PCI BUS adds a lot of logic to the BUS compared to VLB, VLB is a direct CPU BUS interface basically, this also means that VLB cards run at the same speed as the CPU FSB, which is not the case with PCI and can be also a reason for performance decrease with PCI (with a standard configuration not messing with PCI BUS clocks). This is also why without anything else other than a fast FSB VLB cards on CPUs with 40Mhz or higher bus clocks will perform quite well as long as they do not die due to overheating (the main driver for the adoption of the PCI BUS in fact as many a card died during the VLB days once the DX50 came out, this also had an impact on Intel CPU design, the FSB to internal clock discrepancy was also meant to help with these cases, if you notice the PCI BUS first default clock speed was topping out at 33Mhz).
I think this might be ideal 486 DOS gaming box: small, capable and has a lot of tinkering potential! Wonder if I can get these for a reasonable price in the UK. Performance looks like a real mid 90s sweet spot without needing much tinkering. Possiblity of PCI slot(s) makes getting adapters much easier too, whilst keeping the ISA slot for older compatibility. Thanks for sharing, happy #486buildoff!
Thanks, Chris! It sure is a very capable DOS gaming box, that's for sure. When I got this one last year, there were a few available for sale on eBay. I haven't seen another one for sale for quite some time though, unfortunately. Hopefully a recycler will unload a lot of them some day soon :)
@@vswitchzero yeah my bubble was pricked a little just now when I had a quick look on eBay - nowt, not even in the completed items! Still Im sure they are called other things (like the one on Vogons) and I have all the tiiiiime as soo many other projects on the go at the mo. Ghidra disassembling is a lot of fun, is the silent mode activated by the BIOS that unsilent switches off or is it that silent mode is baked into the video and you need to unsilent it?
@@mogwaay Good point, would be neat to find a list of all make/models this hardware was sold under. I don't think the "SILENT" feature is in the VGA BIOS because the same behavior occurs with an external ISA video card installed too. I managed to flash a "half-working" AWARD bios on it from a board with the same chipset and the "SILENT" behavior goes away. But the challenge I have is that there is a single PLCC32 chip that both the VGA BIOS and Phoenix PICO bios share. I have to use an ISA VGA card in that case. Haven't figured out how to split them out yet or if there is enough space on the flash chip to store both the VGA BIOS and Award BIOS. Will keep poking at it as time allows 👍
@@vswitchzero Woah I had no idea you could do that. I have a Boundless TC100 and faced all the troubles you did, though running ansi.sys seemed to also stop it being in 'silen't mode. But putting another BIOS on there, I had no idea that could be done and have it still working. Could you share the unsilent utility somewhere? For the VGA BIOS, maybe it's like a laptop where the VGA BIOS sits in the 2nd half of the chip?
They are somewhat tough to find, I got one a while ago that was branded as an Equiinet Netpilot and stumbled through all the points that vswitchzero has gone through :) . There is one of those for sale that matches the one in this video but it looks kinda pricey. vswitchzero: I took some detailed pictures of my TC100 and will probably upload them in a bit, my one has the real time clock / battery - it uses a thing called a Snaphat. On my one, I've modified the front smartcard slot to fit the CF card.
Great little system! Since I'm not very into pre-pentium era stuff, I never fully understood what makes a video card to be considered good in 486 times. I know that market was very fragmented and without established standards every company was doing it's own things, can you briefly explain what were the specs of a good video card in 486 era?
That's a great question - It's really hard to compare these old cards based on specs. Aside from memory type and amount, and whether or not GUI acceleration was provided there wasn't usually much to go on. People would usually rely on magazine review roundups and experiences shared by others to understand how these cards performed. Things were pretty CPU limited in the 486 era so card performance wasn't very drastic from chip to chip (assuming a VLB or PCI card). The biggest performance gains came when people moved from the restrictive ISA bus to VESA Local bus or PCI. Most companies were focusing on "GUI acceleration" in the early-to-mid nineties to provide a smoother experience in Windows and there were some big differences in this area. But I'd say compatibility is one of the most important things. There were some display standards back then, but many cards didn't follow all of the rules properly and there were some game compatibility problems (scrolling issues in Commander Keen with an ATI card for example). Cards made by S3 and Cirrus Logic were well known for good compatibility even if they weren't the absolute fastest. Not sure I answered your question, but hope that helps :)
@@vswitchzero OK thanks! So when you hear "this was a good 486 video card" this means it was PCI/VLB, had no game compatibility issues and had some sort of Win 3.xx GUI acceleration? But, given a set of cards that had all these specs, still not sure why one was faster than the others, maybe trivial things like slightly higher chip and memory speed?
@@framebuffer.10 Yep, although many people don't care too much about GUI acceleration if they are mainly into DOS gaming. Many manufacturers would have features and tweaks to improve performance. Some were clocked higher, some had better memory bandwidth due to interleaving, some had ways to access the bus more efficiently. Those were the kinds of things that couldn't really be compared in the specs, unfortunately.
Sweet little build! Always love these low-profile systems from the era. To address the PCI issue, you can actually get a flexible PCI extension cable, which should let you plug in a PCI card if you made a nice mount to hold the PCI card inside the case. If you're curious to know where to get one, I can put a link for one I bought here. For cooling, you can also get a blower-style fan that mounts in the expansion slot. It's powered by molex, but I'm sure you can adapt it to give it power from the board (or perhaps even the PCI slot using an adapter). I've used these fans to add cooling to small cases like these, and they work quite well (other than typically being a bit loud, but adjusting the voltage lower could help with that). Swapping to a DOM can free up the second expansion slot in the case if you ever need that for anything (though I'm sure that's obvious to you).
Thanks for your comment! Funny you should mention that because I actually just bought one of those flexible PCI extensions last week. The one I got is about 20cm/8in inches long. I'm not sure how well it'll fit in the case with a video card mounted, but it'll at least allow me to do some testing with discrete PCI video cards with the cover off.
Isn't the most demanding dos game Mech Warrior 2 in high resolution mode? Just thinking out loud here. At least up to that point, pretty sure quake kicks it from there. Possibly Descent 2 and Terminal Velocity
So many thoughts! I like how up close and personal you get with your systems - every jumper is identified, every piece of available documentation is located, and I love that you collaborated with people on getting the most out of this system. It occurred to me that Necroware would probably fab a PCB for the RTC that would sit in that PCI slot! Great choice of soundcard in the end. GM is a great feature for late-era DOS gaming, but there's something about FM that's a bit more raw. And when you consider the difference between something like Bio Menace's soundtrack compared to that of Descent, it shows how great it can sound. Bio Menace is not an easy game. It's kinda 2D Blake Stone in way, I just realised. Thanks for showcasing this intriguing system!
Thanks very much! Getting to know all the "ins and outs" of systems like this is a lot of fun. You are totally right about FM. GM can sound awesome, but it's really FM sound that I remember fondly from back in the day. Bio Menace can definitely be challenging. I want to say I finished the shareware episode a long time ago, but I don't remember. It's definitely on my list to play again :)
@@vswitchzero Did you know the make PCI rizer cables similar to the PCI-e cables for modern systems. With that you don't need to worry about the height.
@@davidwiley4953 Thanks for your comment! Yes, I actually bought one a few weeks ago. It's a bit long for this small case but it'll at least allow me to do some tests with PCI video cards now! Will hopefully be doing a follow-up video at some point.
Really nice to find a small unexpected system that actually has some hidden potential that most people wouldn't see or even bother with. Love this kind of stuff. Where some may see pointless. You see potential. Thank you for the video upload. Have a good one.
This is great! I love converting thin clients into dos/win98 game machines to see what they’ll do. Most of the ones I have are Geode-based. Nice to see an actual 486 in one! I’m subbing ya for sure. Keep up the great work.
That was a very cool build and for sure something different compared to the „average“ AT system. Thanks for putting this up, I really enjoyed watching it.
This is an awesome little system for DOS gaming. I really like how small it is and how beefy for 486 era DOS games it is. Awesome video Mike! This makes me want to hunt for a similar DOS compatible thin client to use as a portable DOS computer. These small computers have a lot of potential. Really enjoyed watching this!
Thanks so much! There are often all kinds of tradeoffs when dealing with small formfactor systems, but not so much with this one! It really is a cool little system and can handle just about any DOS game. I'm really glad I picked it up. I'll hopefully get it running even better once I can get the BIOS modified or replaced :)
Nice content! I especially appreciate that you played some other levels in games instead of usual starting levels that every retro channel play to test the hardware. It is the small thing but helps viewers to see something different. Keep up the good work!
While watching I was thinking ‘Why does he never try Duke Nukem?’ - and there it was. Enjoying the videos, this was my era of hardware tinkering as a hobby before it became a job.
Just discovered your channel. I used to fiddle around with old PCs back in the early 90's and eventually got up to a reasonably good technician level. I can at least understand and follow your explanations. You really know your stuff! And you present it in a very succinct and easy to follow way. I learned a few things! Liked and subscribed.
Great stuff, I have fond memories of the '486 era, the good old days of DOS, the ability configure memory by hand rather than using Qemm or memmaker andhow to properly write multiconfigs was a real game changer for me, I seem to remember around the time of those boards were about there was a global shortage of ram cache, some manufacturers left empty sockets on the boards for users to upgrade later, others did dubious things with the BIOS and fake cache chips on the board with the words 'write back' on them, a few would not recognise the cache added even with a properly sized tag ram, I seem to remember that writeback was more effective on the Cyrix CPU's but those have weak FPU performance, in the cases where the cache wasnt recognised it could be rectified on some cases with a BIOS change but not always - from my memory at least, ESS audiodrive cards were much loved back then by system builders in the day as you never had any trouble with them - they just worked! I however had the GUS Max and the SB16 installed thats why I had the multiconfig
RUclips strikes again man, i LOVE the content on your channel! I especially absolutely love the repairjobs your doing, makes me want to buy old defunct hardware and make it alive again.. just finished soldering new caps to my Radeon 9600 PRO (i know.. its WAY newer), i honestly thought it was dead.. but it functions perfectly now! Thanks for the content you make for us to enjoy!
I LOVE IT! I knew you were going to go with something like this. I have also heard of them being called bookcase pc's. The system seems to be built like a tank and low maintenance, of course that is want you want for any kind networking infrastructure. I could see this being a great lanparty system for doom.
Oh wow haha, only now after watching your awesome video I realized I ran multiple of the same games, and I apologize for that. Regardless, amazing system you put together, I'd love to fiddle with a thin client myself at some point. Great solution for powering the compact flash card adapter. This is great reference man, I learned a bit with this video, thanks for making it happen.
@17:00 - the way I see it, a power connection that can easily be plugged in the wrong way and fry things is par for the course in a pre-atx computer - the guys who came up with the 2 identical AT power connectors or the floppy drive cable with a twist in it didn't think such things were a problem, why should you?
Just got a 486 hp vectra with 12mb ram and an old school monitor! Bundle was 20 euros, it was so dirty and rusty, but i fixed both and they are working fine now! Just the previous owner turned up the brightness way up on the monitor inside, so i can open up that monitor again
Great video! When I saw that Gotek drive I thought for a sec you will take the Dremel cutting well for a spin and mod the case. The PCI riser is not standard but, what do you think, it shouldn't be to difficult finding a very small one that fit? It is interesting that you are getting subpar performance on the video card, I'm looking for what you end up finding out!
Thanks for the comment, Alberto! Haha yeah I definitely considered installing a go-tek. I had originally thought about putting it in the PCI bracket and having an internal IDE flash drive instead. I only wound up using it to install DOS and didn't really need it again. I found some utilities to mount floppy images in DOS as well as CD images. Will probably do a follow-up video on these in the future. Yeah, I'm almost certain there are PCI tweaks needed on this system to get better VGA performance. I have a late 486 board based on a VIA chipset with more than a dozen settings you can tweak in the BIOS for the PCI bus. By default, it's about 30-40% slower than it should be. I need to see if I can get a modified BIOS on here that can do something similar. Also, I wound up buying a PCI riser that uses a flexible ribbon cable. It's 20cm long so may be a pain to deal with, but I'm going to give it a try so that I can at least test with an external PCI video card. If the external card is slow too, then it backs up the PCI bus theory :)
If you did ever want to step up the graphics, pci extension/ribbon cables are readily available and you might just have to rig up some support for the card.
Thanks for your comment! I actually discovered those PCI ribbon cables shortly after I did the video and picked one up. It's pretty long (around 8 inches or so) but hope to revisit this system when I get some time.
I had fun watching Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, only I remember I had way better graphics but at the time I had the Voodoo 3 3000 which is the next video I'm gonna watch.
Duke3D is running pretty nicely on this system. It would be nice to see what a BIOS mod could do besides getting rid of the annoying text suppression "feature".
Hoping that I can squeeze some more performance out of it with a new BIOS. Now that I have a PCI riser cable, I can do some testing with PCI graphics cards too. More to come :)
it was a step past a dumb terminal. at the computer store i worked at in the very early 2000s we used something similar to this as a floppy server, we opened one of the back slots to house a floppy drive and network booted it (no internal storage, just booted off of the server like any other dumb terminal). used it to make some of the floppies that we needed on a regular basis.
oh, and we got ours from a call center that we had "upgraded". it was a bunch of duron 800 systems with onboard video. i suppose it was by far more powerful, but it was still very weak for the time.
Is there a DALLAS RTC chip init? (One with an Alarm cliock icon) That has an internal battery, which is probably dead by now... There are video's on YT in which there is explained how to attach an external CR2023 cell to have it keep date and time again.
This system doesn't use a Dallas RTC module (like the DS12887 for example). There is actually an empty solder pad location for a different RTC chip that has a "piggy back" battery that attaches to it. I can't recall the name/type at the moment but I'm hoping to try to locate one to solder on the board. I want to do a follow-up video on this system one of these days.
Thanks for your comment! Yep, the slot should work just fine without a riser so long as nothing obstructs the card from being inserted fully. I actually just bought a flexible PCI extension ribbon cable that I hope to use to test it out soon :)
@@vswitchzero given prices for 486 machines this could be a great solution. Question is do I need to add a 486 to my collection and what case do I buy to house this in? 🤪
With all of the people make custom retro parts for old computers that are hard to find, I’m surprised someone hasn’t made an ultra modern looking overkill watercooled system. It would actually be cool if you could stuff a monster version of each major era of retro computer hardware into one modern case.
This particular system was used as a Thin Client for connecting to RDP and Citrix based systems over the network. I've seen similar systems used for network appliances as well.
A bit late but this appeared in my recommendations today... From what I can see on the video, you may get -5V by populating Q1 with a LM7905 and C1 with a 1µF capacitor on the riser.
Man oh man oh man , where can I buy one of these, my first pc was I486 DX2 66Mhz , Please can you send me any details about where or who I can buy this thin client, please please, Best regards Brian from Glasgow Scotland, Peice love n respect
FPU benchmarks (like GZip or similar and hashing) and FFT (or Gaussian funcions too) are worthwhile for FPU (with or without FPU on the CPU) performance so as to consider a MPEG as VCD (Video CD) would use a pentium p90 approximately _(even without a video card beyond the 1MB found on many a p90 MBoard integrated graphics)_ although some p60 system can squeeze out enough processing power to do it, and likewise for decoding of ogg-vorbis audio, so FFMPEG and LibAV are worth a try. A 100MHz 486 should perform a like a p60 (especially with FPU). The fastest 16bit CPU's in your graph _(even without cache features being so advanced, as FPU is the main interest)_ should perform like a p90 (pentium 90MHz 32bit). Thsi is an example why i486 embedded is worthwhile in linux kernel support continuation. People might say "Just use an ARM chip", but then you cannot get one (like a pi amidst thet shortage). A 16MB i486 at 100MHz with a GPU _(even on a small embedded board the size of a slice of toast)_ has more RAM than say a NintendoDS, an yet a back catalogue of many productivity softwares in FOSS (i486). Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds, and so such feedback is not a demand of Linus Torvald but a share-and-share-alike (as per the philosophy) heads-up to help. The word "backlash" about i486 being dropped from Linux. Instead, it sounds more like a heads-up than a backlash. My comment has no hate in it and I do no harm. I am not appalled or afraid, boasting or envying or complaining... Just saying. Psalms23: Giving thanks and praise to the Lord and peace and love. Also, I'd say Matthew6.
@@coryflammer1269 Although it should technically work, I wouldn't recommend a Voodoo1 with a 486. There just isn't enough CPU horsepower available to get decent performance out of the majority of glide games out there. A higher-end Pentium MMX system would be a great choice for V1 (P166-P233 MMX for example).
Thanks for your comment! I actually bought one shortly after posting this video. It may be a bit long for the system but hopefully will work. I’m hoping to do another follow up video on this thin client if I get some time 👍
I could easily design a PCB for the PCI riser if you wanted (just to help out a small channel). I'd need to get some measurements from you, but let me know if you're interested.
Wow, thats really kind of you to offer, thanks very much! I actually purchased a flexible PCI bridge shortly after I did the video, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. If that doesn't work out well, I'll definitely get back to you. Thanks again!
That should work, it just won't support the card, but that would be easy to fix. Otherwise let me know, it's really only an hour or two of work for me. Then I'd give you the files to order the PCB from JLCPCB etc.
Tulip Impression Compact 4/66 = my Ultimate Socket 3 486 - since late 1994. Well, a bit Pimped since: MOAR than 4MB RAM and the AMD SX2 😲(2 x 16MB EDO from my first Build(Socket 7) and of course an AMD "real DX4" aka AMD-X5-133ADW*) *'cause I'm not gonna' overclock! ..on this, first x86 ever, old gal.
Thanks for the tip! I actually bought one a few weeks back. It's a bit long, so a bit hard to deal with inside of the case, but at least I can do some testing with PCI graphics cards now :)
Yeah, they've become very difficult to find now, unfortunately. A few years back you'd see them selling pretty cheap on eBay on occasion. I haven't seen one for sale for some time now.
Thanks for your comment! About a week after I posted this video I bought a flexible PCI riser. It's a bit long but will at least be good for testing some PCI graphics cards.
Good question, there is pretty minimal benefit to using a 3dfx card with a 486, but I’d be worried that the power supply may not be able to handle it longer-term. Would like to give it a try regardless 🙂
Yeah, I haven't seen any of these for sale for quite a while, unfortunately. When I bought this one last year there were a few popping up from time to time.
Thanks! I actually bought one last year to try but haven’t got around to it yet. It’s a bit long but I think it should work. Will do a follow up on this video at some point 👍
Thank you for the honest feedback. I try to be in-depth with my content but I know I need to strike a better balance between being informative and being overly verbose. This is something I will definitely try to improve on in future videos 👍
Man, the RUclips algorithm finally recommended me a good new retro hardware channel! Love your style. Lots of detail and presented at a good pace 👍
Thanks so much for the kind words, I really appreciate it! :)
Love the content! Takes me right back and I got the itch to build a DX4 machine again
PCI BUS adds a lot of logic to the BUS compared to VLB, VLB is a direct CPU BUS interface basically, this also means that VLB cards run at the same speed as the CPU FSB, which is not the case with PCI and can be also a reason for performance decrease with PCI (with a standard configuration not messing with PCI BUS clocks). This is also why without anything else other than a fast FSB VLB cards on CPUs with 40Mhz or higher bus clocks will perform quite well as long as they do not die due to overheating (the main driver for the adoption of the PCI BUS in fact as many a card died during the VLB days once the DX50 came out, this also had an impact on Intel CPU design, the FSB to internal clock discrepancy was also meant to help with these cases, if you notice the PCI BUS first default clock speed was topping out at 33Mhz).
I think this might be ideal 486 DOS gaming box: small, capable and has a lot of tinkering potential! Wonder if I can get these for a reasonable price in the UK. Performance looks like a real mid 90s sweet spot without needing much tinkering. Possiblity of PCI slot(s) makes getting adapters much easier too, whilst keeping the ISA slot for older compatibility. Thanks for sharing, happy #486buildoff!
Thanks, Chris! It sure is a very capable DOS gaming box, that's for sure. When I got this one last year, there were a few available for sale on eBay. I haven't seen another one for sale for quite some time though, unfortunately. Hopefully a recycler will unload a lot of them some day soon :)
@@vswitchzero yeah my bubble was pricked a little just now when I had a quick look on eBay - nowt, not even in the completed items! Still Im sure they are called other things (like the one on Vogons) and I have all the tiiiiime as soo many other projects on the go at the mo. Ghidra disassembling is a lot of fun, is the silent mode activated by the BIOS that unsilent switches off or is it that silent mode is baked into the video and you need to unsilent it?
@@mogwaay Good point, would be neat to find a list of all make/models this hardware was sold under. I don't think the "SILENT" feature is in the VGA BIOS because the same behavior occurs with an external ISA video card installed too. I managed to flash a "half-working" AWARD bios on it from a board with the same chipset and the "SILENT" behavior goes away. But the challenge I have is that there is a single PLCC32 chip that both the VGA BIOS and Phoenix PICO bios share. I have to use an ISA VGA card in that case. Haven't figured out how to split them out yet or if there is enough space on the flash chip to store both the VGA BIOS and Award BIOS. Will keep poking at it as time allows 👍
@@vswitchzero Woah I had no idea you could do that. I have a Boundless TC100 and faced all the troubles you did, though running ansi.sys seemed to also stop it being in 'silen't mode. But putting another BIOS on there, I had no idea that could be done and have it still working. Could you share the unsilent utility somewhere?
For the VGA BIOS, maybe it's like a laptop where the VGA BIOS sits in the 2nd half of the chip?
They are somewhat tough to find, I got one a while ago that was branded as an Equiinet Netpilot and stumbled through all the points that vswitchzero has gone through :) . There is one of those for sale that matches the one in this video but it looks kinda pricey.
vswitchzero: I took some detailed pictures of my TC100 and will probably upload them in a bit, my one has the real time clock / battery - it uses a thing called a Snaphat. On my one, I've modified the front smartcard slot to fit the CF card.
Great little system!
Since I'm not very into pre-pentium era stuff, I never fully understood what makes a video card to be considered good in 486 times. I know that market was very fragmented and without established standards every company was doing it's own things, can you briefly explain what were the specs of a good video card in 486 era?
That's a great question - It's really hard to compare these old cards based on specs. Aside from memory type and amount, and whether or not GUI acceleration was provided there wasn't usually much to go on. People would usually rely on magazine review roundups and experiences shared by others to understand how these cards performed. Things were pretty CPU limited in the 486 era so card performance wasn't very drastic from chip to chip (assuming a VLB or PCI card). The biggest performance gains came when people moved from the restrictive ISA bus to VESA Local bus or PCI. Most companies were focusing on "GUI acceleration" in the early-to-mid nineties to provide a smoother experience in Windows and there were some big differences in this area. But I'd say compatibility is one of the most important things. There were some display standards back then, but many cards didn't follow all of the rules properly and there were some game compatibility problems (scrolling issues in Commander Keen with an ATI card for example). Cards made by S3 and Cirrus Logic were well known for good compatibility even if they weren't the absolute fastest. Not sure I answered your question, but hope that helps :)
@@vswitchzero OK thanks! So when you hear "this was a good 486 video card" this means it was PCI/VLB, had no game compatibility issues and had some sort of Win 3.xx GUI acceleration? But, given a set of cards that had all these specs, still not sure why one was faster than the others, maybe trivial things like slightly higher chip and memory speed?
@@framebuffer.10 Yep, although many people don't care too much about GUI acceleration if they are mainly into DOS gaming. Many manufacturers would have features and tweaks to improve performance. Some were clocked higher, some had better memory bandwidth due to interleaving, some had ways to access the bus more efficiently. Those were the kinds of things that couldn't really be compared in the specs, unfortunately.
Ooh, memories unlocked creating own "rounded" cables with IDE and SCSI ones.. I still have my old ones somewhere in a box!
Sweet little build! Always love these low-profile systems from the era.
To address the PCI issue, you can actually get a flexible PCI extension cable, which should let you plug in a PCI card if you made a nice mount to hold the PCI card inside the case. If you're curious to know where to get one, I can put a link for one I bought here.
For cooling, you can also get a blower-style fan that mounts in the expansion slot. It's powered by molex, but I'm sure you can adapt it to give it power from the board (or perhaps even the PCI slot using an adapter). I've used these fans to add cooling to small cases like these, and they work quite well (other than typically being a bit loud, but adjusting the voltage lower could help with that).
Swapping to a DOM can free up the second expansion slot in the case if you ever need that for anything (though I'm sure that's obvious to you).
Thanks for your comment! Funny you should mention that because I actually just bought one of those flexible PCI extensions last week. The one I got is about 20cm/8in inches long. I'm not sure how well it'll fit in the case with a video card mounted, but it'll at least allow me to do some testing with discrete PCI video cards with the cover off.
@@vswitchzero Can't wait for a follow-up video!
This is miracle. A very rare tiny PC released in 90s, you find it, and restore it like a new one.
Good job man! 👍
Isn't the most demanding dos game Mech Warrior 2 in high resolution mode? Just thinking out loud here. At least up to that point, pretty sure quake kicks it from there. Possibly Descent 2 and Terminal Velocity
So many thoughts! I like how up close and personal you get with your systems - every jumper is identified, every piece of available documentation is located, and I love that you collaborated with people on getting the most out of this system. It occurred to me that Necroware would probably fab a PCB for the RTC that would sit in that PCI slot! Great choice of soundcard in the end. GM is a great feature for late-era DOS gaming, but there's something about FM that's a bit more raw. And when you consider the difference between something like Bio Menace's soundtrack compared to that of Descent, it shows how great it can sound. Bio Menace is not an easy game. It's kinda 2D Blake Stone in way, I just realised. Thanks for showcasing this intriguing system!
Thanks very much! Getting to know all the "ins and outs" of systems like this is a lot of fun. You are totally right about FM. GM can sound awesome, but it's really FM sound that I remember fondly from back in the day. Bio Menace can definitely be challenging. I want to say I finished the shareware episode a long time ago, but I don't remember. It's definitely on my list to play again :)
@@vswitchzero Did you know the make PCI rizer cables similar to the PCI-e cables for modern systems. With that you don't need to worry about the height.
@@davidwiley4953 Thanks for your comment! Yes, I actually bought one a few weeks ago. It's a bit long for this small case but it'll at least allow me to do some tests with PCI video cards now! Will hopefully be doing a follow-up video at some point.
Really nice to find a small unexpected system that actually has some hidden potential that most people wouldn't see or even bother with. Love this kind of stuff. Where some may see pointless. You see potential. Thank you for the video upload. Have a good one.
Thanks so much! :)
@@vswitchzero Your Welcome.
I really like your more electrical know how when it comes to these. Like you talk about the traces and where the electricity is going. That is key!
This is great! I love converting thin clients into dos/win98 game machines to see what they’ll do. Most of the ones I have are Geode-based. Nice to see an actual 486 in one! I’m subbing ya for sure. Keep up the great work.
Thanks very much, I appreciate it! :)
That was a very cool build and for sure something different compared to the „average“ AT system. Thanks for putting this up, I really enjoyed watching it.
Thanks very much! :)
wow mate, what a pleasure to watch! thank you a lot, great stuff, right down my alley! cheers from bavaria in southern germany
This is an awesome little system for DOS gaming. I really like how small it is and how beefy for 486 era DOS games it is. Awesome video Mike! This makes me want to hunt for a similar DOS compatible thin client to use as a portable DOS computer. These small computers have a lot of potential. Really enjoyed watching this!
Thanks so much! There are often all kinds of tradeoffs when dealing with small formfactor systems, but not so much with this one! It really is a cool little system and can handle just about any DOS game. I'm really glad I picked it up. I'll hopefully get it running even better once I can get the BIOS modified or replaced :)
That Duke nukem segment brought back memories when I was a preteen playing with the guys at my dad's PC shop. Over TCP/IP
Nice content! I especially appreciate that you played some other levels in games instead of usual starting levels that every retro channel play to test the hardware. It is the small thing but helps viewers to see something different. Keep up the good work!
Thanks very much! :)
While watching I was thinking ‘Why does he never try Duke Nukem?’ - and there it was. Enjoying the videos, this was my era of hardware tinkering as a hobby before it became a job.
Just discovered your channel. I used to fiddle around with old PCs back in the early 90's and eventually got up to a reasonably good technician level. I can at least understand and follow your explanations. You really know your stuff! And you present it in a very succinct and easy to follow way. I learned a few things! Liked and subscribed.
Thanks very much for the kind words, I really appreciate it! :)
Great stuff, I have fond memories of the '486 era, the good old days of DOS, the ability configure memory by hand rather than using Qemm or memmaker andhow to properly write multiconfigs was a real game changer for me, I seem to remember around the time of those boards were about there was a global shortage of ram cache, some manufacturers left empty sockets on the boards for users to upgrade later, others did dubious things with the BIOS and fake cache chips on the board with the words 'write back' on them, a few would not recognise the cache added even with a properly sized tag ram, I seem to remember that writeback was more effective on the Cyrix CPU's but those have weak FPU performance, in the cases where the cache wasnt recognised it could be rectified on some cases with a BIOS change but not always - from my memory at least, ESS audiodrive cards were much loved back then by system builders in the day as you never had any trouble with them - they just worked! I however had the GUS Max and the SB16 installed thats why I had the multiconfig
RUclips strikes again man, i LOVE the content on your channel! I especially absolutely love the repairjobs your doing, makes me want to buy old defunct hardware and make it alive again.. just finished soldering new caps to my Radeon 9600 PRO (i know.. its WAY newer), i honestly thought it was dead.. but it functions perfectly now! Thanks for the content you make for us to enjoy!
Thanks so much, I really appreciate it! Awesome that you were able to revive your 9600 Pro - it's always a great feeling! :)
"medic!!!!" on every death gets old fast!! LMAO
Nice work and presentation
I LOVE IT! I knew you were going to go with something like this. I have also heard of them being called bookcase pc's. The system seems to be built like a tank and low maintenance, of course that is want you want for any kind networking infrastructure. I could see this being a great lanparty system for doom.
Thanks Patrick! Yeah, this is definitely a great retro lanparty rig, that's for sure 👍
totally awesome little machine. this would totally take a spot on my KVM if I had one. great video too!
Thanks so much! :)
Beautiful Retro PC. Thank you !!!
Oh wow haha, only now after watching your awesome video I realized I ran multiple of the same games, and I apologize for that. Regardless, amazing system you put together, I'd love to fiddle with a thin client myself at some point. Great solution for powering the compact flash card adapter. This is great reference man, I learned a bit with this video, thanks for making it happen.
Haha no worries at all! It just means we both have good taste in games from the 90s :) Thanks very much for the comment!
Found your channel the other day. Like it a ton. I love tinkering with thes old Computers. I have had to recap some old voodoo cards as well!
Thanks very much! :)
Great video! You have a cool and tiny gaming 486
Thanks very much! 👍
@17:00 - the way I see it, a power connection that can easily be plugged in the wrong way and fry things is par for the course in a pre-atx computer - the guys who came up with the 2 identical AT power connectors or the floppy drive cable with a twist in it didn't think such things were a problem, why should you?
Haha, yep.. very good point!
Just got a 486 hp vectra with 12mb ram and an old school monitor! Bundle was 20 euros, it was so dirty and rusty, but i fixed both and they are working fine now! Just the previous owner turned up the brightness way up on the monitor inside, so i can open up that monitor again
Great video!
When I saw that Gotek drive I thought for a sec you will take the Dremel cutting well for a spin and mod the case.
The PCI riser is not standard but, what do you think, it shouldn't be to difficult finding a very small one that fit?
It is interesting that you are getting subpar performance on the video card, I'm looking for what you end up finding out!
Thanks for the comment, Alberto! Haha yeah I definitely considered installing a go-tek. I had originally thought about putting it in the PCI bracket and having an internal IDE flash drive instead. I only wound up using it to install DOS and didn't really need it again. I found some utilities to mount floppy images in DOS as well as CD images. Will probably do a follow-up video on these in the future. Yeah, I'm almost certain there are PCI tweaks needed on this system to get better VGA performance. I have a late 486 board based on a VIA chipset with more than a dozen settings you can tweak in the BIOS for the PCI bus. By default, it's about 30-40% slower than it should be. I need to see if I can get a modified BIOS on here that can do something similar. Also, I wound up buying a PCI riser that uses a flexible ribbon cable. It's 20cm long so may be a pain to deal with, but I'm going to give it a try so that I can at least test with an external PCI video card. If the external card is slow too, then it backs up the PCI bus theory :)
If you did ever want to step up the graphics, pci extension/ribbon cables are readily available and you might just have to rig up some support for the card.
Thanks for your comment! I actually discovered those PCI ribbon cables shortly after I did the video and picked one up. It's pretty long (around 8 inches or so) but hope to revisit this system when I get some time.
I had fun watching Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, only I remember I had way better graphics but at the time I had the Voodoo 3 3000 which is the next video I'm gonna watch.
Really nice small machine.
What a great project! Love it
Thanks very much! 👍
i think usually the fan blows out the power supply and not in from the power supply. psus generate heat, so you don't want to suck that into the case
Nothing beats the OPL2 & 3 but it at least isn't completely ruining the music like I've heard many other SB clones do. Anyway, nice little build.
Did you mention what the draw from the wall is? I'd love to see a kill-a-watt meter at full vs idle.
I didn’t test power draw but will definitely do this in the follow-up video I’m planning 👍
Duke3D is running pretty nicely on this system. It would be nice to see what a BIOS mod could do besides getting rid of the annoying text suppression "feature".
Hoping that I can squeeze some more performance out of it with a new BIOS. Now that I have a PCI riser cable, I can do some testing with PCI graphics cards too. More to come :)
You c an use the INSTALL= command in config.sys to run an executable. That should get you an option to have screen output earlier.
Interesting! I will have to give this a try. Thanks for the tip!
@@vswitchzero seems my DOS-fu is still strong, 20 years after I last used it. :-)
it was a step past a dumb terminal. at the computer store i worked at in the very early 2000s we used something similar to this as a floppy server, we opened one of the back slots to house a floppy drive and network booted it (no internal storage, just booted off of the server like any other dumb terminal). used it to make some of the floppies that we needed on a regular basis.
oh, and we got ours from a call center that we had "upgraded". it was a bunch of duron 800 systems with onboard video. i suppose it was by far more powerful, but it was still very weak for the time.
I was wanting to do something like this with the thin client I bought, but I never could do anything with it, a WYSE winterm 3360se.
Is there a DALLAS RTC chip init? (One with an Alarm cliock icon) That has an internal battery, which is probably dead by now... There are video's on YT in which there is explained how to attach an external CR2023 cell to have it keep date and time again.
This system doesn't use a Dallas RTC module (like the DS12887 for example). There is actually an empty solder pad location for a different RTC chip that has a "piggy back" battery that attaches to it. I can't recall the name/type at the moment but I'm hoping to try to locate one to solder on the board. I want to do a follow-up video on this system one of these days.
Is that a Noctua? Edit: Confirmed 10:00 onwards
Great video
Thanks! :)
Cool little build, crazy that much power was lurking in a thin client! Think you are going to retrobright it to make it look new?
I've been thinking about it. The front panel is easy to remove and would be quite simple to submerge. Needs a good Am5x86 case badge too :)
Dang! I need one!
I wonder if that PCI slot would work without a riser. Could the motherboard be transplanted into a larger case and a PCI card installed directly.
Thanks for your comment! Yep, the slot should work just fine without a riser so long as nothing obstructs the card from being inserted fully. I actually just bought a flexible PCI extension ribbon cable that I hope to use to test it out soon :)
@@vswitchzero given prices for 486 machines this could be a great solution. Question is do I need to add a 486 to my collection and what case do I buy to house this in? 🤪
Nice machine 👍
duke nukem 3d?! you now earnt your like.
I finally found a channel something like this.
With all of the people make custom retro parts for old computers that are hard to find, I’m surprised someone hasn’t made an ultra modern looking overkill watercooled system. It would actually be cool if you could stuff a monster version of each major era of retro computer hardware into one modern case.
decent music on FM sounds a lot better than I remember. Granted it's got nothing on the MT-32, but still that sounds great.
I would suggest to colour the power header itself.
Any idea what it was originally used for? I see the Windows CE logo on it.
This particular system was used as a Thin Client for connecting to RDP and Citrix based systems over the network. I've seen similar systems used for network appliances as well.
A bit late but this appeared in my recommendations today...
From what I can see on the video, you may get -5V by populating Q1 with a LM7905 and C1 with a 1µF capacitor on the riser.
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing. I will definitely look into this.
Blake Stone my god that was a good game
Does that fan draw any air at all with the case?
Not very much, but even a tiny bit is helpful with a passive heatsink. Even without it, the system seems totally fine :)
Man oh man oh man , where can I buy one of these, my first pc was I486 DX2 66Mhz ,
Please can you send me any details about where or who I can buy this thin client, please please,
Best regards
Brian from Glasgow Scotland,
Peice love n respect
FPU benchmarks (like GZip or similar and hashing) and FFT (or Gaussian funcions too) are worthwhile for FPU (with or without FPU on the CPU) performance so as to consider a MPEG as VCD (Video CD) would use a pentium p90 approximately _(even without a video card beyond the 1MB found on many a p90 MBoard integrated graphics)_ although some p60 system can squeeze out enough processing power to do it, and likewise for decoding of ogg-vorbis audio, so FFMPEG and LibAV are worth a try. A 100MHz 486 should perform a like a p60 (especially with FPU). The fastest 16bit CPU's in your graph _(even without cache features being so advanced, as FPU is the main interest)_ should perform like a p90 (pentium 90MHz 32bit). Thsi is an example why i486 embedded is worthwhile in linux kernel support continuation. People might say "Just use an ARM chip", but then you cannot get one (like a pi amidst thet shortage). A 16MB i486 at 100MHz with a GPU _(even on a small embedded board the size of a slice of toast)_ has more RAM than say a NintendoDS, an yet a back catalogue of many productivity softwares in FOSS (i486). Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds, and so such feedback is not a demand of Linus Torvald but a share-and-share-alike (as per the philosophy) heads-up to help. The word "backlash" about i486 being dropped from Linux. Instead, it sounds more like a heads-up than a backlash.
My comment has no hate in it and I do no harm. I am not appalled or afraid, boasting or envying or complaining... Just saying. Psalms23: Giving thanks and praise to the Lord and peace and love. Also, I'd say Matthew6.
any luck on modding the bios? I just got a TC200.
I haven't had time to revisit the system yet, but hopefully one of these days. There are a few things I'd like to try with it.
@@vswitchzero Any pointers you can give me? What do you think about a 486 with a Voodoo1?
@@coryflammer1269 Although it should technically work, I wouldn't recommend a Voodoo1 with a 486. There just isn't enough CPU horsepower available to get decent performance out of the majority of glide games out there. A higher-end Pentium MMX system would be a great choice for V1 (P166-P233 MMX for example).
@@vswitchzero My TC200 arrived today. Unfortunately it didn't come with the ISA riser card. :(
@@vswitchzero How did you get access to the onboard flash?
Why can't you just use a ribbon PCI extension?
Thanks for your comment! I actually bought one shortly after posting this video. It may be a bit long for the system but hopefully will work. I’m hoping to do another follow up video on this thin client if I get some time 👍
I could easily design a PCB for the PCI riser if you wanted (just to help out a small channel). I'd need to get some measurements from you, but let me know if you're interested.
Wow, thats really kind of you to offer, thanks very much! I actually purchased a flexible PCI bridge shortly after I did the video, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. If that doesn't work out well, I'll definitely get back to you. Thanks again!
That should work, it just won't support the card, but that would be easy to fix. Otherwise let me know, it's really only an hour or two of work for me. Then I'd give you the files to order the PCB from JLCPCB etc.
To make it ultimate add a AWE64 Gold and a 3dFX 4mb running a SSD ;) which I have all the parts
Tulip Impression Compact 4/66 = my Ultimate Socket 3 486 - since late 1994.
Well, a bit Pimped since: MOAR than 4MB RAM and the AMD SX2 😲(2 x 16MB EDO from my first Build(Socket 7) and of course an AMD "real DX4" aka AMD-X5-133ADW*)
*'cause I'm not gonna' overclock! ..on this, first x86 ever, old gal.
Instead of a riser card, you could try a riser cable.
Thanks for the tip! I actually bought one a few weeks back. It's a bit long, so a bit hard to deal with inside of the case, but at least I can do some testing with PCI graphics cards now :)
Love biomenace ❤
can't find one
Yeah, they've become very difficult to find now, unfortunately. A few years back you'd see them selling pretty cheap on eBay on occasion. I haven't seen one for sale for some time now.
@@vswitchzero I want to run Windows 95 so bad I can’t get a old pc
Why not use a flexible PCI riser. You can get it for 10$/€ on ebay.
Thanks for your comment! About a week after I posted this video I bought a flexible PCI riser. It's a bit long but will at least be good for testing some PCI graphics cards.
Why does vesa 65k get 0 love?
But can it handle a voodoo card?
Good question, there is pretty minimal benefit to using a 3dfx card with a 486, but I’d be worried that the power supply may not be able to handle it longer-term. Would like to give it a try regardless 🙂
Love seeing those old Thin Clients getting repurposed.
Sure, one could also just get a RPi but that wouldn't be hardware accurate.
Curses! There aren't any on eBay at the moment... ;)
eeprom settings and minimal capacitor battery update
dont be limited at all, just cgpu L2 in-memory computing
And none are on ebay :(
Yeah, I haven't seen any of these for sale for quite a while, unfortunately. When I bought this one last year there were a few popping up from time to time.
Get a pci flex cable. Then you can add a GPU.
Thanks! I actually bought one last year to try but haven’t got around to it yet. It’s a bit long but I think it should work. Will do a follow up on this video at some point 👍
...👏👍🖖
Just a comment for algorithm's sake.
That is not a "Thin Client". It IS a "Low Profile" Desktop!
You have a speaking voice like creamy vanilla custard.
that microfan is absolutely usless...........................
Hater of good old FAN-noise? Booh!
Video is ok, but you talk too much for a thing so simple like that machine. 36 minute video is not ok.
Thank you for the honest feedback. I try to be in-depth with my content but I know I need to strike a better balance between being informative and being overly verbose. This is something I will definitely try to improve on in future videos 👍
haha CMP AX,0xbeef
Get rid of the front logo, punch a hole in its place and put a naked GOTEK drive to that floppy connector 😎