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[Grinder]

i'll see if i have that disk lying around somewhere. i should. i always had a partitioning program on a red disk that i can't find.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Hey folks, looks like I'm getting myself a P120 tomorrow. Still got some parts left from my olde 486 -> will install them.

The machine has 16 megs worth of Ram (supposedly in two sticks), but if it has two free SIMM sockets left, an upgrade to 24 will be a pinch.
1 GB HDD - not bad, and I just got my 800 MB back from a friend of mine. Will get 2,1 GB back from the office here on the beginning of January.
The thing also has a soundcard and a GPU, but I'll probably stick in my old ones - that is, unless the GPU is 8 MB or better.
The soundcard will be most likely replaced with my trusty ESA 1887.
I think I'll stick one of the HDD's in an exchangeable socket, so I can put games on it easier.
I'll probably make it a dual-boot DOS/98 machine, not unlike my first PC (that was DOS/3.1, later DOS/95).
Heck, I even want to use the same old case that my 486 had.

A genuine 486 would be better, but this one comes with monitor, mouse and keyboard - for a total of 220 PLN (that's approximately $50), so it's quite a bargain.

[Grinder]

great to hear, horseman!
i just found my partitioning program, and also a 1100 MB Harddisk that seems to be functioning pretty good, and i recently got an Apple 14" VGA Monitor from a friend. i think 14" is ideal for dos, since something like 21" wouldn't look to great with a 320x200 resolution. last but not least, i tested my ESA 1886 with a 98 machine and King's Quest 5, and it's working properly. i think i will buy my machine in january or february, since it'll take me a while to get everything assembled.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Still working on reassembling it. You see, I hated the case it came with, and the old PSU certainly wasn't the best either - so I went with the old ones that were in my 486 way back.
Right now it has a 1 GB HDD and 32 MB RAM (4x8MB SIMM's, but it also has a free DIMM slot), the SPU is one of ESS's ESA 18xx models, and the GPU is an S3 Trio 64 V+ - not sure it that's 2, 4 or 8 MB RAM, but I suppose 4 / 8 to be more likely.
I'm adding two USB ports to it - the mobo has a controller but no integrated ports.
Also, I'm on lookout for another HDD socket - this is because of a little quirk I'm planning: the main HDD will run under Windows 98, while the one in the socket - when installed - will run the machine in DOS.
The 800 MB HDD I've got for this purpose will suffice for DOS gaming, but not much more - just found a few badsectors on it, which suggests it's a bit past expiry date already.
k:

[Grinder]

Looks good, horseman.
How are you going to do that thing with the removable harddisk?

[The Fifth Horseman]

Not sure if it will actually work out, but will check that today.

Boot sequence set to HDD first, CD-ROM second.
Primary Master HDD set to autodetect.
Primary Slave fixed.

The HDD socket is connected to the Primary IDE cable, with the drive set as Master. The '98 drive is set as Slave.

DOS HDD is FAT-16 and installed with DOS 6.2 or 7.1 (have yet to decide on that).
Windows HDD is FAT-32 and thus will not be seen by DOS at all.

When both HD's are inserted, the computer will read the DOS drive first and boot from it.
When the DOS drive is out, the computer will only read the '98 drive and boot Windows.
Pretty simple, we'll see how it is going to work out.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Roland MT-32 card

Does not exist. MT-32 was an external MIDI synthetiser connected to the souncard's MIDI port.

What you are looking for is Roland LAPC-I.
Here is a picture of the thing. MT-32 is integrated on its circuit board.

BTW, I think I'll be on a lookout for a cache chip - this motherboard currently has 8 KB L1 cache and 0 (really!) KB L2 cache - and there is an empty cache slot present.

[Grinder]

i always thought of the mt-32 because in the setup it said "roland lapc-1 or mt-32".
maybe the mt32 synthesizer was to be connected to the soundcard for recording music using special programs.

[The Fifth Horseman]

I was wrong about the 0 K L2 cache - seems to be a bug in Everest. I'm getting a cache chip anyway.

[Grinder]

I'm just looking for a Pentium 133 miditower(i want a small one). there are very few of those on ebay.