On 1999-02-27 [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
>Went out yesterday and laid down forty dollars. Got a pc of
>ancient pre-86 vintage and a 3.5"floppy drive.
>Well, I took the beast apart and was amazed to see the clock
>battery and drive connectors on a separate board. Whatever, I
>packed them up.
Well, it sounds like you bought an XT (8088). They don't normally have
clock batteries unless they are on an I/O board. The $40 you spent must
have been mainly for the floppy drive, assuming it is a laptop drive.
>Okay, so far I have no suitable vid card, my monitor is vga but
>both the vid cards i have are cga except the svga which needs two
>isa slots in a row. Don't have that, so forget that card.
What do you mean the card takes two slots in a row?
The SVGA capable card should work with your VGA monitor, as VGA is actually
a standard, but SVGA isn't (thats why we always have to have drivers for
anything above VGA)
>So, I have a hard disk, and a 5.25" floppy drive, sound card, and
>8meg memory card that work. Keyboard and mouse too. I have cables
>and wires, pc speaker with, led and switch panel with wires, power
>supply with switches and the motherboard with bolts to hold it up
>off the surface.
I don't mean to be a downer, but it probably would be a lot easier if you
bought a whole working computer. You could take it apart and clean
it...then put it all back together. That would still give you a good
experience AND a nice computer. 386's don't go for very much on EBAY. For
instance a Digital 386dx33 still hasn't gotten a bids and the start price is
only about $14. That doesn't include the monitor, keyboard, etc, but you
already had that.
>The floppy I bought is weird, I think it's made
>for a laptop so I guess I might not be able to use it. It's really
>slim and has no power input, just a really short ribbon cable.
Yes, probably made for a laptop, as you say.
>I think I'll need an IO controller card, though perhaps the one
>that came with the beast would work. I doubt it.
If the computer you bought for parts is indeed an XT the controller will be
for a MFM drive. You probably want (or have) an IDE drive. I think I might
have a controller, but I am not sure if it has the floppy controller that
you will almost certainly need. I'd let it go for a couple of bucks above
shipping.
>What other cards will I need to make it simply function, never mind
>networking or modems? I dont plan to hook up a printer either.
>What I want this one for is just to play with different O/S's to
>learn to use them and see how they work.
Let's see....
MB
modem
floppy/HD controller (soemtimes has serial and paralel too)
video card
power supply
floppy drive (3.5" 1.44meg should work fine on a 386)
hard drive
floppy cable
HD cable
memory (sometimes permanetly on motherboard)
case
Thats about all the stuff I can think of. I wouldn't wory about hooking up
lights and button yet....that can be done later as you will probably have
quite a time getting some of the stuff working together.
>Is it possible to hook up the 3.5" floppy drive to this pc or will
>I have to find someone to barter it with?
I would get a normal drive. I think you would have a hard time finding any
kind of interface to install a laptop drive into a desktop computer.
Hope I have been some help....and not too discourging.
Chad A. Fernandez
Battle Creek, MI
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Test Drive
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