I got something fun in the mail today! That's right, I ordered a "new" motherboard to use with my Pentium III. Let's talk about in a 🧵 here!

So, this motherboard has allegedly been manufactured in modern times. But nominally, it is new old stock. It's a CYS Tech CYSMBD-694X, which is a clone of the Gigabyte GA-6VXC7-4X-P, with a few changes. I picked it up from Ali Express, it arrived in about two weeks. Pretty good!

It's probably been ten years since I last used the QEMU emulator. I thought to myself, "How hard could it be to get QEMU running with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with good sound, networking, and video in 2025"? Oh, man... okay, let's talk about it in a 🧵 here. My first step: download the latest QEMU build for Windows. There is a gentleman who builds Windows binaries, which makes this "easy." Okay, great, I grabbed and installed the latest from this website: qemu.weilnetz.de/w64/2025/

Recall that new Win3.1 video driver that we looked at recently? It just keeps getting better and better. I reported an issue with network sharing and "green lines" on startup a few weeks ago, and it is now fixed! I decided to build the driver from source, let's talk about it! 🧵
The process to build the driver is nicely documented! I downloaded the Win16 DDK and placed it at C:\DDK31 in a DOS6.22/Win3.1 VM. I also installed Microsoft Visual C++ 1.52c, and grabbed a copy of EXE2BIN from FreeDOS.

My IBM PS/2 Model 70 386 got a little upgrade today! But this upgrade didn't exactly improve its specs. So, what did I upgrade? Its appearance on the outside, and some of the case's hardware on the inside. Let's talk about it briefly in a 🧵 here!
So, yea, I fell victim to scrolling eBay on this one 😂. I was perusing the "Vintage Computer Hardware" section and saw this listed. I made an offer "lower" than what you see here, and it was accepted. That's my way of gauging if things are meant to be, and I guess this was 🤣

A little while back, I purchased a 5 user license of LANtastic. So, I thought I'd put it to use today and build a network that is simply LANtastic. Let's talk about the fun I had doing that in a 🧵 here. Buckle up, it's going to be a long thread!


So, the first participant in the network is going to be this Compaq LTE 5400. I made a copy of my DOS partition to keep things clean, using, of course, BootIt Bare Metal.

It's hard to believe I've been collecting old PCs since 2019. Before then, I would never have imagined getting into this hobby! However, it's probably been at least a decade that I've had a virtual machine running DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1x around. Let's talk about it! 🧵time!
So, if you've seen the video of my 486DX4/100, you might have seen the timeline I put in there. My first retro PC became a reality in May 2019 for me. And here are some timestamps for my Win3.1x virtual machine. I guess I rebuilt the image in 2019 or so based on timestamps!

I picked up a $20 AT power supply to replace the one I took out of this Packard Bell Multimedia 730 a week or so back. And much to my surprise, it looks to be new old stock! Let's get this installed, time for a 🧵!
First, just look at how CLEAN this power supply is. It's a LiteOn PA-4151-9B1 150W AT Power Supply. Nothing fancy, but has enough oomph to do what we need.

I figured out how to get my Packard Bell Fast Media remote on my Compaq systems. And the change I had to make is the most Packard Bell thing ever 😂. Let's talk about it in a brief 🧵 here.
So, first, throwback to yesterday where I left off a thread saying I was working to get this going on my Compaq Armada 1750. That's the context!

https://x.com/RetroTechChris/status/1885552329270653431

My "new" Packard Bell Legend 994CDT has an Iomega Ditto 800 tape drive. I decided to check it out this morning, but things didn't quite go to plan. Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here. Here's the drive itself. It can fit into either a 3.5" or 5.25" drive bay. The drive itself is marked with the identifier IO80FI. It plugs into the floppy controller or an Iomega Ditto Dash ISA accelerator card if you have one!

My latest purchase cost me a whopping $1.50 plus shipping. It's a Fast Media Remote Control for my new Packard Bell, and it's kindof neat! Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here! First of all, here it is up close! I received an infrared receiver that connects via the serial port, as well the remote and a manual. And, yes, it really cost $1.50... plus $8 or so to ship. With this remote, you can control the mouse and multimedia applications.

A few days ago, I posted about a $30 Packard Bell Legend 994CDT for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Well, apparently, I just had to have it 😂. I've been toying with it for the past few days, let's talk about what I have learned about it so far in a 🧵 here!
So, first, the specs. Here they are, minus the hard drive, which is fine. I don't have the remote, maybe there is one out there! But yea, this is a nice Pentium 133 MHz system with 16MB of memory.

I picked up a half height ATI Rage 128 AGP card a few weeks back for potential future use! And it might meet my use case! Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here!
So, first of all, the reason I bought it is for potential use with an ITX Llama board that I ordered a little while back. If I decide to put this thing in a compact case, I'd need a half height card. I'm just keeping my options open 😂

There's something wonky going on with the second PCI port on the motherboard in the Pacman PC. I've tried a few things, but I bet this board needs a recap. Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here.
So, as you saw from my first photo, there are two PCI slots. I have a 3Com network card and a Aureal Vortex AU8820 sound card for Windows 3.11 sound compatibility. But when I move either card into the second slot, more than not, it ceases to work.

I got a new accessory for my Pocket 386 today! Let's talk about it briefly in a 🧵 here! So, the majority of Pocket 386 systems were bundled with a serial port, I believe. I was an early adopter though, so mine didn't have one. We remedied that today! I also had a nice 3D enclosure to put the serial connector in. Looking good!

I decided to reinstall Windows XP Embedded on my HP T5700 thin client today. This is a pretty versatile little system, let's have a look at some of its unique charm in a 🧵 here!
First of all, I actually have a YouTube video that I made a few years back that goes over the entire install process in detail. And yes, I did rewatch it today to remember what I needed to do 😂. Sometimes we are our own best resource I guess!

I thought I'd try booting from Zip 100 disks today. I gave it a shot with an internal ATAPI drive, and also tried an external SCSI zip drive. Let's talk about how it worked out in a 🧵 here!
We'll start with the ATAPI drive. The first thing I did was go into the BIOS and add my "ZIP100" drive to the boot list. Easy peasy.

Looks like a new PicoGUS firmware was released last month that has built-in WiFi support! Time for me to update the PicoGUS Femto on my Pocket 386 with the latest and greatest, and we'll do so in a 🧵 here!

So, first, I have actually been running a WiFi "developer" firmware build for quite some time, since around April 2024 or so. I put together a procedure on how to build and update the firmware at the time. You actually had to hardcode your SSID and password back then!

We're going to reach "Productivity Level 1000" in Windows 3.11 for Workgroups with this newly-developed
Win3.1 video driver, now running on my eMachines T2341. Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here!

So, for starters, I learned about this driver today, and tried it in virtualization. I wanted to try it on real hardware too!

https://x.com/RetroTechChris/status/1875629042470461640

Let's take a few minutes and look at this newly written Modern Generic SVGA driver for Windows 3.1. We'll check it out in Oracle VM Virtualbox 5.2.44 first in a 🧵 here (I do plan to try real hardware next!)

First, I will say this is off to a GREAT start. The author has done a nice job at logging some of the issues that are present... and this driver has A LOT of promise!

Haha, oops. I'm testing out the LTE 5000 fleet, and it looks like I gave two of them the same name 😅. I renamed one system, but I bet it will take a router reboot to fix this!


Actually, wait a minute! Why the hell did I harcode the IP address? I bet that I did that and cloned it, probably was having some issue. Okay, easy fix 😂

I have some updates on my Windows 3.1 16-bit NABU Application, and also on my 486 DX2/66 which I wanted to get in a position to drive the NABU. Let's do a quick 🧵
So, first, for the 486, I got a 9 pin connector that follows the right standard to work with this system. My DTC controller card uses the DTK standard. I installed in the bottom slot. We talked about different serial connector standards here:

https://x.com/RetroTechChris/status/1870510308781166700