Need advice on restoring old 486 machine!

kiruna · Mar 6, 2017

So, recently I happened to find a family members old computer, and my plan is to give it a new life for playing some old DOS games. But since I have no experience at all with anything that is pre-windows xp, any advice is greatly appreciated.

The first thing I tried to do is to see if it was working, and I actually got very surprised to see it just fire up and starting windows 3.1 with all programs and files running without problems, after sitting for nearly 20 years! This sure brought up some old memories…

I have some reasons for thinking it is equipped with a 486 DX2 cpu. There also is what seems to be a SCSI drive, a VESA SCSI controller and a VESA graphics card with VGA output. There also are a floppy drive and a magnetic cartridge reader, but there is no CD drive. I have no idea about how much Ram is installed.

My greatest problem at the moment is to collect all the information about the hardware (RAM, graphics, other things I may have missed) so that once I know them, I can focus on figuring out what parts I can keep and what I need to upgrade.

I really need some advice on how to get started with this project.

Thanks you very much in advance!

rotflcopter · Mar 6, 2017

If all you want to do is run older games, might I suggest DosBox. You'll save yourself a lot of time, pain and effort. If you are just doing the hardware for fun and nostalgia, good luck. The last time I tinkered with a 486 it wasn't the fun trip down memory lane I was expecting. The biggest problem I had was sourcing compatible parts. It may have been my particular computer and I haven't looked at another one in about two years so, YMMV.

Eximo · Mar 6, 2017

The BIOS information screen during POST should get you most of the vital information.

Entering the BIOS will provide additional information.

486 systems typically had PCI and ISA buses. So if you have a VESA 486, you might struggle to find components. Though you could still install ISA cards in VESA compatible slots, I believe. It has also been a long time, and technology changed so quickly back then that I pretty much rebuilt from scratch every generation.

72-pin SIMM EDO memory was common, though some 486 boards likely also had 30pin SIMM memory slots. I don't believe you could use both at the same time.

The only nice thing about older parts is that they rarely potted any ICs, so you can pretty much take hardware out and do part look ups on individual chips. Many of which are socketed for ease of repair/model differentiation.

You can find a lot of stuff on Ebay, but be prepared for high prices or non-working sales.

tiredteck · Mar 6, 2017

If you are looking at adding a CD drive, you will most likely need to find a SCSI, SCSI external or Parallel port model. Keep in mind for the SCSI you need to match the the type of SCSI and terminate the drives in the right order.

tt/2

Eximo · Mar 7, 2017

ATA 33 was somewhat common in those days too, so IDE drives would have been available.

Sound cards, and occasionally video cards, also came with ATAPI controllers back then. SCSI was more for high performance applications and the very early CD-ROM drives.

When boards were boards and could be full length cards with several features. I had a goofy reversible ethernet card, it was PCI and ISA, a single chip and a bridge controller on either end. You took the bracket off, put it on the other end and the card was 'flipped' Sound cards with add-on memory and even entire add-on boards for MIDI and wave.

I have a SCSI controller somewhere with its own socketed independent x86 CPU.

Certainly more fascinating than the plug and play seamlessness of today.

tiredteck · Mar 7, 2017

Eximo :

I've had my fingers in a LOT of machines, but the reversible NIC is a new one on me. I've seen the combinations with BNC and RJ45 on the same card.

Lest we forget the joyous experiences of setting IRQs, Base address and Port numbers via jumper Blocks. All the while making sure it did not conflict with the system or the add in boards already installed.

Ahh the fond memories ....

Eximo · Mar 7, 2017

It was certainly that, BNC and RJ45 for 10Mbps. Back then my father and I would go to corporate auctions. Came out of a 386 machine that we picked up for spare parts. I can only imagine they liked having one card they could use on multiple platforms.

I used the floppies and hdd (420MB if I recall) from that machine in my 486 with a Pentium overdrive chip in it. Good times that. Later got a 6.4GB drive, added a voodoo2 and that was pretty much my gaming machine until I picked up a K6.

USAFRet · Mar 7, 2017

tiredteck :

People that wish to recreate the 486 days for "authentic gaming" either never used one, or have seriously selective memory loss.
Or are just gluttons for punishment.

Eximo · Mar 7, 2017

I use my restored Poweredge 4200 with dual Pentium IIs, 256MB of ECC memory (512 installed, but I can't get the latest BIOS to load), Voodoo 5 5500, and a SB AWE32 with MIDI board for true retro gaming. Runs DOS 7 (Thanks China!) with USB and NTFS support and Windows 2000 for 'newer' games. Never bothered with 98 SE or ME though, most of those games I like had DOS versions.

Never expected that machine to work when I bought it. Was just going to use it as a massive ATX case.

Mostly just use DosBox though, and a lot of the good titles are available from GoG these days.

tiredteck · Mar 7, 2017

USAFRet :

tiredteck :

People that wish to recreate the 486 days for "authentic gaming" either never used one, or have seriously selective memory loss.
Or are just gluttons for punishment.

HUH What? Bring it on. At least I gave up my 8086.

Eximo · Mar 7, 2017

I remember it pretty fondly, only real difficulty was sound, and occasionally joystick/wheel, setup. But I was pretty much a keyboard warrior anyway. As mentioned, tech moved pretty fast back then, so I ran a lot of older games on newer hardware and bought a lot of games out of the bargain bins or as collections.

kiruna · Mar 11, 2017

Since it's the weekend and I finally have some spare time, here's an update on the machine:

First of all, it turns out that there are (luckily) no SCSI drives at all.
These are the specs I've managed to find out:

Gigabyte GA-486VT motherboard
486 DX2, 66 MHz
256 KB cache
640 KB base memory
7424 KB ext. memory
240 MB IDE hdd

I'm still not sure about the graphics card.

Now, is it possible to replace the hdd with something like a cheap ssd using a IDE to SATA adapter and install Dos on the ssd?
What alternatives do I have if I want to replace the hdd (it is annoyingly loud and I don't really trust it) with something else?
Which version of DOS would you install?
Should I use a floppy emulator for the installation?

Also, could somebody please point out the difference between base memory and extended memory?

Finally, what do you think about the overall build, is it suitable for some retro gaming, or is there anything that should be improved?

Thanks you very much and have a nice weekend.

USAFRet · Mar 11, 2017

Base memory vs extended memory:
640k was the limit on regular RAM. Then the space between 640kB and 1MB was reserved for system needs.
Extended memory is above that. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_memory

The amount of RAM in there (8MB), probably cost around $500 when it was new.

Hard drive?
You'll just have to live with that 240GB drive. Any OS you put on this will not know how to handle the size of any recent drive, spinning or SSD.
(and yes, drives were loud back then)

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