The ol' big squishy clicky power buttons...Something I competely forgot about my old PCs. The feeling of pushing in a long throw switch reminds me of waking up during summer breaks to play hours and hours of wolfenstein and later doom. Hearing the click followed by the 'beep' of the bios startup, then followed by the drive self checks. I can still hear all of these sounds in my head, and the smell of hot computer components/case. I imagine my nostalgia towards PC games is similar to what my grandparents had with old vaccum tube radios. People become so wrapped up in the large generational differentials that they don't realize that every generation is the same with varying experiences.
+TheDudeofDudes Heh, I still have my original 286 with that slow ST225 MFM HD. I could always tell exactly what it was doing by the four different noises the HD made (seek, read, write, erase)... and when it needed a fresh LLF. -- I have a much faster vintage IDE HD (1991, 20MB W.D. still 100% perfect condition) I'm thinking of trying with it, just because. Assuming I still have an interface card... this HD won't work with a 486 or newer.
+Mirsad Redzovic Same here. And didn't get the QEMM conflicts that way, either. The trick was to go through all your TSRs and determine both startup RAM and idle RAM (from the full MEM report), and fit 'em into available spots instead of just cramming 'em in one after the next. I ran a bunch of handy TSRs on my 286 with 1MB of RAM (and some of that locked out because of a bad chip) and still had enough RAM to run everything a 286 could handle. Speaking of memory tricks, anyone else use a memory board? I have one in the 286, 2mb board, the system wouldn't see it as RAM but would as a RAMdisk, so I used it for temp space and for workspace that was much faster than writing to the HD. Its contents would survive a reboot, so data loss wasn't really a problem.
+Mirsad Redzovic That's a great idea with DOOM, I'll have to try that. Still the only game I play. Right now I run it on a P4-3GHz (some of these huge modern WADs need that much horsepower) but if it ever dies I'll have to look for another solution. I put my browser cache on a RAMdisk both for performance and because it keeps the mess off the HD -- the way the Mozilla-based browsers handle cache is stupid beyond words, and causes fragmentation like nothing else in the history of computing. I use DataRAM's freebie as it works well, doesn't eat much, and has a good "hibernation" feature.
I think spiders are scarier & more dangerous than cockroaches, as far as getting bitten, although you could get a disease from a cockroach bite. Either way, your PC needs to get debugged.
After years watching LGR, in the past few months I've been discovering a TON of other retro PC-based channels. You and Duraga are some of my new favorite channels :D
+PhilsComputerLab A button that stays set in it's state is called 'latching' the ones that only offer a changed state when held are called 'momentary'. Probably a million people have already said that :-) Cool vid. Interesting project and accent ;-)
Cheers :) I did end up using simple flick switches mounted do a drive bay. I haven't used this solution in a video, but will definitely do so. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. Not always though :D
+nagytestutyuk My second PC was a 486 SX 25, it was superfast at the time in comparrison with the 8086 I had before. I remember wanting a DX with the math coprocessor so badly and feeling annoyed that the SX was in fact a DX with a factory crippled coprocessor. I can't feel so excited about my PC's now, however fast they are.
+brunster64 I had a 25 MHz 486 SX also. Jeeze that thing was slow!! It had all the good stuff, a 170 MBe hard drive, 9600 baud modem and a measly 4 MB of memory. Now these days 170 MB is practically nothing and is easily replaced with flash memory that is faster. I used to play Doom and the other DOS games that were good. What fun that was running QEMM to make room in the 640 K base memory. Without Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager, it felt damn near impossible to get some games working. It did have windows but that was Windows 3.11 and was nearly useless by comparison to todays windows versions. Many of the games for Windows 3.1 were those horrible point and click adventures. I saw a point and click adventure game I liked, I thought that nearly all of them sucked.
9:00 I actually said out loud "yeah your video card isn't working" when I heard that POST beep. Oh, the good ole days. ;) (that beep here means the monitor isn't connected, but the card may be working fine) 13:20 - only certain USB mice (old ones, usually) have the capability to be used with a PS/2 adapter. It's completely different signalling, and the adapter is just a physical bridge, no USB/PS2 adapter logic inside. FYI. 14:00 - possible that the CF card doesn't support the detection or the I/O mode used by the 486, but the card would still otherwise work OK. Possible that the card only works with LBA (which USB adapters and all modern PCs us), and the BIOS is trying to use CHS mode. 14:05 - yes, resistors are extremely, absurdly, mind-blowingly important when working with LEDs. ;) And be sure you're using the right resistor for 5V or 12V supply, too! 14:45 - you should probably not leave all these to defaults... back then, RAM didn't have the little Flash chip on them that provides parameters. So, it's important to set EDO mode if you have it, so the chipset can make use of EDO memory's extra speed. But with 8 MB of RAM installed, I doubt it's EDO... y u no eBay some EDO stuff? :o
I can't believe you're running that DX4 without a heatsink and fan. A heatsink is required on 486 CPUs starting at 40 MHz up to 66 MHz. A fan is required on 486s 75 MHz and faster. That chip is going to suffer thermal death if you keep running it bare, which will be a big loss because Intel DX4s are both rare and expensive due to not being mass produced. AMD and Cyrix parts of similar speed are more prevalent, but less compatible with boards using Intel chipsets.
DX4 is pretty low power like the original 486DX-25 and 486DX-33. The DX4 runs at 3.3 volts, while the faster 486DX2 chips ran at 5 V. Since voltage is exponential for power consumption, a 3.3V chip can run atleast 2.3x the clock speed (3.3^3.3 vs 5^5) at the same power consumption. On top of that, the DX4 (0.6um) was built on a smaller manufacturing process than the DX2 (0.8um) and previous chips (1.0um) so they'll inherently run faster at lower power on top of that. Back in those days smaller fab size directly translated to power savings AND performance increases. That said a heatsink wouldn't hurt :).
jrherita Core voltage does not directly determine the power consumption of the CPU, nor does it determine the clock ramp. Just because the CPU has a lower core voltage and a smaller lithography process, doesn't mean it will use less power. Take a look at modern CPUs, the core voltage can be 0.8-1.45V and pull 100A, or 40-150W. Despite the DX4 having a 3.3 or 3.45V core voltage, they pull the same or slightly more current than some older DX2s. AMD parts on the other hand use less power (the 133 MHz part uses ~4.5W) and still require a heatsink and fan.
Back in the 1990s when Dennard scaling worked, my statements were correct. Modern process nodes (since about 65nm) is where power scaling stopped essentially so to compare a 486 and a modern CPU is apples and oranges in that way. An Intel DX4 @ 75 mhz should consume less power than a DX2 @ 66 mhz. I suspect a 100 mhz DX4 will also.
ahh, the memories, my first computer was a 486, and Doom was the first game I ever played on it.. this may be something I might try to recreate.. I miss playing Doom.. :) thanks for this vid
You can still play Doom today. There's countless engines that run on modern systems. Anywhere from pixelated just like the original all the way to GL. Right now my two favorites are Doomsday and GZDoom. I obviously like the GL versions.
Wasn't expecting that quick of a response! Anyway, love your videos. Very interesting things you do here! You might have seen me on VOGONS, I go by sedrosken on there.
I wonder if there's a company making 486 boards with modern features (ATX, usb controller, onboard audio and so on). Probably would be a niche product, but you can build a business around making new versions of retro tech as Hyperkin shows.
Socket 5/7 (Intel Pentium, Intel Pentium MMX, AMD K5, Cyrix 6x86, IDT Winchip) was the first one to have atx like the Intel Advanced ATX, Intel Advanced ML, Intel AG430HX, TC430HX, AN430TX, ASUS XP55T2P4, MSI MS5143, etc. there were no Socket 3 (Intel 486 SX DX DX2 DX4, AMD 486 and 586, Cyrix Cx486 and Cx586) atx boards unfortunately
There are new old Chinese motherboards 754 stuff onwards, but there would not be much call for pre 2000 tech. Better to look for ancient PCs at recycling centers and any companies that resell them. Check Craigslist for collectable ancient junk, people do occasionally sell them. You can also pick up $40 Atom ITX motherboards (cheap) that maybe could be throttled down (features turned off) to 486 performance.
60fps is dead now, once youve played games at 165Hz you will never go back to 60, theres a MASSIVE difference, thats what i love about my MSI GS66 Stealth 11UE laptop, its epic.
SPDT= latching on/off (single pole, double throw) SPST= momentary on (single pole, single throw) I remember those darn Dallas time chips. More than one time I've used a Dremel to grind down the top until I got to the embedded lithium battery, cut the battery out, and add wires to an external "AA" battery pack.
Nice! I am #3000 on the thumbs up. Wanted to see what a 486 with PCI slots worked like. I worked on a few of these machines back in the day, but never had them for long enough to see what PCI on a 486 could do.
If I were to do this project, I'd make an adapter board with a hold circuit, maybe even a relay for the click, for the front power button. I'd probably also make a hold circuit for the reset button to function as a turbo. Simple adapter for the front LEDs and you have yourself a nice vintage computer in a stock case. The I/O shield seem like a prime candidate for a 3D printed part, though I don't have a 3D printer yet.
Sweet setup, even has a proper config.sys menu and everything. I remember I only got into setting that up when it was practically too late, already into 95/98 era where it mattered a lot less.
No, Minimum Specs: CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (3.2 GHz for Vista), Intel Core 2.0 GHz (2.2 GHz for Vista), AMD Athlon 2800+ (3200+ for Vista) or better. RAM: 1GB (1.5GB on Windows Vista) Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Radeon X800 Pro for Vista) or better. VRAM: 256MB of Graphics Memory. Storage: 15GB.
This video motivated me to find an old machine I had lying around in the basement and make it to work again. Thank you! I have even downloaded and installed DJGPP and it turns out you can use C++14 features (though it takes quite a while to compile and link hello world app with std::string and std::vector) to program DOS apps on 486 machine these days! O_o
Liam Goodison Oh man, I totally forgot about those things! Come to think of it, one of my very first builds used IDE, I don't quite remember the time frame, but a 250GB drive cost me $150 CDN. Anyway, after a while I got bored and ended up splitting the cable in to about a dozen sections and used electrical tape to make my own 'sleek' cables. Holy shit have you ever brought back some memories. Edit: Not that it really helped with my cable management, was a mid-tower case, and non-modular power supply meant spaghetti wires galore.
I got a whole trailer filled with old PC gear. Milk crates of motherboards. I am not terribly interested in messing with it too often though. The last time I tried I went through a stack of floppy drives and I couldn't get one in one machine to read a floppy written by a drive in another one. Though one machine read floppies it wrote just fine. Now if a machine can't boot off USB and doesn't have multiple cores I'm not interested in it.
Just an FYI, if you don't want to use an ATX power supply, they still manufacture AT power supplies. You may have to do some hunting but they are still used in a lot of industrial equipment. You can get them brand new from manufacturers like Startech. You can also get XT power supplies for even older systems that are new and recently manufactured. Many arcade machines use them, so you can get them from arcade vendors a lot of the time.
Startech makes AT PSUs www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Replacement-Computer-Power-Supply/dp/B00005133U/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1532917598&sr=1-3&keywords=at+power+supply
Nice one. Btw. you could use the standard atx power-on button from the case, just needs a little circuit board that switches the power supply with a relay.
+Digi20 Good idea. There is this German guy on Dos Forum, he has built a circuit called ATX Flip. You could also build circuit with Arduino. Also, I've found another way to have buttons on the front, I should do another build, but need a reason for building another 486...
That's awesome dude! That takes me back, I feel so old and I'm only 30... I mean I remember taking tec classes on this stuff in high school and playing theses games and mixing and matching pcs just for the hell of it lol.
Your videos are inspirational. I recently pulled out an old computer and installed win98se on it. I have a stack of old pcs from 386's to P4's, a couple of voodoo 3's and a set of voodoo 2's just waiting :) Thanks for the info about the CF card and especially the floppy emulator!!!!!!!
I would say the other big negative of AT power supplies is that they do not use soft-power like ATX, you have to run the mains voltage outside the power supply to the front panel switch, I have had a mishap before where the quick connect terminal came loose from a front panel switch and shorted to the case and sparks flew and the breaker tripped.
I might have a go at this, I've still got some 486 boards. My first PC was an 8088, 5.25 inch disks, and 20Mb of hard drive running DOS 3.1. Did so much with it though. Before that it was a ZX80, two ZX81s, a Spectrum, and two BBC model Bs. Happy days...
For serial ports to work the PSU needs to have -12V. The 4GB drive did not work since 2GB is the max that is supported by the BIOS, there were utilities from WD, Seagate that let you install bigger drives.
I'm going to be building an old DOS pc soon. I'll be using a Yamaha XG sound card in mine though. It's what I had before and my DOS games sounded amazing through MIDI.
This earned you a new sub. I remember, in the not too distant past, when I sharpened my PC repair/maintenance skills on quite a few Dell 478 boards. Now you've sparked my interest in 478 all over again. I'm almost thinking about Biostar's P4M900-M4 Ver. 6.2 or the G31-M4 Ver. 7.x. if the price is cheap.
Wow! This is a really cool video. I haven't seen anyone put together a video like this and even if they have, its terrible and 1/10th as detailed and done by hand-holding a cell phone camera. Excellent work, Phil. And I am very very interested in videos like this. I started out using my first "real" computer in 1993 which was a 486SX 25MHz with 4MB RAM and a single-speed (150kb/sec) CD-ROM drive. I ran a program called Vistapro which was a fractal-based landscape rendering and animation program. Endless ours spent creating and rendering. Full detail could take hours at 800x600 resolution for 1 image. I later ran the program in a command prompt on WinXP on a AMD 3500+ with 2GB of RAM (not that it even used more than 1MB or 2MB) and the program ran so fast at full detail it was rendering in real time. I was blown away. I think companies like Microsoft, Adobe, etc. inject so much bloated code that programs run slower and slower on modern hardware. Thank you for the video. I would love to build an old 486 and run some "benchmarks" and compare them to what a new PC can do. What matters is the results and the time of the output.
+Justin Lloyd Thank you for your kind words, they mean a lot to me :) I am branching out a little, doing also videos with newer parts, like with Windows XP, Athlon XP, Pentium 4 and other things. But I'll do old stuff too, I find all of these things very interesting.
I was so fascinated by computers when I was a child, my family didn't get one until the Pentium era, but any time I used one at school or at a friend's home I was enthralled even though I didn't know what to do. Anyway, it's many years later now and I'm a professional software developer :D
That is a really cool build. I think you should build a 486 like that, cable-manage it, and build it in a case with a window in the sidepanel. That would be freakin' sweet!
Phil, I've built literally hundreds of PC's over the years starting with parts I imported from Taiwan before clones were a thing. I'm amused by these build videos on TH-cam.
i found a hp vectra with a 486. it has almost everything but a soundcard. but has space for a second floy or a cd rom, with win311. i was watching to see what can improve, im thinking abut the cf adapter or lefting the hdd, and if i should put a cd rom too.
what i do think is amazing is how much we were able to do with such little processing power compared to the average gaming PC of today. a modern gaming PC today is like a supercomputer from back then. its amazing we did what we did, with how little we really had. my first PC had a 486 sx 4mb of ram and a measly 170 mb hard drive. i remember using doublespace to squeeze as much on that hard drive as possible. i remember pulling the 486 SX in favor of the 486 DX2 66 mhz, and installing an additional 16 mb of ram. all of that just so i had enough memory and a math co-processor so i could run autocad lol
it also has a tendency to slow the computer down some, more risk of corrupted files. this was back when hard drives were expensive devices costing hundreds for 3-400 mb drive, by today's standards a joke. a tiny little flash drive, even a small one holds many multiples what a small hard drive can hold today.
+sugarpuffextreme Funny you mention this. I copped a bit of heat for not using a cooler. I totally admit that I forgot about :D I then bought one from eBay :P
+PhilsComputerLab Didn´t it run fine without a heat sink? Anyway, you just inspired me to build an old computer, there is some stuff that you simply cant play anymore without old parts and os. Half life 1 WON version with that old animated menus instead of steams new static ones are amazing
+PhilsComputerLab I used to have a retail to but I stopped using cd/dvd-readers in my pc builds a long time ago so it got lost in time. Funny how stuff is brand new and amazing on day 1, then after a couple of years its old and junk and just laying around as garbage and one day these items would look super nice in a retro system. Hindsight 20/20. I got my computer desk extended recently so I could have more room when I build stuff. Could easily fit a retro system somewhere here =) i.imgur.com/wfSn6um.jpg
Thinking of building a 486 and being able to use it in an ATX case would help! AT cases are still around but go for a fairly static £60 on eBay which adds yet another significant expense and often they're heavily yellowed, rusty, bits drilled out etc. I had no idea you could physically mount them, with the same standoffs. Plenty of options for the switch.
You connected the external pwr button to "Turbo" button connector - that's why it slows down when you press it! The turbo button changes the processor clock.
+陈北宗 You could simply use a Parallel ATA to SATA converter but you will run into some problems when it comes to supported drive size. Best way is to use a SCSI PCI adapter to avoid those limitations.
The fast Compact Flash cards was an exelent Ideia to replace the old noisy and hot hard drives. I got my old 1997 Pentium 200MMX very cold and quit with an SDcard simulating a Hard Drive.
looks like, apart from the PSU, the AT board fits nicely without any modifications in the ATX chassis. I didn't expect it especially to hold the board in place without mods.
aw man now I miss my 486 DX2 66mhz and 8mb ram, 400mb hdd, I put a full creative kit on it, cd rom, soundblaster 16... all the good stuff :) Used to play Raptor so much :)
it's probably mentioned elsewhere on here amongst the comments. the type of switch your referring to is a 'latching' switch - just incase anyones looking.
you can cut open the dallas and replace the battery solder 2 wires after removing the cell, and fit another 3V battery next to it, easy to change now. No more wasting of ressources.
Yes agreed LOL, I know what ur saying its just a habit to always install the drive on the top bay even if its on a table ... If you know what I mean, I must have done hundreds of pcs and still to this day I always put the optical drive at the top of the casing just a habit unless the IDE/SATA cable is not long enough at the time of building you place nearer to the cable if you not got and extender cable!
+Kcin Setay You make a good point! Another viewer advised to that the drive on the end of the IDE cable should be master, so if I use a single cable, it would be easier to have the hard drive on top of the optical drive. Some case however have set optical bays with a door for it, of course right at the top :)
yes been there as well lol with MA/SL & CS :D how sata changed and everything gone backwards a little because were so used to connecting single drives to 1 sata port at a time!! but ide mainly had 2 channels per cable unless your pc was a dell or a Compaq which they were tight enough to only supply one IDE adapter on the each end and if you were not savvy to cut into the cable you just went out of got a two ended ide cable so you can use two drives on the same cable!
I got one of those Star Tech CF adapters for a Packard Bell Platinum Pro I recently restored. The only thing I did was to paint it beige to match the rest of the PC. Since a lot of restoring with CF cards is done to beige boxes, they should at least give us the option. The other reason I got it was it was one of the few that has an eject button. I am scared at all times of bending the pins on a CF card. Also, I use a CF to SD adapter as I can get bigger sizes for less.
Great nostalgia build! I never owned a 486 (went from ZX-80 --> C-64 --> Amiga --> 60 KHz Pentium), so I'm surprised to see that it ran without a heatsink on the CPU.
Those floppy drive emulators are insane. Very cool, but insane. I can't believe someone actually made such a thing! I actually bought an older (nowhere near as old as a 486, I think it's a first-generation Core chip) system several months ago so I would have a system with serial and parallel ports and a floppy drive for the rare project that requires such things. Plus, I wanted to have something running Windows for the rare thing that doesn't support Linux (very rare to encounter such a thing nowadays, but Samsung's software for my cell phone doesn't like running with the USB passed through Virtualbox and doesn't support Linux directly).
The ol' big squishy clicky power buttons...Something I competely forgot about my old PCs. The feeling of pushing in a long throw switch reminds me of waking up during summer breaks to play hours and hours of wolfenstein and later doom. Hearing the click followed by the 'beep' of the bios startup, then followed by the drive self checks. I can still hear all of these sounds in my head, and the smell of hot computer components/case.
I imagine my nostalgia towards PC games is similar to what my grandparents had with old vaccum tube radios. People become so wrapped up in the large generational differentials that they don't realize that every generation is the same with varying experiences.
+TheDudeofDudes Heh, I still have my original 286 with that slow ST225 MFM HD. I could always tell exactly what it was doing by the four different noises the HD made (seek, read, write, erase)... and when it needed a fresh LLF. -- I have a much faster vintage IDE HD (1991, 20MB W.D. still 100% perfect condition) I'm thinking of trying with it, just because. Assuming I still have an interface card... this HD won't work with a 486 or newer.
+Mirsad Redzovic QEMM instantly springs to mind :)
+Mirsad Redzovic Same here. And didn't get the QEMM conflicts that way, either. The trick was to go through all your TSRs and determine both startup RAM and idle RAM (from the full MEM report), and fit 'em into available spots instead of just cramming 'em in one after the next. I ran a bunch of handy TSRs on my 286 with 1MB of RAM (and some of that locked out because of a bad chip) and still had enough RAM to run everything a 286 could handle.
Speaking of memory tricks, anyone else use a memory board? I have one in the 286, 2mb board, the system wouldn't see it as RAM but would as a RAMdisk, so I used it for temp space and for workspace that was much faster than writing to the HD. Its contents would survive a reboot, so data loss wasn't really a problem.
+Mirsad Redzovic That's a great idea with DOOM, I'll have to try that. Still the only game I play. Right now I run it on a P4-3GHz (some of these huge modern WADs need that much horsepower) but if it ever dies I'll have to look for another solution.
I put my browser cache on a RAMdisk both for performance and because it keeps the mess off the HD -- the way the Mozilla-based browsers handle cache is stupid beyond words, and causes fragmentation like nothing else in the history of computing. I use DataRAM's freebie as it works well, doesn't eat much, and has a good "hibernation" feature.
+Mirsad Redzovic yea remember flushmarkers where you could have something load for say one item them flush it out if you dont need it or need the ram
This is funny to me because in Australia you can't really get away with not having an I/O shield. It'd just fill up with spiders.
Compared to cockroaches in your area? :D
Yes some truth here for I'm a Aussie aswell
I think spiders are scarier & more dangerous than cockroaches, as far as getting bitten, although you could get a disease from a cockroach bite. Either way, your PC needs to get debugged.
Nah mate I keep a few Kangaroos in my PC which happen to eat a majority of the spiders
Should Probably just duct tape the open area. Should be pretty easy to cut holes for I/O ports.
After years watching LGR, in the past few months I've been discovering a TON of other retro PC-based channels. You and Duraga are some of my new favorite channels :D
+mistaecco I will check him out! And thank you!
Hey, I still have the 486DX2/66 PC that I bought about 24 years ago. And it's still in service as my retro-gaming machine.
They were a beast back in 93-94.
those were the days, my friend,
we thought they'd never end...
You may not be a big channel like Linus Tech Tips but you sure as heck are entertaining
+Boyborg690_ Thank you :)
Never know where this channel may end up. I remember first watching Linus Tech Tips when it was a tiny little channel.
+PhilsComputerLab A button that stays set in it's state is called 'latching' the ones that only offer a changed state when held are called 'momentary'. Probably a million people have already said that :-) Cool vid. Interesting project and accent ;-)
Cheers :)
I did end up using simple flick switches mounted do a drive bay. I haven't used this solution in a video, but will definitely do so. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. Not always though :D
Linus becomes a commercial bitch...
Damn, I had that benchmark at 15:35 :)
My first PC was a 486 SX25, this brought back sweet memories.
+nagytestutyuk Nice :)
+nagytestutyuk My second PC was a 486 SX 25, it was superfast at the time in comparrison with the 8086 I had before. I remember wanting a DX with the math coprocessor so badly and feeling annoyed that the SX was in fact a DX with a factory crippled coprocessor.
I can't feel so excited about my PC's now, however fast they are.
+brunster64 I had a 25 MHz 486 SX also. Jeeze that thing was slow!! It had all the good stuff, a 170 MBe hard drive, 9600 baud modem and a measly 4 MB of memory. Now these days 170 MB is practically nothing and is easily replaced with flash memory that is faster. I used to play Doom and the other DOS games that were good. What fun that was running QEMM to make room in the 640 K base memory. Without Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager, it felt damn near impossible to get some games working. It did have windows but that was Windows 3.11 and was nearly useless by comparison to todays windows versions. Many of the games for Windows 3.1 were those horrible point and click adventures. I saw a point and click adventure game I liked, I thought that nearly all of them sucked.
Those were the days :)
nagytestutyuk, I remember "SX" was pronounced "SUCKS"... LOL
the proper term for that power switch is a "latching switch"
And that's how you set up a real DOSBox folks :)
+Nocito87 :D Thanks
9:00 I actually said out loud "yeah your video card isn't working" when I heard that POST beep. Oh, the good ole days. ;) (that beep here means the monitor isn't connected, but the card may be working fine)
13:20 - only certain USB mice (old ones, usually) have the capability to be used with a PS/2 adapter. It's completely different signalling, and the adapter is just a physical bridge, no USB/PS2 adapter logic inside. FYI.
14:00 - possible that the CF card doesn't support the detection or the I/O mode used by the 486, but the card would still otherwise work OK. Possible that the card only works with LBA (which USB adapters and all modern PCs us), and the BIOS is trying to use CHS mode.
14:05 - yes, resistors are extremely, absurdly, mind-blowingly important when working with LEDs. ;) And be sure you're using the right resistor for 5V or 12V supply, too!
14:45 - you should probably not leave all these to defaults... back then, RAM didn't have the little Flash chip on them that provides parameters. So, it's important to set EDO mode if you have it, so the chipset can make use of EDO memory's extra speed. But with 8 MB of RAM installed, I doubt it's EDO... y u no eBay some EDO stuff? :o
I would have used a heat sink and fan for that processor. The 486 DX4 100 does get hot.
I can't believe you're running that DX4 without a heatsink and fan. A heatsink is required on 486 CPUs starting at 40 MHz up to 66 MHz. A fan is required on 486s 75 MHz and faster.
That chip is going to suffer thermal death if you keep running it bare, which will be a big loss because Intel DX4s are both rare and expensive due to not being mass produced. AMD and Cyrix parts of similar speed are more prevalent, but less compatible with boards using Intel chipsets.
Haha, and I can't believe people still mention this :D You are like the 20th person pointing it out!
DX4 is pretty low power like the original 486DX-25 and 486DX-33. The DX4 runs at 3.3 volts, while the faster 486DX2 chips ran at 5 V. Since voltage is exponential for power consumption, a 3.3V chip can run atleast 2.3x the clock speed (3.3^3.3 vs 5^5) at the same power consumption. On top of that, the DX4 (0.6um) was built on a smaller manufacturing process than the DX2 (0.8um) and previous chips (1.0um) so they'll inherently run faster at lower power on top of that. Back in those days smaller fab size directly translated to power savings AND performance increases. That said a heatsink wouldn't hurt :).
jrherita
Core voltage does not directly determine the power consumption of the CPU, nor does it determine the clock ramp. Just because the CPU has a lower core voltage and a smaller lithography process, doesn't mean it will use less power.
Take a look at modern CPUs, the core voltage can be 0.8-1.45V and pull 100A, or 40-150W.
Despite the DX4 having a 3.3 or 3.45V core voltage, they pull the same or slightly more current than some older DX2s.
AMD parts on the other hand use less power (the 133 MHz part uses ~4.5W) and still require a heatsink and fan.
Back in the 1990s when Dennard scaling worked, my statements were correct. Modern process nodes (since about 65nm) is where power scaling stopped essentially so to compare a 486 and a modern CPU is apples and oranges in that way. An Intel DX4 @ 75 mhz should consume less power than a DX2 @ 66 mhz. I suspect a 100 mhz DX4 will also.
Back in the day, most of the 486-DXes I encountered came with heatsinks.
ahh, the memories, my first computer was a 486, and Doom was the first game I ever played on it.. this may be something I might try to recreate.. I miss playing Doom.. :) thanks for this vid
You can still play Doom today. There's countless engines that run on modern systems. Anywhere from pixelated just like the original all the way to GL. Right now my two favorites are Doomsday and GZDoom. I obviously like the GL versions.
Eating breakfast, drinking coffee...
watching some PhilsComputerLab videos...
yup, this summer is off to a great start.
Glad you're having a good time :D
Wasn't expecting that quick of a response! Anyway, love your videos. Very interesting things you do here! You might have seen me on VOGONS, I go by sedrosken on there.
Ah, I see. Always difficult when the avatar is AND name is different :)
I wonder if there's a company making 486 boards with modern features (ATX, usb controller, onboard audio and so on). Probably would be a niche product, but you can build a business around making new versions of retro tech as Hyperkin shows.
Socket 5/7 (Intel Pentium, Intel Pentium MMX, AMD K5, Cyrix 6x86, IDT Winchip) was the first one to have atx like the Intel Advanced ATX, Intel Advanced ML, Intel AG430HX, TC430HX, AN430TX, ASUS XP55T2P4, MSI MS5143, etc. there were no Socket 3 (Intel 486 SX DX DX2 DX4, AMD 486 and 586, Cyrix Cx486 and Cx586) atx boards unfortunately
There are new old Chinese motherboards 754 stuff onwards, but there would not be much call for pre 2000 tech. Better to look for ancient PCs at recycling centers and any companies that resell them.
Check Craigslist for collectable ancient junk, people do occasionally sell them.
You can also pick up $40 Atom ITX motherboards (cheap) that maybe could be throttled down (features turned off) to 486 performance.
Watching this video in 60fps made me feel like I might be able to accomplish something with my life.
60fps is dead now, once youve played games at 165Hz you will never go back to 60, theres a MASSIVE difference, thats what i love about my MSI GS66 Stealth 11UE laptop, its epic.
SPDT= latching on/off (single pole, double throw)
SPST= momentary on (single pole, single throw)
I remember those darn Dallas time chips. More than one time I've used a Dremel to grind down the top until I got to the embedded lithium battery, cut the battery out, and add wires to an external "AA" battery pack.
I still remember my 486 machine. It was my first PC. The CPU didn't even have a cooler, not even passive. Good times haha
Nice! I am #3000 on the thumbs up. Wanted to see what a 486 with PCI slots worked like. I worked on a few of these machines back in the day, but never had them for long enough to see what PCI on a 486 could do.
Wow... That takes me back! Cheers for that! Doug.
+Doug Fairweather Nice!
When you said you were going to use new parts I thought you were going to add a GTX 980
+Bra1th I was looking exactly for a dumb child comment.
i was waiting for some cheap pci card with a modern but cheap CPU, like a VERY underclocked celeron.
TURBOOOOOOO! Oh man, that makes me miss my old daewoo.
i really enjoyed your video it was really good keep it up
+N64Guy Thank you!
Wow a 486 in 2015. You're the man if you can get it on the modern web.
Thumbs up and sub for raptor, I love that game
+Steven Larson I had Raptor on Commodore 64.
I love that HDD
Amazing that you can mix new and old like that. Very cool
It's cheating if you don't use VLB.
If I were to do this project, I'd make an adapter board with a hold circuit, maybe even a relay for the click, for the front power button. I'd probably also make a hold circuit for the reset button to function as a turbo. Simple adapter for the front LEDs and you have yourself a nice vintage computer in a stock case. The I/O shield seem like a prime candidate for a 3D printed part, though I don't have a 3D printer yet.
Best PC case is a shoebox.
Sweet setup, even has a proper config.sys menu and everything. I remember I only got into setting that up when it was practically too late, already into 95/98 era where it mattered a lot less.
The DX4 CPUs should really be run with a heatsink and fan unless you're severely under clocking it.
Love the nostalgia. Very enjoyable to watch. Thank you.
+My Electronics & Hacking Show Thank you :D
Can it run Crysis?
No,
Minimum Specs:
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (3.2 GHz for Vista), Intel Core 2.0 GHz (2.2 GHz for Vista), AMD Athlon 2800+ (3200+ for Vista) or better.
RAM: 1GB (1.5GB on Windows Vista)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Radeon X800 Pro for Vista) or better.
VRAM: 256MB of Graphics Memory.
Storage: 15GB.
because i have rights to do lol
i said because i have rights to do, read the comment please
Everybody ports Doom to modern.. somebody plox port Crysis to 486.
Pretty neat video.
Nice job working around the issues with storage devices
Get a fanless PSU -- 100% silent build haha.
QuantumBraced Sadly those have coil whine very often.
Why not just remove the fan?
Prehistoricman They could overheat
Running this board? Doubt it.
QuantumBraced Well, if you're using an old HDD you won't have any silence.
This video motivated me to find an old machine I had lying around in the basement and make it to work again. Thank you! I have even downloaded and installed DJGPP and it turns out you can use C++14 features (though it takes quite a while to compile and link hello world app with std::string and std::vector) to program DOS apps on 486 machine these days! O_o
Nice. I never got into DOS programming, just the games.
That cable management hurts my eyes
+Liam Goodison
I don't think I've ever seen anything using IDE have good cable management.
+K-Anator™ I used round IDE cables back then www.pccables.com/images/ULTRA_ATA_IDE_Black_18-INCH_1_5FT_Round.jpg
Liam Goodison
Oh man, I totally forgot about those things! Come to think of it, one of my very first builds used IDE, I don't quite remember the time frame, but a 250GB drive cost me $150 CDN. Anyway, after a while I got bored and ended up splitting the cable in to about a dozen sections and used electrical tape to make my own 'sleek' cables. Holy shit have you ever brought back some memories.
Edit: Not that it really helped with my cable management, was a mid-tower case, and non-modular power supply meant spaghetti wires galore.
it's normal for a old computer
Your videos like this give me a nostalgia high.
good stuff.
+natr0n Thank you!
They don't make things like they used to,Thank fuck
Damn. I've thrown out so much of that era of parts over the years. If I'd thought that anyone might've wanted it, I would've given it away.
Same deal with my family man, it's a shame.
I got a whole trailer filled with old PC gear. Milk crates of motherboards. I am not terribly interested in messing with it too often though. The last time I tried I went through a stack of floppy drives and I couldn't get one in one machine to read a floppy written by a drive in another one. Though one machine read floppies it wrote just fine. Now if a machine can't boot off USB and doesn't have multiple cores I'm not interested in it.
No CPU cooler :-D
Most 486 machines don't need coolers
@MrFoxbody89 Oh right
Forgot about the DX4s
Good job. May you list all main devices used!? CPU VGA RAM...
Oh god put an @echo off in your autoexec.bat :O
gullf1sk why bother?
Because its messy without it
Just an FYI, if you don't want to use an ATX power supply, they still manufacture AT power supplies. You may have to do some hunting but they are still used in a lot of industrial equipment. You can get them brand new from manufacturers like Startech. You can also get XT power supplies for even older systems that are new and recently manufactured. Many arcade machines use them, so you can get them from arcade vendors a lot of the time.
+lowfwyr Good tip on the StarTech one.
Startech makes AT PSUs
www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Replacement-Computer-Power-Supply/dp/B00005133U/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1532917598&sr=1-3&keywords=at+power+supply
Anyone know where you can still get these? Only thing I can find now is Athena Power - which doesn't inspire much confidence.
>Not using Gravis Ultrasound
>Using greentext in 2016
Jacob Turner
>Not understanding memes
Kaminishi >Using crap memes
Jacob Turner
>Saying such shit to an imageboard user.
Kaminishi >oh I think I triggered him or her or whatever I can't tell by the name
Nice one. Btw. you could use the standard atx power-on button from the case, just needs a little circuit board that switches the power supply with a relay.
+Digi20 Good idea. There is this German guy on Dos Forum, he has built a circuit called ATX Flip. You could also build circuit with Arduino. Also, I've found another way to have buttons on the front, I should do another build, but need a reason for building another 486...
for the record: any 486 over 33mhz does need a heatsink. which is what the 2 sticking out parts on the socket are for.. the clamp to hold it in place.
That's awesome dude! That takes me back, I feel so old and I'm only 30... I mean I remember taking tec classes on this stuff in high school and playing theses games and mixing and matching pcs just for the hell of it lol.
+Chris Foss That's what it's all about :)
PhilsComputerLab Right on man
Your videos are inspirational. I recently pulled out an old computer and installed win98se on it. I have a stack of old pcs from 386's to P4's, a couple of voodoo 3's and a set of voodoo 2's just waiting :) Thanks for the info about the CF card and especially the floppy emulator!!!!!!!
+rwl0323 That's awesome, thank you :D
I would say the other big negative of AT power supplies is that they do not use soft-power like ATX, you have to run the mains voltage outside the power supply to the front panel switch, I have had a mishap before where the quick connect terminal came loose from a front panel switch and shorted to the case and sparks flew and the breaker tripped.
RAPTOR !!!!! First game my dad ever got me playin'... brings back memories !!! :D
Oh! Did I play Raptor back then!! This brings me back!
ooh! Yeah! this is the tangle that i remember from those days!
I might have a go at this, I've still got some 486 boards. My first PC was an 8088, 5.25 inch disks, and 20Mb of hard drive running DOS 3.1. Did so much with it though. Before that it was a ZX80, two ZX81s, a Spectrum, and two BBC model Bs. Happy days...
Happy days indeed :)
For serial ports to work the PSU needs to have -12V.
The 4GB drive did not work since 2GB is the max that is supported by the BIOS, there were utilities from WD, Seagate that let you install bigger drives.
Discovered this awesome channel yesterday and subbed. Keep up the good work.
Thank you, will do :D
Interesting build you did here!
I'm going to be building an old DOS pc soon. I'll be using a Yamaha XG sound card in mine though. It's what I had before and my DOS games sounded amazing through MIDI.
This earned you a new sub. I remember, in the not too distant past, when I sharpened my PC repair/maintenance skills on quite a few Dell 478 boards. Now you've sparked my interest in 478 all over again. I'm almost thinking about Biostar's P4M900-M4 Ver. 6.2 or the G31-M4 Ver. 7.x. if the price is cheap.
+wyzemann 486 are cool, but can be tricky. If you have exotic motherboard without manual and lots of jumpers: good luck :D
I enjoyed this. Brought back fun memories.
Wow! This is a really cool video. I haven't seen anyone put together a video like this and even if they have, its terrible and 1/10th as detailed and done by hand-holding a cell phone camera. Excellent work, Phil. And I am very very interested in videos like this. I started out using my first "real" computer in 1993 which was a 486SX 25MHz with 4MB RAM and a single-speed (150kb/sec) CD-ROM drive. I ran a program called Vistapro which was a fractal-based landscape rendering and animation program. Endless ours spent creating and rendering. Full detail could take hours at 800x600 resolution for 1 image. I later ran the program in a command prompt on WinXP on a AMD 3500+ with 2GB of RAM (not that it even used more than 1MB or 2MB) and the program ran so fast at full detail it was rendering in real time. I was blown away. I think companies like Microsoft, Adobe, etc. inject so much bloated code that programs run slower and slower on modern hardware. Thank you for the video. I would love to build an old 486 and run some "benchmarks" and compare them to what a new PC can do. What matters is the results and the time of the output.
+Justin Lloyd Thank you for your kind words, they mean a lot to me :) I am branching out a little, doing also videos with newer parts, like with Windows XP, Athlon XP, Pentium 4 and other things. But I'll do old stuff too, I find all of these things very interesting.
I was so fascinated by computers when I was a child, my family didn't get one until the Pentium era, but any time I used one at school or at a friend's home I was enthralled even though I didn't know what to do. Anyway, it's many years later now and I'm a professional software developer :D
+Shannon Gerry Thank you for sharing you story! I really like how computing brings together people!
That is a really cool build. I think you should build a 486 like that, cable-manage it, and build it in a case with a window in the sidepanel. That would be freakin' sweet!
+RandomActivities adding case L.E.Ds would make it even better xD
Phil, I've built literally hundreds of PC's over the years starting with parts I imported from Taiwan before clones were a thing. I'm amused by these build videos on TH-cam.
Impressive! Very impressive! Please may you write a full list of the components used in this build?
Thanks in advance.
i found a hp vectra with a 486. it has almost everything but a soundcard. but has space for a second floy or a cd rom, with win311. i was watching to see what can improve, im thinking abut the cf adapter or lefting the hdd, and if i should put a cd rom too.
Thank you for this video. I'm building a 90MHz Pentium on a HOT-555a board and I had no clue how to place the ATX to AT adapter on the board.
That teddy bear avatar seems unassuming, but if you look deep within it's eyes. You'll see it.
DOS is the wave of the future!
I miss my 320x200x256 color mode. xD
That's amazing the processor runs without a heatsink and fan.
what i do think is amazing is how much we were able to do with such little processing power compared to the average gaming PC of today. a modern gaming PC today is like a supercomputer from back then. its amazing we did what we did, with how little we really had. my first PC had a 486 sx 4mb of ram and a measly 170 mb hard drive. i remember using doublespace to squeeze as much on that hard drive as possible. i remember pulling the 486 SX in favor of the 486 DX2 66 mhz, and installing an additional 16 mb of ram. all of that just so i had enough memory and a math co-processor so i could run autocad lol
Double Space! Wow, haven't heard that name in a long time :) And Stacker or Drive Space. Yes those were the days for sure.
+PhilsComputerLab What is Double Space?
An old DOS file compression program.
Yea it compresses the files and lets you store more stuff on the hard drive. But it doesn't work like ZIP, it compresses in the background.
it also has a tendency to slow the computer down some, more risk of corrupted files. this was back when hard drives were expensive devices costing hundreds for 3-400 mb drive, by today's standards a joke. a tiny little flash drive, even a small one holds many multiples what a small hard drive can hold today.
I had one of these back in the day. 486 dx 2. You just reminded me on the fact that these cpu´s didnt need an heatsink even LOL.
+sugarpuffextreme Funny you mention this. I copped a bit of heat for not using a cooler. I totally admit that I forgot about :D I then bought one from eBay :P
+PhilsComputerLab Didn´t it run fine without a heat sink? Anyway, you just inspired me to build an old computer, there is some stuff that you simply cant play anymore without old parts and os. Half life 1 WON version with that old animated menus instead of steams new static ones are amazing
I have a retail copy of Half Life :)
I believe I have a video on my channel. Running it on a Pentium 3 with Voodoo graphics.
+PhilsComputerLab I used to have a retail to but I stopped using cd/dvd-readers in my pc builds a long time ago so it got lost in time. Funny how stuff is brand new and amazing on day 1, then after a couple of years its old and junk and just laying around as garbage and one day these items would look super nice in a retro system. Hindsight 20/20. I got my computer desk extended recently so I could have more room when I build stuff. Could easily fit a retro system somewhere here =) i.imgur.com/wfSn6um.jpg
sugarpuffextreme What a lovely setup! Nice and tidy too. Well done.
Thinking of building a 486 and being able to use it in an ATX case would help! AT cases are still around but go for a fairly static £60 on eBay which adds yet another significant expense and often they're heavily yellowed, rusty, bits drilled out etc.
I had no idea you could physically mount them, with the same standoffs. Plenty of options for the switch.
You probably can make an IO shield from plastic. Great video, like your ingenuity.
You connected the external pwr button to "Turbo" button connector - that's why it slows down when you press it! The turbo button changes the processor clock.
+Gaston Electronics Yes that what it does. On some boards you got to close the jumper for full speed, on others remove it. There is no set standard :)
Since your 486 board have PCI slots, you may be able to use a PCI to SATA adapter and use a SATA SSD.
+陈北宗 newer pci cards use different voltage . keying is different. sometimes modern cards use universal keying, but they dont always work on old boards
+va4cqd With careful selection you can get a card that support 5V bus, or maybe a 486 board with 3.3V PCI bus.
+陈北宗 riply makes some boards that supported the lower voltage pci buses
chris simmons That is my point.
+陈北宗 You could simply use a Parallel ATA to SATA converter but you will run into some problems when it comes to supported drive size.
Best way is to use a SCSI PCI adapter to avoid those limitations.
The fast Compact Flash cards was an exelent Ideia to replace the old noisy and hot hard drives. I got my old 1997 Pentium 200MMX very cold and quit with an SDcard simulating a Hard Drive.
looks like, apart from the PSU, the AT board fits nicely without any modifications in the ATX chassis. I didn't expect it especially to hold the board in place without mods.
This takes me back, thank you 🤘
+c0p0n Thanks!
Hello Phil, what type of ide - CF adapter you use ? Can you post link for it ? Thx
That one is an expensive one from StarTech. Because it has a drive bay. They cost more.
aw man now I miss my 486 DX2 66mhz and 8mb ram, 400mb hdd, I put a full creative kit on it, cd rom, soundblaster 16... all the good stuff :) Used to play Raptor so much :)
+Thener Oliveira The Crative kit! That brings back memories :D So many companies did CD-ROM upgrade kits back in the day :D
+PhilsComputerLab The day I bought that box to my house was the best day of my life! (at that point at least lol)
I liked the setup very much!
it's probably mentioned elsewhere on here amongst the comments. the type of switch your referring to is a 'latching' switch - just incase anyones looking.
Not meta at all. This is the real fun!
Heat of a moment
you can cut open the dallas and replace the battery
solder 2 wires after removing the cell, and fit another 3V battery next to it, easy to change now.
No more wasting of ressources.
its amazing how many engineers who build pcs always dvd drives at top of case eventhough you could have multiple open caddy openings on the case
Yes agreed LOL, I know what ur saying its just a habit to always install the drive on the top bay even if its on a table ... If you know what I mean, I must have done hundreds of pcs and still to this day I always put the optical drive at the top of the casing just a habit unless the IDE/SATA cable is not long enough at the time of building you place nearer to the cable if you not got and extender cable!
+Kcin Setay You make a good point! Another viewer advised to that the drive on the end of the IDE cable should be master, so if I use a single cable, it would be easier to have the hard drive on top of the optical drive. Some case however have set optical bays with a door for it, of course right at the top :)
yes been there as well lol with MA/SL & CS :D how sata changed and everything gone backwards a little because were so used to connecting single drives to 1 sata port at a time!! but ide mainly had 2 channels per cable unless your pc was a dell or a Compaq which they were tight enough to only supply one IDE adapter on the each end and if you were not savvy to cut into the cable you just went out of got a two ended ide cable so you can use two drives on the same cable!
Awesome video phil!
+rounak dutta Thank you!
I did not see a heatsink or a cooler mounted to the cpu?
+e1woqf Ha not again! This has been mentioned 100x times and I added a cooler later :D
Isn't that blank area on the motherboard with a white circle beneath the keyboard socket where you could solder on a CR2032 battery holder??
FYI - IDE cables have a defined standard length, I think you extend at your peril.
Currently building an AMD P75 and P233 and I think I will take your advise and use ATX power supplies.
We used to keep the PC in turbo mode all the time.
I got one of those Star Tech CF adapters for a Packard Bell Platinum Pro I recently restored. The only thing I did was to paint it beige to match the rest of the PC. Since a lot of restoring with CF cards is done to beige boxes, they should at least give us the option. The other reason I got it was it was one of the few that has an eject button. I am scared at all times of bending the pins on a CF card. Also, I use a CF to SD adapter as I can get bigger sizes for less.
Nice!
Great nostalgia build! I never owned a 486 (went from ZX-80 --> C-64 --> Amiga --> 60 KHz Pentium), so I'm surprised to see that it ran without a heatsink on the CPU.
+Datan0de I totally forgot about the cooler :D I added one later :P
Er, 60 MHz, not kHz. Stupid Swype!
Great video! I feel nostalgic everytime! ehehe
+Necr0manceR Hey thanks.
That apogee logo is pure nolstalgia injected straight into my memory veins
Those floppy drive emulators are insane. Very cool, but insane. I can't believe someone actually made such a thing! I actually bought an older (nowhere near as old as a 486, I think it's a first-generation Core chip) system several months ago so I would have a system with serial and parallel ports and a floppy drive for the rare project that requires such things. Plus, I wanted to have something running Windows for the rare thing that doesn't support Linux (very rare to encounter such a thing nowadays, but Samsung's software for my cell phone doesn't like running with the USB passed through Virtualbox and doesn't support Linux directly).
The floppy adapters are mainly designed for stuff like CNC machines where a modern replacement that supported newer storage would be really expensive
I usually take an old dvd case and use one side of it (Label Side) to cut out and make a cheap plastic IO shield.
Nice build , did you put in a dvd drive? Normally it only accepts a cd rom drive.