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RetroTech Chris Profile picture
@RetroTechChris
May 24, 2024 ā€¢ 8 tweets ā€¢ 5 min read ā€¢ Read on X
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Okay, time for the Pacman PC components swap! I swapped over the HDD enclosure and the Zip 100 drive. Let's talk about it in a šŸ§µ here!


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Here are the components I pulled out of the Gateway! I do have a future plan for the ones we don't use today, we'll talk about that here in a minute!
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Zip 100 drive is in the slot. Now I just need to find some screws. Luckily I have a few šŸ¤£
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And I did pop out two slot covers. I labeled them for future safekeeping and ease of pairing with this PC! Image
With all devices installed, I powered up and went into BIOS. OOPS, for the second time today, I have a jumper issue. I took out the CD-ROM drive and jumpered it to be the slave device. That took care of it. Also, my boot manager detects the two hard drives and Zip 100 drive!


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The sound card that I pulled out of the Gateway is a CT5806, a Sound Blaster 128 PCI Digital. I like this card because it works in DOS... and that is why I am keeping it for now! The drivers for that are here: easymamecab.mameworld.info/html/snddosdr.ā€¦
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And the final card I pulled out is this FutureTel PrimeView NS 320 MPEG capture card. I had three or four of these at one point! I was able to locate drivers for it and use it in the past! I documented it in an old video of mine.
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I need to see if I can find the system requirements for the MPEG card! The web page for this card is on the Wayback Machine, which is where I found the drivers too! Wonder if it will work in my Pentium Pro. Anyway, thx for following along as always!
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More from @RetroTechChris

RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Jan 17
I got some Xircom PC Cards in the mail today! Let's test them out and see if they work! šŸ§µ time! Image
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First, if you missed it, a few days ago I posted this. Given what I have paid for these in the past, I was very pleased!
And speaking of the past, here's what I had before today: four cards. These Xircom RealPort Ethernet 10/100 cards are great for getting a laptop without Internet connected to a wired network! Image
Read 10 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Jan 8
My holiday break is quickly coming to an end. So, I think it's time to power on the retro PCs that I have yet to power on recently. I am sure this will go flawlessly šŸ˜‚. Let's do most of this, in real time, in a šŸ§µ here! Image
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Alright, you've already seen the first three. My trusty, original 486DX4/100 powered right up, as did the Packard Bell Multimedia 601 Pentium 233 MMX Image
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How about the Kehtron 486 DX/50? Weeelll.. the front seven segment display needed reconnected (I really should fix this permanently), and the sound card was being a pain, but I moved it over one slot and it is now working! Image
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Read 30 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Jan 3
The challenges and solutions in retro computing never cease to amaze me, and today's project is no different. Today's goal was getting working storage in this AST Premium Exec 386 laptop. And fortunately, somewhat against the odds, I found one! Let's talk about it in a šŸ§µ here! Image
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So, anyway, the issue I had with this laptop is that the original 20MB 3.5" IDE hard drive had died. I thought "no problem, I'll pop on eBay and get one." Except they are scarce and expensive. I picked up two 120MB drives and one 40MB drive. None of them worked. Image
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In the past, I had also tried a CF card. I could get the CF cards to a point where they were accessible, but when I go to boot, I get a blinking cursor.. and sometimes a "non system disk or disk error" a few minutes later. Tried multiple CF cards, same result. Image
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Read 9 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Dec 28, 2025
Has anyone ever worked with GEOS, GeoWorks, New Deal Office, or Breadbox Ensemble on a PC? Well, I decided to load it up on one of my 486 systems today and take it for a spin... including getting online! Let's talk about what I discovered in a šŸ§µ here! Image
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I decided to install Breadbox Ensemble 4.1.3, which was originally released in 2009. Keep in mind that this would be late in the cycle for, say, a 486 PC, that does give some perspective! Install was text based an a cinch! Image
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After installation, we get to configure a bit. I bumped up the video to 800x600x256, configured use of a DOS mouse driver, and set up my Panasonic dot matrix printer. Image
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Read 14 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Dec 26, 2025
Yesterday, I talked about a few systems I had that were not Intel/AMD/Cyrix based. Well, here's another one: my Gateway 2000 tower has a UMC processor in it! I haven't powered it on in a hot minute, so let's talk about it briefly in a šŸ§µ here! Image
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As we saw from the intro photo, this system has a UMC Green CPU US5-SUPER33 in it. And, indeed, it is super! It's almost as fast as a 486 DX2/50! These CPUs were subject to a legal dispute, and thus were not sold in the USA Image
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On power up, we can see that this processor is detected as a U486SX by AMI BIOS. Not all motherboards supported this CPU. But my Shuttle-HOT-433 board does! Image
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Read 5 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Dec 26, 2025
I thought I'd power up and inventory my systems that don't have CPUs made by Intel/AMD/Cyrix, but are x86 compatible. I do have a few! Let's have a quick look at them in a šŸ§µ here! Image
Let's start with the system on the far left, the tower. It happens to be an ITX Llama system, built around the Vortex86EX CPU. It's similar in performance to a 486 or Pentium system. I did make a custom BIOS build to play the Nokia tune šŸ˜‚ Image
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Oh, I should give some specs. 128MB RAM, ATI Rage Pro 128 AGP card, 120 GB SD card for storage, Crystal audio, and an RDC Ethernet card as you will see from my Windows screenshot here. This is a quirky system.. a bit buggy... and I HAD to use QEMM for memory management Image
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Read 9 tweets

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