The Compaq Deskpro 6000 is back up and running with a new hard drive. Of course, I hit a few issues along the way, some unrelated to the HDD replacement. Let's talk about them briefly in a 🧵 here!
To get started, I decided to use the Dell Precision Workstation 220 to help with transferring data from the failing HDD to the new one since it was on the desk and is more accessible than the Compaq. We can see we have three HDDs detected (Dell, old Compaq, new Compaq). Good!

We had a few requests to install Windows XP on the Dell Precision 220 Workstation. Is this dual Pentium III 1 GHz system up to the task? Let's find out, in a quick 🧵 here! So first of all, I decided to wait until my 1 GB memory upgrade arrived in the mail today. After a MemTest86+ run, we can see that the memory is good! Looking in the BIOS, we can see we have two 512 MB modules.

How about we install another OS on my dual Pentium III 1GHZ Dell Precision 220? We'll go with another OS that supports multiple processors: Windows NT 3.51. Let's go! Time for a 🧵
The installation was pretty straight forward. Note how the WinNT installer detects multiple CPUs! I also set up the network card on install. And then installed Service Pack 5. Great!

Some late-night eBay browsing got me again, and I bought this Gateway 2000 Vivitron 15 monitor. And yes, it was shipped, and yes, there was a shipping issue, but i think this is different than usual! Let's explore a bit in a 🧵 here! First, my reason to buy this was to replace my existing Gateway 2000 monitor which has a failing flyback transformer... or at least something that makes it go POP at random intervals that will scare the living daylights out of you 🤣

Oh yeah, the beast just got some cool upgrades!! Let's talk about what I did to this Dell Precision 220 Workstation today, in a 🧵 here! So, in searching for CPUs, I saw this dual processor Compaq board on eBay for $28 bucks. With two CPUs, two voltage regulators, and I think a cache chip. I wasn't sure about the processor speed, but much to my surprise, these are 1GHZ CPUs!!! Wow!!

Okay, so this absolute BEAST of a unit (Dell Precision 220 workstation) followed me home from the thrift store... I paid all of $26.50 for it. Let's explore it a bit... time for a 🧵


So, first things first, this Precision 220 workstation is designed for Windows NT/2K/98, so of course it is running WinXP 😂. And it's not... great with that OS, but hey, that's ok.

My new monitor is here, and it even arrived in one piece! Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here! First of all, for the intro pic, I'm terrible at taking CRT pictures, so apologies there. Let's talk about the brand. This is an AOC 15" monitor by Envision Peripherals.

Oh my, what do we have here? An ultra-budget eMachines T1100 from the early 2000s? Why.. yes! And it's even in nice shape! Let's explore it a bit, and see if we can make it do something useful. Time for a 🧵 On the front of the machine, we can see that it proudly proclaims its model number. And its previous owner proudly updated the specs after a memory upgrade 😂. CD-RW, AGP graphics, 56K modem, 256MB memory, 20GB HDD, and.. a 1.0 GHz Celeron, really, what more do you need? 😂

I have one more ISA sound card that I have been meaning to test, and it's kindof neat! Let's get it tested, time for a 🧵!
First, here's the card. It's a Labway Labsound A00 card, with a Yamaha YMF719 (OPL3-SA3) chip! Now THAT's neat.

Last week, I started some ISA sound card testing. Being the retro masochist I am, I picked up an IBM MWave-based sound card at our local swap meet a few weeks back. During our last testing session, I couldn't get this to work. Will we succeed today? Let's find out! 🧵 time!
So, first, let's say this much: the MWave concept was cool with its use of a DSP. I benefitted from this back in the day when I upgraded my Dad's Thinkpad 755CX modem from 14.4 to 28.8 with a software upgrade! It knocked out sound when the modem was in use, but, well... ok 😂

I picked up four hard drives from the free table at our Northern Virginia meetup today. I am sure they are ALL going to work perfectly (foreshadowing). Let's talk about it briefly in a 🧵 here! First, let's go with the Western Digital Caviar drive. I popped it in the Kehtron desktop PC I had. Funny enough, that system already has a Caviar 22500, so on bootup, we see "twins" 😂

I did a component swap on the Enlight siblings today. I also went down a rabbit hole that I would never have anticipated doing, but it turned out well. Let's compare these cases, look at the components swapped, and the diversion I took, in a 🧵 here!
First, let's compare the front panels. Pretty similar, except the USB headers on the new one.

I've gotten a few items in the mail over the past few days. Let's test them out, and also improve the aesthetics of the re-enlightened PC. Time for a 🧵

First, we have this Sony CDU701 32X IDE drive. I put it in the retr0brite bin in the wee hours of the morning, and when I checked it out when I woke up, it looked great! Since it tests out good, it is going in this PC for good!

I have a bunch of ISA 16-bit sound cards to test! Let's test them (or at least try to test them) and select one to put in the new Re-Enlightened PC. Let's go! 🧵

Before we get too far into this, I copied over DOS/Win3.1x drivers that we will need for the five different sound cards, and also made a backup of my DOS/Win3.1x partition, since we'll most certainly be screwing it up. I also copied over some games to test in DOS.

I have a few updates for the Re-Enlightened PC that I built yesterday! Let's talk about them in a 🧵 here First of all, I completed a retr0brite on the combo floppy disk drive. I think it looks a little better now! Still not a perfect match, but close enough!

I have some testing updates from yesterday, and it is all good news! Time for a quick 🧵

First, as you might have gathered from the intro post, the new PC I built in the Enlight case passed a round of MemTest86+. I think I am going to nickname this PC "Re-enlightenment" since I already have a similar PC 😂

Alright, I have a confession, I caved and bought one of those NEW OLD STOCK ENLIGHT ATX CASES for sale on eBay!! It arrived today. What do you say, shall we build a PC? Let's do this! Time for a 🧵 First, an unboxing since I have the original box!! This case is an Enlight 7250AKD. It is a little different than my other Enlight case, but is pretty similar. And it is GOREGEOUS!

I have a bunch of things to test out! We won't get through all of them, but let's test what we can. We'll use the Pacman PC for our test rig. Let's go! Time for a 🧵


First, we'll test some PSUs. Yes, I know, this is risky, I am ok with that. The Antec ATX PSU that I tested had a "whine" to it, so I pulled it. The Enlight ATX PSU tested fine. I let the system boot into Hannah Montana Linux and set for a few minutes! Pass.

I spent a few minutes today setting up this Dell Latitude D600 laptop. It's a neat and zippy little Windows XP PC. Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here!
Here are the specs! Pentium M 1.60 GHz, and 2GB of memory. Pretty nice specs. And the battery is charging up nicely too. Score!

Alright, let's check out the $10 photo booth PC that I picked up on Thursday. Allegedly this PC was used in a mall photo booth kiosk, and it definitely is weird... and, well, I did get it to power on a few times, but that was it 😅. Time for a 🧵 First, in addition to being a desktop ATX case, it does have an interesting black oval on the front! Probably for infrared, I didn't take it apart, I was lazy. If so, that's a cool feature. And this ATX case has an AT mobo in it, with an AT I/O shield!

I bought this Packard Bell Multimedia 601 at last week's Northern Virginia swap meet. It had a bit of a transformation, and it is now all set up too! Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here!


First of all, when I picked up this thing, it was DIRTY, like REALLY DIRTY. But that is something we can fix.