I..."obtained" an old i486DX computer (I remeber when these rigs were the **** of the walk! [/nostalgia]). Garbage you might say? Nope. I cut open a cardboard box and covered it in duct tape, to use as a case. DOS game console!

Now I'm not aiming for FCC compliance here, but I'd like to avoid as many explosions and unscheduled brown-outs as possible. How could I make this silver abomination electricly sane? I already had to take the PSU out of it's case just to fit it inside. Not a good situation, eh?

Thanks for any input. Look at my sig for details on this project, code named "Suck-o-matic". (The one on the right, wiseass.)
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(Edit: lol! The board filter out "c.ock". Now that's what I call paranoid.)

I had a i486DX computer once. I took it apart and now the peices are lying in my closet.
It had a 5 inch floppy drive.

I still have a 486DX/66 machine with 8 MB ram and 127 MB hard drive. This bad machine has external 2X cd rom drive, 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 drives. Running Windows 95 too - painfully but its running it. This was my first real computer and I cant seem to part with it (translate nobody wants it).

I would pick up a cheapy case and just toss it all in there - maybe find an old shat computer (I guess you've already done that, check that off the list) and gut it for the case........

i use to have a 486 too... ended up on the sidewalk, like most 486 and apples ended up..lol

I'm currently using my DOS machine and as good of an idea as what you're doing sounds, I've tried it a few times until I came to this.

Yep, I'm rocking...
p3 1ghz
S3 Virge Video card
Aureal Vortex 2 Sound
192 mb RAM
2 CD-Roms (one of which is a burner, but doesn't work in...
Windows 98)

Let me tell you, it runs almost everything flawlessly. I'm having trouble with my sound card in DOS (anybody have a really old SB pro PCI card I can purchase?) but everything else is pretty much a dream (I'm playing pretty much anything up to 1998 (?)). And when my little LAN parties roll around, it's still always better than the machine belonging to the loser who freaks out when I stick a network card in his machine.

Just remember these for your dos machine.
First! Windows 98 AT THE LATEST.
Second! 3d Acceleration was out. My Voodoo Rush couldn't do crap (yes, JDogg, I still want it)
Third! Find the OAK Universal CD drivers. This isn't hard, you can find them on Win9x boot disks I think.
Fourth! Umm....I don't know. I will tell you, though, a 6 gig hard drive is LOT bigger on a DOS machine. I have pretty much forgotten about file sizes

Quote: the loser who freaks out when I stick a network card in his machine.

oh man thers an asshat at my lans that is like that! :roflmao:

damn man, ive got some many of those 486 DX chips its not even funny! i'll tell yah one thing that they are good for. Linux or Unix and yeah a few msdos games! If your are interested in obtaining a copy of win 3.1 let me know! you can still run your games with it! It just may take abit to get er going!!

NOTE: I'm kinda the old school hoe who has all the old gear, Like a living room full of it, yes i even have deshelled AT psu,s :hint hint:

Wow.. that is going back ol'skool.

I had a DX2/66 back in 92. I remember 8MB ram cost me like $300, and I was the Sh!t w/ a 14.4 modem

The only good use for my Dx2 is to put it behind the back of my car as blocks when I'm working on it. So it doesn't roll anywhere

SAD

Ya'll aint got nothin' on my old school Tandy 1000EX, which sadly I no longer have.

Quote: Originally Posted by St8ic ... How could I make this silver abomination electricly sane? I already had to take the PSU out of it's case just to fit it inside. Not a good situation, eh? ...

Use a bigger box?

Let's see some pics too

Quote: Originally Posted by Spectrum Ya'll aint got nothin' on my old school Tandy 1000EX, which sadly I no longer have.

Damn.. Tandy? Weren't Tandy only sold at Radio Shack? I wanted one back in teh days, but I got a Commodore 64c instead.

Hmm.. I wonder where my Commodore 64 went. Probably in my parents garage somewhere.

SAD

Quote: Originally Posted by Spectrum Ya'll aint got nothin' on my old school Tandy 1000EX, which sadly I no longer have.

Looks like we've all got nothing then

Quote: Originally Posted by arronrkelly Yep, I'm rocking... p3 1ghz S3 Virge Video card Aureal Vortex 2 Sound 192 mb RAM 2 CD-Roms (one of which is a burner, but doesn't work in... Windows 98)

Swap out the video card, and that rig could do alot more than you'd think.

Quote: Originally Posted by stereomod If your are interested in obtaining a copy of win 3.1 let me know!......NOTE: I'm kinda the old school hoe who has all the old gear, Like a living room full of it, yes i even have deshelled AT psu,s :hint hint:

Me too. My closet is filled with old parts that I still keep buying, while I'm still suffering with a 7GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM in my real rig. But I already have win 3.1, along with just about every other OS

Quote: Originally Posted by Jonny English Use a bigger box? Let's see some pics too

It's already the size of an Xbox, and I'd like to keep it as small as possible. I'll snap some pics as soon as I can find my digital camera....

Quote: Originally Posted by Homsar I'm a soooooong from the sixtys.....

Small world.

Quote: Originally Posted by St8ic Swap out the video card, and that rig could do alot more than you'd think.

Nah, No AGP slot (it was some kid's HP machine. His PSU blew and I bought it off him for 35 bux0rs, replaced it with a spare PSU). I've got a great machine and I really don't need anything faster... what I needed was the DOS gaming, this machine does it and does it better than any old 486 or pentium I've tried to do it on. All those games that used to suck without a boot disk, say hello to 1ghz of power.


Granted, not everybody can land a sweet 1ghz for 35 dollar deal, but if I were you I'd get something WAY over the specs those games had. Pentium 2 processors are cheap. I could buy you one if you needed.

hmmm.... x486 DX... lets see, four years ago, I discovered a fun little jumper in there next to the cpu... played around for a while, screen went blank, then smelled smoke. I completely melted the socket. Pulled the cpu with pliers, and made a keychain. btw, i'm 18 and I remember playing reader rabbit on an Apple Classic from 5 1/4" floppies. My aunt bought me a 500k hard drive for x-mas one year, and I was thrilled to not have to cold boot from a floppy.

I actually have 2 486dx HP Vectra's sitting in my basement, with cases. They both work, allthough one is missing hdd and floppy, but if anyone wants one or both, all i ask is shipping. (kind of heavy) You can pick em up locally if you want, but im going to toss them in a dumpster soon.