS/DD/40t, 5.25", 360 kB (PC, PC-XT etc., 1981)
(further subdivided with
same FDC as SS, DS, 8spt, 9spt)
#2 DS/HD/80t, 5.25", 1.2MB (PC-AT, 1984)
#3 DS/HD/80t, 3.5", 1.4MB (PS/2, 1987)
That should be
#0 DS/DD/40t, 5.25", 360 kB (PC, PC-XT etc., 1981)
(further subdivided with same FDC as SS, DS, 8spt, 9spt)
#1 DS/HD/80t, 5.25", 1.2MB (PC-AT, 1984)
#2 DS/DD/80t, 3.5", 720K (Convertible,8086 PS/2, 1986)
#7 DS/HD/80t, 3.5", 1.4M (PS/2, 1987)
#9 DS/ED/80t, 3.5", 2.8M (barely ever in PS/2)
(DRIVPARM/DRIVER.SYS numbering)
(#3 and #4 were 8" until about 6.00, but MICROS~1 doesn't like to talk
about 8")
#5 was hard disk
#6 was tape
#8 was optical disk
> If a good 150RPM ED drive were to have been
readily available, then 2.8M
> could have been retrofitted to all 1.4M systems, including Amiga, etc. But
> would that, and the Barium-Ferrite disks have been worth it for just twice
> the capacity?
150RPM drives (and 180RPM 1.2M (Weltec)) existed (Amiga), but were never
any good. They never got that kludge to work well enough.
"A kludge born of desperation"
Wouldn't they have got much cheaper if every
cloner had used them?
of course
The cloners copied the 1.2MB and 1.4MB drives, but not
the 2.8 ones.
Was media expense the main problem?
yes Barium-ferrite disks never got into
sufficiently massive production.
Or expensive FDC chips? Or both?
NOT expensive,
nor chips. FDC board/support circuitry.
The 765 or equivalent FDC CHIP had no problem with it.
A 5150/5160 FDC board runs at 250K bits per second data transfer rate
(THAT is Kilo, not Kibi)
A 5170 FDC board needs to handle
250K bits per second for 360K formats,
500K bits per second for 1.2M, and
300K bits per second for 360K disk in 1.2M drive.
Later, two speed drives came out, eliminating further need for that speed,
but it was already in the designs.
A 2.8M FDC circuit needs to also support 1000K bits per second data
transfer rate.
Therefore, adding a 2.8M drive would require replacing the FDC board,
Existing inventories of HD/FDC cards would all need to be jettisoned. And
motherboards were just starting to come out that had FDC support on the
board.
Yes, 2.8M was too little, too late.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
4:25 p.m.
I noticed today that my mid 90's Digital AlphaServer 2100 4/275 has a
2.88Mb 3.5" drive.
Bill
8:42 p.m.
On Jun 6, 2016, at 8:28 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
and, if we interpret his original query as referring to 5.25" drives,
(what were called "quad density" by marketing in the CP/M world), then
there is the IBM PC/JX (which was not sold in USA)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
>> But AFAIK IBM never shipped machines with
DS/DD/80t track drives as
>> standard, did it?
On Mon, 6 Jun 2016, r.stricklin wrote:
Of course they
did. PS/2 8530.
Oops. And the 5140 "Convertible".
8 Jun
8 Jun
1:06 a.m.
On 7 June 2016 at 02:19, r.stricklin <bear at typewritten.org> wrote:
On Jun 6, 2016, at 5:17 PM, r.stricklin wrote:
Interesting. I did not know that!
--
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On Jun 6, 2016, at 8:28 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Oops. And the 5140 "Convertible". But AFAIK IBM never shipped machines with
DS/DD/80t track drives as
standard, did it?
Of course they did. PS/2 8530.
9:50 a.m.
But AFAIK IBM
never shipped machines with DS/DD/80t track drives as
standard, did it?
Of course they did. PS/2 8530.
1:37 p.m.
On 06/08/2016 06:50 AM, Fred Cisin wrote:
Those were machines with 3.5" 720K as the only
internal drives.
Possibility of other kinds of drives externally. But, 3.5" 720K
drives became available at that time (PC-DOS 3.20) as external drives
and/or as internal for 5150/5160/5170.
The first (intimate) contact I had with 3.5 diskette drives was a
contract to do the BIOS for a Z80 luggable made by an outfit called
Preis. I still have the BIOS, but not the machine. The big advantage
was that one could fit two floppies and a hard drive in the same box
with the system boards and display. IIRC, the floppies were the
half-height Sony OA32's; single-sided 66 track, 600 RPM. (I'd have to
refer to my notes to be certain). It was pretty nifty, but not
overwhelmingly so.
I'm not even sure that the product ever made it to market.
--Chuck
3:24 p.m.
Those were
machines with 3.5" 720K as the only internal drives.
Possibility of other kinds of drives externally. But, 3.5" 720K
drives became available at that time (PC-DOS 3.20) as external drives
and/or as internal for 5150/5160/5170.
The first (intimate) contact I had with 3.5 diskette drives
10 Jun
10 Jun
9:45 a.m.
On 8 June 2016 at 15:50, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
Easy enough to have missed their short-term domination
of the market if you
happened to have been on holiday.
I was still at university when the 80386, the PS/2 range and MS-DOS
3.3 were released.
I was the only person I knew in my year with their own computer -- a
48K ZX Spectrum, with Interface 1 and a microdrive, an Alphacom 32
printer (a narrow-strip thermal printer; it took till rolls) and an
old portable B&W TV as its display.
In my last year, I upgraded to a Spectrum 128, a DISCiPLE disk
interface plus a single DSDD 80t 5.25" floppy drive (780K per disk
with MGT's GDOS) and a 9-pin dot-matrix printer (a Panasonic KX-P
1081).
I also used the university's VAXcluster (2 x VAX 11/780).
In a corner of a side room in the computer centre, there was a single
IBM PC, with MDA, greenscreen, a single 5.25" floppy and a hard disk.
(So I presume a PC-XT but I don't know.)
Nobody much ever used it. It was the slowest computer in the place,
unless the VAXen were very heavily loaded, and even then, it couldn't
print and wasn't attached to the VAX as a terminal so there was no way
to get anything on or off it.
I discovered it had the Infocom Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy game
on it, and learned enough DOS to play that.
CD \HITCH
HITCH
A couple of years later, that got me a job in tech support. Yes, really.
So, I missed the news because:
[a] I wasn't in work yet
[b] I used "real computers" at Uni, not PCs
[c] ordinary Brits couldn't afford PCs; I had a Spectrum, bought
piecemeal, that cost around $500 or so for the whole system.
By the time I started work and so started using PCs, DOS 3.3 was
current and PS/2s were proliferating.
I apologise for my ignorance.
--
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11:50 a.m.
[720K]
> Easy enough to have missed their short-term
domination of the market if you
> happened to have been on holiday.
On Fri, 10 Jun 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
By the time I started work and so started using PCs,
DOS 3.3 was
current and PS/2s were proliferating.
I apologise for my ignorance.
What's to apologize for?
Missing out on the short-lived reign of 720K was not hard to do.
To me, being in college was a lot like being on holiday. My generation
was part of the transition from "wine, women, and song" over to "drugs,
sex, and rock&roll". We knew that personal computers would be coming
soon, but they weren't yet available. We had boxes of cards, and
occasional tapes, instead of floppy disks.
The remark about missing it if on holiday is a "humorous" idiom.
The time of the 720K 3.5" was short enough in IBM, that you could almost
have missed it if you slept late that day :-)
I was involved in disk format conversion, so I was one of the few people
to whom it was important.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
8 Jun
8 Jun
4:36 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 6:16 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
2.88M 3.5" floppies were a huge mistake (there were also 2.88M 5.25"
ones as well). The media was expensive (I think I paid nearly $50 for
box of 10 DSED floppies and the drives needed FDC support. That being
said, most P2 and later boxes did have 2.88M FDC support. Drives were
uncommon (e.g. Teac FD235J). I think that I've seen all of about five
floppies in for conversion over the last 20 years in 2.88M format.
given the poor track record of 3.5" DSHD media I've had in my collection,
I
can only imagine how unreliable ED media is/was.
2 Jun
2 Jun
7:24 p.m.
On 02/06/2016 23:13, Swift Griggs wrote:
Heh, 2.88" disks were like unicorns. I heard all
about them, but I never
saw them for sale or people using them.
I have 2 or 3 drives, one from an IBM machine and one or two from 3Com
Netbuilders. I have probably a dozen or so disks, mostly from 3Com
software distributions.
The 20M floptical in the SGI Indy is like a tooth
fairy
riding a unicorn, I've seen pictures, but I've never actually seen one (or
the disks) in person.
I have a couple of those, too. They're prone to suffering from dust,
though. The biggest air intake on the front of an Indy is... guess
where. I had trouble finding media, too, until someone from 3M let me
have some "samples".
--
Pete
7:26 p.m.
Heh, 2.88" disks were like unicorns. I heard all
about them, but I never
saw them for sale or people using them. That was probably just my limited
view at the time. The 20M floptical in the SGI Indy is like a tooth fairy
riding a unicorn, I've seen pictures, but I've never actually seen one (or
the disks) in person.
2.88M drives were common with first generation RS/6000s. I probably
still have craploads of drives and media stashed somewhere from the
AOL days (every dialup site had a little model 220 buried in the
rack).
--
Will
8:22 p.m.
2.88M drives were common with first generation
RS/6000s. I probably
still have craploads of drives and media stashed somewhere from the AOL
days (every dialup site had a little model 220 buried in the rack).
Pretty common on PS/2s as well AFAIK. However, I don't think the IBM drives could
easily be used in non-IBM systems...
-Ali
9:18 p.m.
Yes, they were common in later PS/2 machines. I don't have a single 2.8Mb
disk but quite a few drives go figure. Don't really see the need for them
now or even back then. Might have helped with OS releases if they could cut
in half the amount of disks you needed, but CDROM killed the need.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ali
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2016 8:22 PM
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Subject: RE: thinking of the "ultimate" retro x86 PCs - what bits to
seek/keep ?
2.88M drives were common with first generation
RS/6000s. I probably
still have craploads of drives and media stashed somewhere from the AOL
days (every dialup site had a little model 220 buried in the rack).
Pretty common on PS/2s as well AFAIK. However, I don't think the IBM drives
could easily be used in non-IBM systems...
-Ali
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
9:43 p.m.
On 06/02/2016 06:18 PM, TeoZ wrote:
Yes, they were common in later PS/2 machines. I
don't have a single
2.8Mb disk but quite a few drives go figure. Don't really see the
need for them now or even back then. Might have helped with OS
releases if they could cut in half the amount of disks you needed,
but CDROM killed the need.
XDF and DMF formats came close.
--Chuck
9:26 p.m.
The ultimate gaming 486 would have an EISA+VLB motherboard. EISA for SCSI
caching controllers and 10/100 Ethernet cards, VLB for high end video cards,
plus room for an ISA sound card.
The ultimate work 486 would probably be an IBM PS/2 Model 90 or 95 with
exotic MCA cards. Or the same EISA + VLB as above with different cards.
To be honest I have a few different ultimate 486 setups so there isn't one
ultimate to be had.
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3 Jun
3 Jun
2:19 a.m.
The ultimate gaming 486 would have an EISA+VLB
motherboard. EISA for SCSI
caching controllers and 10/100 Ethernet cards, VLB for high end video cards,
plus room for an ISA sound card.
As it happens, this is nearly exactly what I have: EISA (with an AWE32 ISA
sound card) with a VLB video card. The CPU is an Am5x86 133MHz, which AMD
advertised as comparable to the 75MHz Pentium. This is fairly accurate for
integer games (it runs things like Doom and Heretic like buddah), but
obviously it chugs on FP and won't run anything requiring Pentium
instructions. On the other hand, this machine runs a lot of finicky older
games that don't like my PCI P75 (Bio Menace, I'm looking at yoooooooouuuu).
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- You cannot have a science without measurement. -- R. W. Hamming ------------
9:39 a.m.
In the late 80's early 90's all PCs, obviously, were nothing like the plug
and play we have today. Most the major players who made controller cards
provided driver disks with their hardware. You're going to have issues
with any manufacturer, drivers are always an issue when working with
orphaned hardware slapped together into a single system that was never
originally built that way.
The reason I am suggesting Dell in particular is that their 386/486 stuff
was when they were "the best" growing company with the best value.
Compared with contemporary Compaq or HP stuff of the same years I'd always
find Dell easier to work with.
EISA? You'd better start snapping up spare parts now, this is not a bus
that I would pick as my ultimate 386/486 bus if I planned to support it in
the future, too hard to find parts. Go with what's cheap now on Ebay, iSA
and SCSI.
Just so you know, I have Dell from this era but also Compaq, Gateway, IBM,
HP, Digital Equip Corp, Packard Bell (it was good then too). No clones.
Quietly I have been waiting for 386/486 to become "vintage"....I remember
when on this list you'd get your head snapped off if you brought up an IBM
5150...time moves on.
Bill
11:22 a.m.
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
As it happens, this is nearly exactly what I have:
EISA (with an AWE32
ISA sound card) with a VLB video card.
Ahh, the AWE32. I had one of those, too. They came with some funny tools.
I remember "Dr Sabatsio" cracked me up.
The CPU is an Am5x86 133MHz, which AMD advertised as
comparable to the
75MHz Pentium. This is fairly accurate for integer games
I forgot about that proc. Nice. That sounds like a very snappy 486 with
some nice expansion cards.
On the other hand, this machine runs a lot of finicky
older games that
don't like my PCI P75 (Bio Menace, I'm looking at yoooooooouuuu).
Interesting. I haven't run into that problem yet. However, I do play old
games, so we'll see. I don't have any 486's at the moment. The slowest x86
box I still have is a P233 HP Sojourn laptop.
-Swift
10:57 a.m.
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, TeoZ wrote:
The ultimate gaming 486 would have an EISA+VLB
motherboard.
Yes, I would agree on that. However, since I'm mostly interested in
running older Unix variants and DOS, games aren't at the top of my value
system. Don't get me wrong, I love games, and I'd surely have a few loaded
with DOS. However, I'm looking for something special. I have this foggy
memory of a small, white, NEC (or maybe it was NCR, or or or... crap. I
just can't remember) slimline desktop machine that was a 486 and had a
SCSI2 interface right on the mobo and had an external SCSI2 header, too. I
know it had two or three expansion slots, but I didn't get to pop open the
box to look at what kind of slots they were. I've been google image
searching for a while trying to find it again. I saw them while doing some
contract job back in the 90's. The green LED on a SCSI terminator caught
my eye (as well as the fact that I liked the case design).
EISA for SCSI caching controllers and 10/100 Ethernet
cards, VLB for
high end video cards, plus room for an ISA sound card.
I have an Orchid VL-bus card I plan to use. I think I'll probably go with
the 3c509 for ethernet, or a 3C905 if the machine comes with PCI
(doubtful).
The ultimate work 486 would probably be an IBM PS/2
Model 90 or 95 with
exotic MCA cards. Or the same EISA + VLB as above with different cards.
I'm not a huge PS/2 fan, but some of them were still interesting to me. I
just looked those up. That model 95 is a beast. 8 32-bit MCA slots. Geeze.
However, I'm afraid a lot of those MCA adapters won't be supported under
something like BSDi or Solaris x86.
To be honest I have a few different ultimate 486
setups so there isn't
one ultimate to be had.
I totally understand. That's why I put big quotes around "ultimate".
Everyone has their own idea of that. I'm really just hoping that if
someone sees me saying "I think this bit was really nice" about something
they had a bad experience with, then they'd speak up. Some folks have
already, and I appreciate that. Plus, I've learned a ton about floppy
drives with the discussion about 2.88M floppies. :-)
-Swift
6:09 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Swift Griggs once stated:
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, TeoZ wrote:
Sounds somewhat similar to the server (email and web, on the public
Internet co-located) I used up through 2004-5. It was an NCR-3230 system
and was a 486. I used a similar unit at home as a router (fun times getting
three network cards working on the thing).
http://www.flummux.org/images/tower/index.html
-spc (I think I had that for five, six years. And the few times I had to
reboot it was due to moving it, or someone tripping over the power
cord. It was a robust little box.)
The ultimate gaming 486 would have an EISA+VLB
motherboard.
Yes, I would agree on that. However, since I'm mostly interested in
running older Unix variants and DOS, games aren't at the top of my value
system. Don't get me wrong, I love games, and I'd surely have a few loaded
with DOS. However, I'm looking for something special. I have this foggy
memory of a small, white, NEC (or maybe it was NCR, or or or... crap. I
just can't remember) slimline desktop machine that was a 486 and had a
SCSI2 interface right on the mobo and had an external SCSI2 header, too. I
know it had two or three expansion slots, but I didn't get to pop open the
box to look at what kind of slots they were. I've been google image
searching for a while trying to find it again. I saw them while doing some
contract job back in the 90's. The green LED on a SCSI terminator caught
my eye (as well as the fact that I liked the case design).
6:32 p.m.
On Fri, 3 Jun 2016, Sean Conner wrote:
Sounds somewhat similar to the server (email and
web, on the public
Internet co-located) I used up through 2004-5. It was an NCR-3230
system and was a 486.
Ohhh, yeah, that's a nice box! Kind of like what I'm looking for. Found a
youtube video for it, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZornOKpoD0
I still can't see (cords in the way) if that guy had a SCSI adapter
onboard.
-Swift
4 Jun
4 Jun
11:43 a.m.
On Fri, 3 Jun 2016, Sean Conner wrote:
It was thus said that the Great Swift Griggs once
stated:
Weren't those old NCR systems MCA-bus? I remember having ... I think it
was called a System 3300 ... I used to have one way back in the day and I
remember the onboard SCSI as well - unfortunately not supported by MCA
Linux at the time, much to my consternation :| Don't recall if it was a
486 machine or maybe a 386? I'm sure there were lots of variants.
Best,
Sean
On Thu, 2 Jun 2016, TeoZ wrote:
Sounds somewhat similar to the server (email and web, on the public
Internet co-located) I used up through 2004-5. It was an NCR-3230 system
and was a 486. I used a similar unit at home as a router (fun times getting
three network cards working on the thing).
http://www.flummux.org/images/tower/index.html
-spc (I think I had that for five, six years. And the few times I had to
reboot it was due to moving it, or someone tripping over the power
cord. It was a robust little box.)
The ultimate gaming 486 would have an EISA+VLB
motherboard.
Yes, I would agree on that. However, since I'm mostly interested in
running older Unix variants and DOS, games aren't at the top of my value
system. Don't get me wrong, I love games, and I'd surely have a few loaded
with DOS. However, I'm looking for something special. I have this foggy
memory of a small, white, NEC (or maybe it was NCR, or or or... crap. I
just can't remember) slimline desktop machine that was a 486 and had a
SCSI2 interface right on the mobo and had an external SCSI2 header, too. I
know it had two or three expansion slots, but I didn't get to pop open the
box to look at what kind of slots they were. I've been google image
searching for a while trying to find it again. I saw them while doing some
contract job back in the 90's. The green LED on a SCSI terminator caught
my eye (as well as the fact that I liked the case design).
8 Jun
8 Jun
4:44 p.m.
If you're in the neighborhood of a DX2-66 IIRC, 486DX 50s with VLB were
fairly desirable vs a 486DX2-66 if you got the right mix of VLB cards to
use, since you could run the VLB cards faster.
2956
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48 comments
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bear＠typewritten.org -
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cclist＠sydex.com -
cctalk＠ibm51xx.net -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
ethan＠757.org -
lproven＠gmail.com -
macro＠linux-mips.org -
oltmansg＠gmail.com -
pete＠dunnington.plus.com -
scaron＠diablonet.net -
spc＠conman.org -
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teoz＠neo.rr.com -
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