I picked up a few old POS PC's one of them works but the other one is very temperamental and doesn't always post.
They look like they are from around 1998 and have WIN processor Chips fitted and EDO Ram. On the working POS PC I Installed MS-DOS I also installed Windows 3.1 but I'll probably just use it for DOS gaming and DOS based software only. It has two ISA slots and some PCI slots NON changeable BIOS battery. This could potentially make a an ok DOS machine. I have no ISA Video cards or ISA sound cards but I suppose I could find a PCI video card alternative and a PCI Sound Blaster card of some sort.
Anything Video card or Sound card "ISA" related seems to be far to expensive so I'll be looking at PCI alternatives for DOS.
The sound cards I've been looking at so far are the:
Sound Blaster PCI 16 CT470
CT5803
PCI Sound Card 1370 / ES1371 - ES1373
Those aren't priced to crazy less than 20 pound so a good alternative in my opinion provided they work in DOS. Next is the video card which is a basic 3D generic video card made for old systems that can be bought new from China for less than 15 pounds.
Now for the faulty POS machine that is very temperamental I have spent a great deal of time trouble shooting what is causing it to only post every now and again. First thing I did was check the Ram and Ram slots. Iried other ram also I tested the original ram and all was good. I checked the PSU very clean inside no bulging leaky caps all voltages good. I had a good look at the board checking cables/connections jumpers but I'm unable to find the problem so I have plans to gut this one and turn it into a neat looking RISC OS PC with an ARM board inside.
I don't believe anybody has built a RISC OS PC before. I can not find any threads or images relating to it apart from Raspberry Pi's in little boxes. I'm going the whole hog and building a proper RISC OS PC with a functioning floppy drive and everything.
They look like they are from around 1998 and have WIN processor Chips fitted and EDO Ram. On the working POS PC I Installed MS-DOS I also installed Windows 3.1 but I'll probably just use it for DOS gaming and DOS based software only. It has two ISA slots and some PCI slots NON changeable BIOS battery. This could potentially make a an ok DOS machine. I have no ISA Video cards or ISA sound cards but I suppose I could find a PCI video card alternative and a PCI Sound Blaster card of some sort.
Anything Video card or Sound card "ISA" related seems to be far to expensive so I'll be looking at PCI alternatives for DOS.
The sound cards I've been looking at so far are the:
Sound Blaster PCI 16 CT470
CT5803
PCI Sound Card 1370 / ES1371 - ES1373
Those aren't priced to crazy less than 20 pound so a good alternative in my opinion provided they work in DOS. Next is the video card which is a basic 3D generic video card made for old systems that can be bought new from China for less than 15 pounds.
Now for the faulty POS machine that is very temperamental I have spent a great deal of time trouble shooting what is causing it to only post every now and again. First thing I did was check the Ram and Ram slots. Iried other ram also I tested the original ram and all was good. I checked the PSU very clean inside no bulging leaky caps all voltages good. I had a good look at the board checking cables/connections jumpers but I'm unable to find the problem so I have plans to gut this one and turn it into a neat looking RISC OS PC with an ARM board inside.
I don't believe anybody has built a RISC OS PC before. I can not find any threads or images relating to it apart from Raspberry Pi's in little boxes. I'm going the whole hog and building a proper RISC OS PC with a functioning floppy drive and everything.
