IBM PS/1 486SX25 OS Recommendation

WalkingContradiction

Hello all,

I have a quick question for everybody: What OS should I put on my IBM PS/1? It has an INTeL 486SX @ 25MHz, no co-processor, and 36MB of RAM. It also has a 129MB IBM IDE hard drive, a 5.25inch floppy drive, and a 3.5inch floppy drive. I currently have an OEM install of MS-DOS 6.0 w/ Windows 3.1 with a few utilities from IBM, but I was wondering if I should upgrade it to Windows 9x, an early versions of Windows NT such as 3.x or 4.x, IBM's OS/2, or another OS.

I also appreciate any feedback and questions about the system and its hardware if it helps

Thanks everybody,
TheWalkingContradiction

thinkpadman

In terms of 486s the main advantage you have is the 36MB RAM installed. It's certainly enough to run those other operating systems you mentioned but otherwise the hard drive is going to limit your choices. I'd be looking at swapping that over if possible. OS such as Win 98 and NT 4.0 I've never seen a floppy version of, so for ease of installation you'd probably need to swap the 5.25" floppy for a CD-ROM.

Here's a list based on personal experiences and system requirements I can somewhat recall:
Win 95 - possible with minimal installation, performance won't be great though
Win 98 - official requirements were a DX2 66Mhz, and you'd need more space anyway for most installations
NT 3.1 - NT 3.5x - would work, though you won't really have much disk space left for running anything else
NT 4.0 - bare minimum to run, though again it's touch and go with the hard disk size (may halt at setup that there's not enough)
OS/2 2.11 - requires a 386 so should run comfortably
OS/2 3.x - similar to NT 3.51 in that it could run but hard disk space again an issue

Unless you have at least a DX2 66 I never really did find using Win 95 all that satisfactory. Personally I'd leave it as is, or run an earlier OS/2 version with that sort of configuration.

SomeGuy

You would still need more hard disk space, but another thing to consider is 98Lite.

But on that kind of system, you might be better off just loading up DOS programs. Load up DOOM, and who needs anything else? :P

For that, use Power Menu or a similar DOS menu/file manager so you don't have to stare at the command prompt at startup.

calvinb

I thought NT needed an FPU?

thinkpadman

ampharos wrote:

I thought NT needed an FPU?

NT 3.x can go as low as a 386 SX, and NT 4.0 as low as a 486 SX so the main requirement is being able to support 386 enhanced mode. However, performance gains would be had adding an FPU.

WalkingContradiction

So I've decided for now to stick with my current install of DOS6.0 until I get a larger harddrive. When I do however, I will more than likely be installing either windows 95 or NT3.1.

Thanks for the help,
TheWalkingContradiction

WalkingContradiction

Well I've gotten another hard drive, specifically a Maxtor 40GB. The BIOS only allows me to use 548MB, however that is enough for now. I installed Windows95 via 22 floppies (took about an hour surprisingly), but I've run into a new issue. Ive mounted both drives in the case using a 5.25inch adapter (had to remove the 5.25inch FDD, no problem though). However the POST halts after the system is finished testing the 36MB of RAM. Ive removed the new SIM, returning it to its original 4MB with the original SIM, however it expectedly didn't make a difference. I think the issue might be that I had to use another IDE cable due to the system not having one with two inputs. However, the BIOS does allow for two drives, so I'm kind of stuck here.

Any help is great, and as always thank you!

TheWalkingContradiction

SomeGuy

I'd double check the jumper settings on the drives. (Master/Slave/CableSelect) Odd things can happen if they are not set right.

And you might also consider only using the one larger drive. Sometimes drives of such different sizes can conflict with each other.

WalkingContradiction

SomeGuy wrote:

I'd double check the jumper settings on the drives. (Master/Slave/CableSelect) Odd things can happen if they are not set right.

Yea I checked the jumpers last night. It seemed like CableSelect wasn't supported, so I set the IBM OEM harddrive to Master and the MAXTOR drive to slave. However, even after reversing the jumpers and positions I still ran into the same problem.

EDIT: The BIOS setup program would work, however neither of the drives would appear.

SomeGuy wrote:

And you might also consider only using the one larger drive. Sometimes drives of such different sizes can conflict with each other.

This is what I've decided to do instead, removing the IBM drive and leaving the MAXTOR drive in the system for now. The only issue I'm still having is that the BUS limits the drive to 548MB, so I'm looking at finding a smaller drive. Windows 95 boots fine, however I'm still without a mouse and a working sound card for now.

SomeGuy

You can also use a "bios overlay" program to exceed 548MB. Ontrack Disk Manager is a common one, Maxtor also had their own (Maxblast).

You might also be able to create additional partitions from inside Windows, but those will not be available in real-mode DOS. Never tried that with with the older 548MB limits though. Kind of a hack, really.

WalkingContradiction

SomeGuy wrote:

You can also use a "bios overlay" program to exceed 548MB. Ontrack Disk Manager is a common one, Maxtor also had their own (Maxblast).

I have downloaded Maxtor's MAXblast from Vogons and am trying it at the moment, will send an update ASAP.

Thanks,
TheWalkingContradiction

thinkpadman

I used Maxblast just recently on a 486 I put together with a 20GB Maxtor drive, as I had the same 528 MiB limitation.

With MS-DOS 6.22 I managed to have a 2GB partition instead going which is better. If I was installing Windows 98 onto it I would be able to use it all easily though, but installing Win98 on a 486 is of no interest to me.

Just make sure if you want to boot from a floppy after installation to wait until EZ-Drive has been loaded. Booting a floppy straight after the BIOS will cause the drive to be not visible.

WalkingContradiction

I actually was unable to use Maxblast for some reason. It wouldn't install any of the three releases I found, so I used the IBM Drive Manager instead. It worked flawlessly, and basically split the drive into 4 590MB partitions. This is actually really convenient for me since I planned to originally dual-boot Win95 and MSDOS6.0 using 2 separate harddrives. This allows me to avoid the issue I was having earlier where two IDE drives would cause the POST to fail after the RAM check. I am planning on installing DOS6.0 and using the IBM recovery diskettes to restore the contents of the orriginal HDD that the system had. Also, if anybody has any advise on storing the orrigional drive for safe-keeping, let me know because I don't want it to fail if I ever need it.

Thanks again,
TheWalkingContradiction

PS: The IBM Drive Manager can be found on the Vogons Drivers site here