New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

Got given another 486. Seems the word is getting around I aquire older kit. Nothing terribly special about it. A bit of yellowing around the edges and surface rust on the rear casing. Inside was in prestine condition. The hdd was doa so hooked the trusty 4gig bigfoot up with overlay software on it. Reset the bios and it booted right up. Original SX25 processor in it, 4 megs ram. No external cache at all. Runs Geoworks 2.01 sweat as a nut. OAK VGA card supports 800 x 600 in a wooping 16 colours.

Tried reviving the a original hdd with a sharp tap but no go. Initially winds up then decides to have a lay down.

The mobo is nothing like the one shown on Stason. It has 3 vesa slots, though of no use in the slimline form factor and only 4 ram slots. Has SB card with CD Rom attached to it.

Got given was a 19" IBM monitor. Damn they're heavy. It'll get matched up to a PC300 though.

caluser2000 wrote:Got given was a 19" IBM monitor. Damn they're heavy. It'll get matched up to a PC300 though.

Heck you should check out some of the big corporate Compaq Trinitrons of the era. I have a P1100 21" that I use with my K6-2 rig for 3D goggles. It's 32kg by itself, and apparently there's a widescreen variant that weighs in at a heady 41kg! Biggest problem I noticed is that the machines of the era didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of running them at their maximum resolutions.

Sweet score on the Olivetti. Clean 486 rigs are getting less and less common to find now, yet are fantastic for running most stuff from the 90s without flinching.

So true about the resolution thing. To be perfectly honest though I have enough stuff to last decades but when folks mention they have a computer to throw away I just can't help myself. Mind you there's plenty of space on the section for another shed .