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Putting together a 486

thinkpadmanthinkpadman
edited June 2015 in Hardware
To my surprise I've managed to be the winning bidder for a new 486 motherboard. While waiting for it to arrive from overseas, the seller had given me the following:
Hi Josh, tech spec from the manual is

CPU 25-66 MHZ 486SX/DX/DX2 OPTIONAL 75/100 MHZ 486DX4
MEMORY 2 X 72 PIN AND 4 X 30 PIN SOCKETS
3 X VESA 5 X ISA 3X PCI SLOTS
CHIPSET OPTI 82C895 GREEN PC OPTI 82C822 PCI AND OPTI 82C602 BUFFERS CHIP
CACHE SIZE 64K/128K/256K
BIOS PHOENIX
BOARD SIZE 25.5 CM X 22 CM
Original invoice in box dates from 1994

l_354_jpg.jpg

So far I've sourced a 486 DX4 100 Overdrive CPU:

l_6ck_jpg.jpg

I'm considering to get:
32 MB 72-pin RAM (looking at dual booting MS-DOS 6.22/WfW 3.11 and NT 3.51)
Couple of 1-2GB IDE drives (not sure about going SCSI)
SB AWE 32 or 64 ISA sound card (AWE 64 Gold might be awesome)
2 or 4MB S3 Trio/Diamond/ATI PCI video card (not sure what's best, though would like to run Windows at least on 24-bit 1024 x 768)

Looks like I'll need to pay top dollar for an AT keyboard.

Fortunately I'm flying out to Tokyo on Wednesday so I'm hoping be able to source a few things from there.

Comments

  • calvinbcalvinb
    I have most of the parts to build a K6-2 system, but I don't have stuff like an AT case yet.
  • SomeGuySomeGuy
    Very nice board. I hope there isn't much corrosion around that battery. But at least it is not a long-dead soldered-on Dallas integrated clock chip/battery.
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    Yes, I'm a bit concerned with the battery too though I've been told it's been in the box stored in a relative's workshop for the past 20 years without any exposure to anything.
    I'm inclined to snip it off sooner rather than later and look at what I can do with plugging in an external battery.

    When 386 and 486s were prime in the second hand market I went straight from a 286 XT compatible to a Pentium 100, so I never did get to build a 486. I assume I need to get a I/O controller card regardless of choosing IDE or SCSI. The original Pentiums I recall only needed one for SCSI.
  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    The battery should be fine, it will charge back up when you turn it on. If not just clip the positive side and use four AA batteries, most motherboards from that era have headers for a external battery, just consult the manual.
    Built in harddrive/floppy controllers didn't come around until late pentium pro early MMX based pentiums. You'll also need a serial/parallel card if you want serial/COM and perinter/LPT support.

    Kinda reminds me of a 486 I had built. A friend of mine also built one and we had a war on whos can overclock faster. I one by getting one of those kingston 486 to pentium modules and just set it to the max and tossed on a huge heatsink. Come to think of it I had a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI card in mine. Ran Windows 98SE just find.
  • BlueSunBlueSun
    My 486 had an onboard controller:

    l_4lp_jpg.jpg

    l_suw_jpg.jpg
  • calvinbcalvinb
    Serial, LPT, floppy and IDE were integrated as early as the mid to late 486 era. On the swank 486 and newer boards, they sometimes even had SCSI on board.
  • BODBOD
    I had a Dell Optiplex 486 and some Fujitisu/ICL machine that had integrated controllers also.
  • DuffDuff
    In regards to an AT keyboard, have you considered a PS/2 to AT adapter (like this $6.99 one here) with PS/2 keyboard? They're likely much easier to come across, hell I have one or two lying around somewhere.

    How I wish I held on to some the old systems I had, or rather had the space to do so. Best two pieces of hardware I had were a Mac SE and IBM PS/2 286 along with several other 386/486s and Macs.

    Edit: also curious, what are you going to be using for a case?
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    Duff wrote:
    In regards to an AT keyboard, have you considered a PS/2 to AT adapter (like this $6.99 one here) with PS/2 keyboard?

    Yes I had thought about those, wasn't sure if they just work with anything plugged in. I remember buying PS/2 to USB adapters off eBay to try using a USB mouse with my old ThinkPads. Didn't seem to work, until I bought one of those common Microsoft USB mice that came with a PS/2 adapter included. Looking up about it suggests that most modern USB mouses are only designed to interface directly with USB. If it's not the case with keyboards, I might give it a go.
    Duff wrote:
    How I wish I held on to some the old systems I had, or rather had the space to do so. Best two pieces of hardware I had were a Mac SE and IBM PS/2 286 along with several other 386/486s and Macs.

    I feel the same way. Several years ago I had a Mac Powerbook 3400 - was the 240Mhz model too with upgraded RAM and had a sub-woofer even.
    Duff wrote:
    Edit: also curious, what are you going to be using for a case?

    Not sure yet. I was ultimately hoping to find a typical midi-tower case with the LED numbers common from those days. I look around on nature strips to see if anyone is junking a PC but these days it's usually no older than a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP. I'll accumulate the other parts while I'm searching for one, but may end up resorting to buying a cheap Cooler Master case, plug in a ATX to AT power adapter and checking/modifying the alignment of screw mounts. Would do the job though doesn't have the same aesthetic.
  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    BlueSun wrote:
    My 486 had an onboard controller:

    Thats a LPX form factor system. The AT form factor didn't really have onboard controllers until later on.
  • calvinbcalvinb
    I see a LOT of 486 Baby AT boards with LPT+Serial+dual channel IDE+floppy. By the Intel 420 series chipsets for 486s, they were pretty common.
  • DuffDuff
    thinkpadman wrote:
    Duff wrote:
    In regards to an AT keyboard, have you considered a PS/2 to AT adapter (like this $6.99 one here) with PS/2 keyboard?

    Yes I had thought about those, wasn't sure if they just work with anything plugged in. I remember buying PS/2 to USB adapters off eBay to try using a USB mouse with my old ThinkPads. Didn't seem to work, until I bought one of those common Microsoft USB mice that came with a PS/2 adapter included. Looking up about it suggests that most modern USB mouses are only designed to interface directly with USB. If it's not the case with keyboards, I might give it a go.
    I don't think you'd have any compatibility issues, a quick search yielded this:
    Wikipedia wrote:
    The PS/2 keyboard interface was electrically the same as for the 5-pin DIN connector on former AT keyboards, and keyboards designed for one can be connected to the other with a simple wiring adapter. In contrast to this, the PS/2 mouse interface is substantially different from RS-232 (which was generally used for mice on PCs without PS/2 ports), but nonetheless many mice were made that could operate on both with a simple passive wiring adapter, where the mice would detect the presence of the adapter due to its wiring and then switch protocols accordingly.
  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    These days it's impossible to use a modern USB device as a PS\2 device since most manufacturers leave out the PS\2 compatible stuff. PS\2 to AT adapters work great and you can still find PS\2 keyboards at pawn shops, thrift stores and eBay. However with mice it can be touchy. You can convert PS\2 to DB9 serial and vice versa but if you have to use a DB25 adapter it won't work. My guess too much resistance using all of the adapters. Same goes for using a USB to PS\2 with a PS\2 to serial.
  • MEM-TEKMEM-TEK
    thinkpadman wrote:
    Yes, I'm a bit concerned with the battery too though I've been told it's been in the box stored in a relative's workshop for the past 20 years without any exposure to anything.
    I'm inclined to snip it off sooner rather than later and look at what I can do with plugging in an external battery.

    When 386 and 486s were prime in the second hand market I went straight from a 286 XT compatible to a Pentium 100, so I never did get to build a 486. I assume I need to get a I/O controller card regardless of choosing IDE or SCSI. The original Pentiums I recall only needed one for SCSI.

    I would replace the battery. Perhaps check on http://www.jameco.com or http://www.mouser.com for a replacement battery.
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    MEM-TEK wrote:
    I would replace the battery. Perhaps check on http://www.jameco.com or http://www.mouser.com for a replacement battery.

    Thanks for the links. I'll take a look at Jaycar later which is our local supplier first.

    Compared to the US, pawn shops are few and far between. Thrift stores (known as op shops, as in opportunity) are usually relatively small and due to regulations here don't want to touch electrical items. Only exception is new items which kind of defeats the purpose of recycling working goods. Due to all that, people here are inclined to use eBay, Gumtree classifieds, give it away to someone they know, or toss it out.

    Yesterday I went to Akihabara and didn't really find a treasure chest of parts unfortunately. Not sure if it was just from finding the wrong shops for old stuff, but yeah regardless it's a great place to build a new system. I only just bought a few things which will go towards other PCs such as a couple of video cards (an ATI 128MB Radeon 9600 AGP, and an earlier Aopen 740 AGP card which I'd mistaken for being PCI due to having only the two slots without the 'L' part), a few sticks of 128MB SDRAM, 3 cheap IDE and SATA drives ranging between 100GB to 300GB in size, and a couple of Fujitsu PS/2 mice.

    There was a lot of DDR and DDR2 RAM dirt cheap at around $1.10 a stick. What surprised me though was the old software a few shops were selling at rather high prices. For example, one shop was after about $170 for a dusty OEM copy of Windows 98. Due to the prices, I didn't bother much except finding a copy of Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and MS Office XP Professional which happened to be a Volume License version. Unlike the English editions it also included Bookshelf Basic 3.0 on a separate CD which turned out to be the very last version after the last English Bookshelf 2000.

    Back on topic, I'll think I'm just stuck looking on eBay for 486 stuff.
  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    I wish I can send you some parts. For giggles I went on UPS's website and did a quote from my place to some random address in Melbourne and my God the shipping is unbelievable that I almost choked on my coffee. The shipping was 249 in US dollars.
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    What are you sending me - a rack-mount server? :) I've bought software from the US on eBay which typically was sent with USPS and occasionally FedEx. If it's something such as a vintage retail box of MS Mouse or game, I've paid around US $20 - $30 for shipping. Once I bought 3 different versions of MS BackOffice Server at the same time complete in their big boxes with manuals and that was around US $170 for shipping. Also it tends to be a little cheaper if the seller is in the west coast, as it all goes via Hawaii to get here.

    Let me know what you have that's good for a 486 and I'd be willing via Paypal to send some coin your way if it's reasonable. Apart from using an LCD monitor, I'm aiming to have the machine fairly time accurate with what were considered mid to high-end parts from around 1994-96. I'm not really looking at getting some 3D accelerator card for it, as I'm intending it to be a decent DOS machine, but with decent 2D performance and resolution for Windows 3.x/NT 3.51.

    Tonight I've bought a new Cirque Smooth Cat keyboard that has a built in touchpad. Although I might end up using the keyboard for a newer machine, it comes included with an AT keyboard adapter which is handy.
  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    I did the quote for a package that was a pound and the box was about a size of a small shoe box.

    I got memory, I should have enough to make a set of 64MB or at lest 32MB.
    PCI Gigabyte GA-107 REV1 hard drive controller with I/O
    ISA Sound blaster 16.
    ISA Creative ct1870 CD-ROM adapter.
    PCI 3COM Etherlink III ethernet.

    Of course all of that isn't a pound lol.
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    Well I've finally received the motherboard. It's in top shape, including the battery. Has a 4-pin external battery connector needing 6V so thinking 4 1.5V AA rechargeable batteries of some sort.

    TCPMeta, with regards to memory I'd be interested. The manual states I can either use 4 16MB 30 pin for 64MB, or use 4 4MB 30 pin with a 16MB 72 pin for a total of 32MB. Doesn't show if you can just use 2 16MB or 32MB 72 pin sticks on their own, but says you can with 8MB or 16MB sticks. The manual was printed in July 1994 so maybe they weren't around yet? I really can't remember.

    I/O controller cards are needed though the manual doesn't recommend 1 PCI IDE card, but to use 2 due to some chipset limitation. If I was to use the Gigabyte one on its own, not sure what "issues" it would cause. Maybe just using a PCI video card would resolve that.

    Sound Blaster cards are fairly easy to find, though the CD-ROM adapter card would be useful.
  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    Ok, took me a while and this is what I can identify in the big bag of 72pin memory I have.

    Four sticks of 72pin 16MB 60ns total 64MB
    Two IBM brand 72pin 16MB 60ns total 32MB
    Two sticks of 72pin 8MB 60ns total 16MB
    Two sticks of Century brand 72pin 16MB 70ns total 32MB

    I have more but they are not identified since I don't have a system that can use them.
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    Thanks for looking.

    I'll start with the following and see how I go:
    Four sticks of 72pin 16MB 60ns total 64MB
    Two IBM brand 72pin 16MB 60ns total 32MB
    ISA Creative ct1870 CD-ROM adapter

    Send me a PM with how much you are wanting for these and shipping costs. By the way are these nickel or gold plated? The motherboard appears to have nickel slots, and although gold ones would work I read somewhere it's recommended that they match.

    Since my previous post, I've bought a new DataTech DTC 2278 Enhanced IDE VESA I/O card with driver disk and cables, and new 8MB ATI Rage XL PCI video card. As I'm looking at using 2 hard drives, the CD-ROM adapter will be needed.
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    Duff wrote:
    Edit: also curious, what are you going to be using for a case?

    Looks as though I found something! By chance I messaged a guy on eBay who I bought a motherboard a while ago from as I noticed he had a steady supply of them for sale. Asking what else he had, he responded with "everything" though he intends to build several 386s to Pentiums to make some money out of it.

    It's a beige mini-tower case with a couple of bits in grey (2 x 3.5" and 5.25" bays at the front) with LED display that seems to be in good nick.
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