A Vintage PC...

[onlyonemac]

Hi!

Remember this post? http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=210335#p210335

Remember what I said here?

Then there was this really cute little machine which I've got my eyes on. He said I could "take as much as I want", since he was going to trash most of it some time or another, but Mom's already freaking over the computers which we've currently got.

Well...
Dad was up there last weekend, so I phoned him up and asked if he could bring that machine home with him. I managed to get it past Mom as well, since I said that it was only a small one and that I would be happy if it shared a desk with the old family PC, of which I am the only user these days .

The machine is a Compaq ProLinea 3/25zs, which is a contemporary of my Mac. It's got a 386 processor and 16 MB of RAM. The hard drive is not the original one, being a "1281 MB" hard drive, according to the BIOS, but only 500 MB or so are usable as the DOS installer refused to recognise the drive's full capacity. It also has a floppy drive, but no CD drive.

I have installed DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on it; apparently the machine originally shipped with DOS, even though Windows was in widespread use by that time.

The machine had the classic SoundBlaster 16 card, with FM synthesis, installed. This upgrade was carried out for a vintage music technology lesson which the machine participated in just a few months before I first saw it.

The machine also had a network card which, oddly enough, had a game port on it as well (although I was unable to make that work with my joystick as the drivers were only for Windows 95, not 3.1). As such, it is on the home network and the internet. I have installed Netscape Navigator 4, but it is too slow for enjoyable use, so I don't really use it online. The home network, however, is useful for transferring large files to and from it since there is no CD drive.

I use it mainly for coding, as I have installed various C and Pascal IDEs on it. I also have a small collection of appropriate music software (including the Voyetra Sequencer Plus Gold which was used during the music lesson) for DOS and Windows 3.1. My favourite electronic circuit design package also runs better on Windows 3.1 rather than in a compatibility environment under Windows XP. Finally, I have installed Microsoft Bob, since I am one of the few people who actually like it!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my new vintage PC!

Thanks,

onlyonemac

P.S. Sorry it took me so long to post about this, but I've been awfully busy setting this thing up!

 

[Cory5412]

I had a Prolinea years and years ago, although it was a 4/66 (in the desktop with one 5.25-inch bay enclosure). I also later had a 575, which was predictably a 75MHz Pentium based system, although in a taller and slightly restyled enclosure.

They're certainly interesting little machines, I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that they were really fancy. They're sort of like the HP EliteDesk/ProDesks and Dell OptiPlexes of their time.

Is yours the very small system seen here: http://www.retrocomputing.net/parts/c/compaq/prolinea%203_25zs/PROLINEA3_25ZS.jpg or is it in one of the larger enclosures, seen here?

 

[MacJunky]

The machine also had a network card which, oddly enough, had a game port on it as well (although I was unable to make that work with my joystick as the drivers were only for Windows 95, not 3.1).

That is not a gameport, it is AUI.

 

[Cory5412]

Oh and stop trying to plug game controllers into the second port on that network card -- it's an AUI or ethernet transceiver port, not a game port. Unfortunately several different things used that same connector at the time, but basically the reason it exists is that there was a time in the bad old days when nobody could decide what the best way to set up a network was. Twisted pair with RJ45 connectors was one of at least three competing formats, the other being rings made of thick or thin-net wire, each of which had its own special set of physical requirements.

Apple sold thicknet transcievers which, for example, had their own external power supply and super long power/data cords leading back to the Mac, leading me to believe that there was some sort of reason for the transceiver to go places that the Mac itself wouldn't go, such as into a raised floor or into a drop ceiling, probably to help compensate for the fact that thicknet wiring wasn't very flexible and was just being dropped in instead of being run to nice wall jacks like twisted pair is.

 

[finkmac]

The Apple DA-15 port uses the same connector as gameport and AUI…

Apple's DOS compatibility cards had a game port connector cover to prevent accidental video connector insertions.

 

[24bit]

Nice old school PC!

If you wish, you can have IDE CD-ROM and HDD from my crap box.

Shipping in the EU won´t cost a fortune.

I gave away my last ISA SCSI HBA years ago, too bad.

When I hear "DOS", Fusion PC 3.0 immediately springs to my mind - one of the best MacII emulators from my opinion.

If you should want to give it a go: http://www.emulators.com/download.htm

 

[commodorejohn]

Fun stuff! I love old DOS PCs of the 386/486 era - home to some of the best games the PC ever saw, and for all the headaches with ISA and jumpers and whatnot, DOS managed to bring a flexible but simple minimalist approach to operating systems far better than Unix ever did. Love the sound of the old OPL2/3 FM sound cards, as well...

 

[olePigeon]

I have a 486DX2 machine that I use for my DOS games.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Don't worry about it, EVERYONE makes one of two mistakes about DA-15 D-Shell connectors on old computers. In their standard "screw the cable down" form they"re usually Game Ports on PCs and Video Ports on Macs. If there's no place to "screw the cable down" then you look for the lug/shroud around the DA/15 where the ThickNet cable clamps onto the DA-15 with Flat Head Machine Screws holding that and the backplane plate onto the card where there would more commonly be Male/Female extensions (round or hex) for "screw the cable down" connections holding only the backplane plate to the card.

The only cards of which I am aware that have DA-15 and RJ45 connectors on board are NuBus Futura Video Cards with the 10baseT Daughtercard's RJ-45 connector on board. Even more confusing would be the ThinNet Connector on that DaughterCard NIC for the Futuras.

I've got a non functional WYSE 386SX for nostalgia, it's a fixer or a re-casing box, depending.

 

[Gorgonops]

DOS managed to bring a flexible but simple minimalist approach to operating systems far better than Unix ever did

That's sort of like saying "the Human Cannonball managed to bring a flexible but simple minimalist approach to flying far better than the airplane ever did", but sure, why not.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

IcarusSoft? Another oxymoron! [)] ]'>

 

[commodorejohn]

That's sort of like saying "the Human Cannonball managed to bring a flexible but simple minimalist approach to flying far better than the airplane ever did", but sure, why not.

I'm just sayin', I've never gotten a headache from spending hours wrist-deep in nested configuration scripts and digging through enormous reference manuals trying to sort out some inscrutable problem with DOS.

 

[Cory5412]

The only cards of which I am aware that have DA-15 and RJ45 connectors on board are NuBus Futura Video Cards with the 10baseT Daughtercard's RJ-45 connector on board. Even more confusing would be the ThinNet Connector on that DaughterCard NIC for the Futuras.

Is this on Macs/NuBus or at large?

Both actually. Apparently I neglected to add the DA-15 with "screw the cable down" type connection in that instance. ThickNet/ThinNet and 10bT are commonly found together on NICs of every stripe.

Heaven only knows what Sun and the rest of the UNIX Workstation crowd did in that market. Were expansion slots ever so dear as in the Mac world? Other platforms always seemed to have a slew of the freakin' things available.

The Futura VidCard/NIC DaughterCard combo saved a precious slot in the under-equipped majority of Macs.

Newborn babies come into the world knowing this stuff, right?

Newborn babes and new mommies have instincts about what goes where and what to do with the dang thing, but operating a teat efficiently, from either end, is definitely learned behavior. If'n that ain't intuitive, N_U_T_H_I_N' having ANYTHING to do with computers is intuitive.

 

[techfury90]

I'm just sayin', I've never gotten a headache from spending hours wrist-deep in nested configuration scripts and digging through enormous reference manuals trying to sort out some inscrutable problem with DOS.

What about VMS? You do run VMS on your VAX, right?

 

[ianj]

I'm just sayin', I've never gotten a headache from spending hours wrist-deep in nested configuration scripts and digging through enormous reference manuals trying to sort out some inscrutable problem with DOS.

That's probably because, compared to Unix, DOS can't do much. That's why Unix systems are still relevant in 2013 and DOS systems aren't, outside of a very small number of niche contexts. DOS doesn't have a built-in network stack, or multitasking, or anything that would make it remotely functional for anything other than gaming or word processing past the early 1990s, but sure, it's "more flexible" because you happen to be used to it and therefore it is easier for you to use. If anything, you're showing how pointless it is to attempt to draw comparisons between DOS and Unix, which were designed for completely different purposes and completely different types of users.

 

[commodorejohn]

Inasmuch as that UNIX almost always had stuff to manage and DOS did not always, yes.

That's probably because, compared to Unix, DOS can't do much.

True enough, I suppose, but to be honest I've never encountered a Unix feature that I haven't seen implemented more simply and elegantly elsewhere (if not in DOS specifically.)

What about VMS? You do run VMS on your VAX, right?

Indeed. But VMS has been pretty good to me thus far, though I admit I haven't gotten terribly in-depth with it.

 

[Gorgonops]

I'm just sayin', I've never gotten a headache from spending hours wrist-deep in nested configuration scripts and digging through enormous reference manuals trying to sort out some inscrutable problem with DOS.

True enough. With DOS, hey, need just a little more base RAM to run that CD-ROM game? Just do this!

# CONFIG.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=90
FCBS=1,0
BUFFERS=10,0
LASTDRIVE=J
STACKS=9,256
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF /V
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000-B7FF I=C800-EFFF HIGHSCAN FRAME=C800 /MIN=0 /V
DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\VIDEO\EANSI.SYS
DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\DOS\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,,2)
DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\CDROM\TEAC_CDI.SYS /D:MSCD000
DEVICEHIGH /L:2 =C:\SB16\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5
DEVICEHIGH /L:2 =C:\SB16\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /E:2048 /P

# AUTOEXEC.BAT
LH /L:2 C:\DOS\MSCDEX /D:MSCD000 /M:18 /E /S /L:G /V
LH /L:0;2 /S C:\DOS\SMARTDRV 2048 128 /V
LH /L:2 C:\MOUSE\MSCMOUSE /1 /A3
LH /L:2 C:\DOS\DOSKEY /INSERT
LH /L:2 C:\DOS\NLSFUNC C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS
PROMPT $_ $e[1;37;41m-|--$e[33;40m  $p$g
PATH C:\DOS;C:\QEMM;D:\WINDOWS;C:\BAT;C:\NORTON;C:\TOOLS;
SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:G
SET IEPPP=C:\IEXPLORE
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\IEXPLORE

Newborn babies come into the world knowing this stuff, right?

 

[Gorgonops]

What about VMS? You do run VMS on your VAX, right?

Indeed. But VMS has been pretty good to me thus far, though I admit I haven't gotten terribly in-depth with it.

If UNIX were FORTRAN* VMS would be COBOL. That's not a compliment.

edit: (UNIX is of course actually C, but C doesn't pair as well with COBOL)

 

[bse5150]

the Human Cannonball managed to bring a flexible but simple minimalist approach to flying far better than the airplane ever did

lmfao :lol: :lol: