I Finally Got a Socket 7 Motherboard !

[Ziggy587]

The only thing is that it looks like the power LED is a ring around the power button, which is not very period correct looking. I could either deal with that, or black out that ring and install a new power LED, which might end up looking kinda of neat. I'm actually planning on using black drives in a beige case for this build. Kind of like how old IBMs looked. But I've also been seeing old AT towers that are beige with black drives, and I'm digging that look. Also, I currently have only black floppies drives available, so it would be more economical for me.

[opa]

Maybe you already mentioned it and I don't remember but what monitor are you going with on these builds?

[Ziggy587]

Undecided, sort of. I currently have 3 CRT monitors that measure 16" diagonally (so I think they're 17" monitors). One of them is a beige Dell that I scored from the side of the road (I made my passenger hope out and grab it while I was at a red light LOL). But I'm not actually sure if it works. Then I have an eMachines and a Compaq, both of which have a black and silver color scheme going on. So naturally, I'd like to use the only beige monitor I have with this Socket 7 build. But ideally I would like another beige monitor for use with the Slot 1 build, so I was sort of thinking about hunting for another CRT monitor (yeah, like I need more CRTs). But I was also thinking about maybe setting up both the Socket 7 and Slot 1 with the Dell monitor using a KVM switch, that would also save space. But then I'd have to use the same mouse with both computers, which isn't my preference. I wanted an old school 2-button with no scroll wheel for the Socket 7. But I think I want a mouse with a scroll wheel for the Slot 1. So we'll see.

That said, I don't have a lot of space to set up all of these computers. So I'm trying to figure out how to set up as many as I can in as little space as possible. I actually have more builds panned, but I don't want to post threads for them yet or you all with think I'm nuts. I'm also gonna have to build or buy one or two more desks to set everything up on, but I'm undecided how I want to lay out the desks in the room. So that decision is sort of intertwined with the monitor/KVM decision. I will definitely be posting pictures of the end result, though! I've actually been wanting to set up multiple retro computers since about 2015, but life happened. So this all has been a long time in the making!

[Anapan]

Warcraft 1 LAN party woo!

[Ziggy587]

Maybe you already mentioned it and I don't remember but what monitor are you going with on these builds?

So I just busted out my side-of-the-road Dell CRT monitor. This is what it is...

https://crtdatabase.com/crts/dell/dell-e770s

And... It works! Man, I haven't used a PC on a CRT monitor in years now. It looks great! Out of the corner of my eye I could see screen flicker. But I adjusted the refresh rate and it went away.

Warcraft 1 LAN party woo!

Setting up and configuring it is hard enough, but getting people (adults) that are willing and able to have a retro LAN party... That's a real challenge!

[Ziggy587]

So I got a case... Actually, two cases!

Case #1

Thanks again to opa for pointing this case out to me. OK, so this case is kind of weird. I like 99% of it, but I really don't care for that curve at the top. So why did I get it? Well, because it was a good deal. The seller sent me an offer for 12 GBP (it's shipping from the UK). To be honest, that seems a little suspect to me, but the seller has 100% feedback. My total with shipping was $50 USD.

Besides the case itself, it comes with a few things. The black DVD-ROM drive I can actually use for something else. The beige floppy drive will be nice to have as a backup, but the brand is unknown. It also comes with a Seagate 80 GB SATA HDD. So subtracting what the drives are worth, I got this case for next to nothing. Or if you consider it being $50 just for a case on eBay, that's still a very good price (pretty much all beige cases on eBay are crazy money). It comes with that Q-Tec power supply, which looks like it doesn't have an input voltage switch, so I can't use it being that the input voltage is 220v. But I wouldn't want to use it anyway. However, I can very well use the wires and connectors to make my own adapters and whatnot, so it's not a total loss.

Although I'm not crazy about the case design, it does hit a few key points I wanted. I wanted at least 2 external 5.25" bays, and 1 but preferably 2 external 3.5" bays. I really wanted a spot for a case badge. And it has spots to mount serial and parallel ports. My motherboard has headers for two serial and one parallel port, and I do want to utilize them. I know I can get them on PCI slots, but it would be nice not to have to take up additional PCI slots needlessly.

Case #2

This one is near perfect for me! It was listed at a good price (comparatively to other eBay listings), it looks to be in great condition, and the seller has 100% feedback. It comes with that beige CD burner, which is very close to what I was looking to get for the Slot 1 build. It comes with a beige floppy drive, so that'll be another backup I suppose. And it comes with a Zip 100 drive!

I took the Zip drive as a sign that I should get this one. While in high school, my brother took a graphic design course. Our high school had a program for seniors that bused them to a trade school for various courses. The graphic design course required each student to purchase a Zip disk to hold their class work on (I guess HDD space was still too expensive back then). I've held on to that Zip disk for him, but I never had drive to access it with. Not that there's anything super important on it, but I'm sure he would get a kick out of seeing his work. The only thing is, it's a Mac formatted disk, but I'm hoping there's something I can access it with under Linux.

Anyway, I'm really digging the way this case looks. For this build, I really wanted something very boxy looking, and this definitely fits the bill. Although there's a couple of minor things I'm not crazy about. One, it doesn't have side panels. It's one of those deals where one piece of metal covers the right, left and top of the computer. I haven't had a computer case like that in ages! So while it'll be kinda a blast from the past, it might end up getting annoying. But not a deal breaker.

The only other thing is that it looks like it has a front intake fan and no spot for a rear exhaust fan. Maybe I've just grown so accustomed to a rear exhaust fan, I have to remind myself that this is a Socket 7 build so it's not like it's gonna get crazy hot inside this case. If I get a modern PSU for these, those all have a big ass fan on the bottom that moves a lot of air out of the case. And if ambient temps are really a problem (which I'm sure they wont be) I could always find a way to exhaust more air like a PCI exhaust fan.

I was planning on using a beige case with black drives for the Socket 7 build. I really like the way that looks, but it has to be in the right case. Check out this case, for example...

Example case, not mine:

I think that looks awesome. And I already have black 3.5" and 5.23" floppy drives, as well as black optical drives. But will that look good in the case I just bought? Well, if it doesn't, I do have a beige 5.25" FDD, so I suppose I could stick with the beige drives. Although I did purchase a front 3.5" bay adapter thing for a CF to IDE adapter, but I suppose I could always spray it beige if need be.

What do you guys thing about black drives in a beige case?

[Ziggy587]

The replacement opamp for the Sound Blaster 16 came in, so I installed it...



You can see U22 (almost dead center) is replaced. But unfortunately, the left channel still is not working! Very frustrating.




I ordered a couple of CF to IDE adapters, one being PCI mounted and the other that fits in a 3.5" external bay. I also grabbed a Verbatim 4 GB CF card since it is currently cheap on Amazon. I actually already have a 4GB SanDisk CF card (came out of my old digital camera, used it for a while in my Super PowerPak before I sold it) but I want multiple CF cards. With the front mounted adapter, I'm thinking I can swap out CF cards to switch between operating systems.





It dawned on me, I don't think I've ever been dissappointed by a StarTech.com product.



It comes with a little instructions booklet, a PCI bracket you can swap in, and 4-pin Molex to Berg adapter if you need it, and all around the build quality looks better than the more generic one I got.

I'm thinking what I might ultimately do is have DOS OSes on CF cards, but have an actual HDD for Windows 95.

So being that I got the CF adapters in, I decided to mess around with DOS. I needed to test out the SB16, and it's just easier to do that in DOS. For some reason, that non-PnP card was a pain to set up in Win98.



So something like 5-7 years ago, I was collecting various parts and big-box stuff for a retro computer setup that I never got around to... Until now! I was able to score this MS-DOS 6.22 Upgrade brand new. I had already removed the shrink wrap from the box to take a look at the contents, but I had yet to open the floppy disks.



It's always a gamble with old floppy disks, even new old stock ones, if they will work or not. I am aware of modern ways around this, but I wanted the authenticity of installing DOS from floppies! Unfortunately...





I know there are various ways around this, but I didn't know this at the time I was buying it. Boxed, the upgrade version of 6.22 can be had for cheap but the full version can be kind of pricey. So back when I bought this 6.22 upgrade I also picked this up...



MS-DOS 5.0, brand new and still shrink wrapped! This isn't a retail version, it's an OEM version that would have been sold with a computer, but appears to be a full (not upgrade) version nonetheless. The only catch is that it's on 5.25" floppies. Now, I know I can just download the images for the full version of 6.22, or trick the upgrade version that I have now, but I still think it would be fun to install 5.0 and then upgrade to 6.22. But since I don't yet have a case for this build (they're in transit) I don't feel like hooking up a 5.25" FDD. Those drives are kind of open, and I don't want to use one outside of a case and risk damaging it.

I really just wanted a quick way to test the SB16, so I decided to go with MS-DOS 7.1 for now. This is not an official product. It's what's "under the hood" in Windows 9x, but also had a lot of stuff added to it. You can download floppy images of it, but there's also an ISO for CD. So that's what I went with. It's nice that it includes a mouse and CD driver, and it has a bunch of optional apps that it can install. It even includes drivers for a few popular sound cards. And it has a sort of directory GUI with mouse control that overlays over DOS, but you can toggle it on and off. It even has an optional splash screen when it's loading the OS. It's fun to mess with for now, and quick so I can test hardware, but it's not what I'll be keeping on this machine. When I get the case in and finally assemble this PC, then I'll do a proper DOS install.

[Ziggy587]

Case # 2 (from a few posts back) was delivered today!

It's definitely an old school diesel case. The entire case is made up of thick gauge metal and it weighs a ton. It looks even better in person. It has a few minor blemishes that I don't mind, but otherwise it's mint.

I couldn't help myself, I just had to test the power supply. It works! Well, at least, it powers on using one of those little PSU testers. But what's neat is that the -5v rail is present. So now this is my only PSU that has -5v. I mean, I'll probably never need it, but it's nice to have. The case metal obscures the sticker on the PSU so I couldn't tell what brand it was until now. I removed it form the case, and it's a Sparkle! I don't know if they still are, but around this time Sparkle was considered to be one of the best power supplies you could get. I'll crack it open when I get the chance and take a look at the caps. But I don't know, should I use this or get a brand new power supply?

I pulled the drives out too. The CD drive is BTC, which sounds familiar. Not sure if that's a good brand or not. The Zip drive is NEC, so that's cool. The floppy drive has no stickers on it, so I cannot identify it as of yet. But given the ear this case is from, and the care that it looks like was put into this build, I bet it's at least adequate.

Also present inside the case is a pretty fresh looking 40 conductor IDE cable, which is nice because a lot of my 40 conductor IDE cables smell bad for some reason. Also present is a floppy drive cable, the "universal" kind, so that'll be nice to have. There was only 1 FDD in this case, so the unused portion of the cable was very neatly folded and rubber banded. Oh yeah, and the case actually has a speaker! It's located in the front bezel somewhere. I'll pull the bezel off to get a look at it (and also clean it out a bit) but I didn't want to right now because it's freezing cold and I was worried the plastic could be brittle.

The case badge says "ACP Super Computer." I'm kind of torn if I should remove it or not. I originally intended to not care if the case came with a badge or not, and put my own on. But I don't know, this one looks kind of neat, and it sort of tells a story. Who was ACP? Some ma and pa shop that built computers?

And on that note... Back in the early and mid 90's, do you guys remember seeing mostly brand name PCs (Dell, Compaq, etc) or a mix of brand name and custom builds? Because now that I think of it, I remember seeing quite a few custom built PCs. This case reminds me of that, all the more reason I think it was a great choice.

Being that I had pulled out the FDD and Zip drive, and I already had my black FDD and black front bay CF to IDE adapter out, I decided to stick them in there to see how this beige case would look with black drives. And, it actually looks pretty good! When I get the time, I'll throw a black CD and 5.25" FDD in there and take a pic. I'm kind of torn if I should go with black or beige drives for this.

On another note... This thread has over 2,700 views but only two people replying. It's kind of difficult to gauge if people are enjoying this sort of blogging that I'm doing. So if you're enjoying this thread, please let me know by posting a comment! Otherwise I get the feeling that it isn't very popular, which dissuades me from continuing it.

[Anapan]

I turned off a few of the DOS 7.1 features, but it is the DOS I decided to use on my machine.

[Ziggy587]

I turned off a few of the DOS 7.1 features, but it is the DOS I decided to use on my machine.

Any particular reason?

That's the beauty of using CF cards with the front bay adapter. I could just get another card for 7.1, and swap OSes simply by swapping cards.