Theretrogamingroom
Well-known member
My Grandmother has had an old Compaq Prolinea 4/66 for about 20 years and I haven't taken much interest in it until very recently even though for a long time I have needed a DOS computer to run my hundreds of PC DOS formatted 5 1/4 inch Floppy Disks that I found in the garage.
Fast Foward to about a week ago. I decided to turn it on and look around on it. During the exploration I found many old games that I hadn't played in years such as Simcity, Commander Keen, Streetfighter II and Lure of the Temptress. I wanted to play the games at my house (And again, I already needed a DOS machine with a 5 1/4 inch FDD. So I decided to do a trade: The Compaq Prolinea 4/66 (With the original monitor, keyboard and mouse as well as manuals and a few programs) for one of my XP setups (Because A: Who needs 5 XP computers and B: my grandmothers computer was slow and buggy and she wanted a new one but didn't want to buy one).
Anyways, here are some specs: A 66 MHz 486 processor, 6144K of Ram, a 3.5 inch FDD and a 5 1/4 inch FDD. The computer is running Windows 3.1 and MS DOS 5 which I don't plan on updating. Unfortunately, it sounds like the HD will soon die and I haven't made any backups yet. What is the best method? 3.5 inch Floppies or sticking a CD Drive in to make a Backup, removing it so the 5 1/4 inch FDD could be used and then putting it back in when the HD dies? And what good programs/games will run on this machine? I would like for this to be my main vintage PC and would like for it to be as useful as possible. And how do I turn it off? There is no Shutdown menu from what I can tell and the only way I see is flipping the Power Switch while the computer is on. There must be a better way (For the Hard Drive's sake).
Thanks
Fast Foward to about a week ago. I decided to turn it on and look around on it. During the exploration I found many old games that I hadn't played in years such as Simcity, Commander Keen, Streetfighter II and Lure of the Temptress. I wanted to play the games at my house (And again, I already needed a DOS machine with a 5 1/4 inch FDD. So I decided to do a trade: The Compaq Prolinea 4/66 (With the original monitor, keyboard and mouse as well as manuals and a few programs) for one of my XP setups (Because A: Who needs 5 XP computers and B: my grandmothers computer was slow and buggy and she wanted a new one but didn't want to buy one).
Anyways, here are some specs: A 66 MHz 486 processor, 6144K of Ram, a 3.5 inch FDD and a 5 1/4 inch FDD. The computer is running Windows 3.1 and MS DOS 5 which I don't plan on updating. Unfortunately, it sounds like the HD will soon die and I haven't made any backups yet. What is the best method? 3.5 inch Floppies or sticking a CD Drive in to make a Backup, removing it so the 5 1/4 inch FDD could be used and then putting it back in when the HD dies? And what good programs/games will run on this machine? I would like for this to be my main vintage PC and would like for it to be as useful as possible. And how do I turn it off? There is no Shutdown menu from what I can tell and the only way I see is flipping the Power Switch while the computer is on. There must be a better way (For the Hard Drive's sake).
Thanks