Retro Pc Build!!!

with a Pentium Pro 200 with 2MB of Cache

There was never a Pentium Pro that had 2 MB of cache. The highest were the black top 1 MB variants, you have the lowest tier 256 kb variant, as shown on your POST screen, and by the purple ceramic sitting under the heatsink. There was a mid tier version with 512k of cache. Both the 256k and 512k variants were in purple ceramic packages with gold lids.

I have a dual socket 8 board for wall art with two black top 1 MB Pentium Pro 200s.

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These chips run HOT due to the dual 512k cache dies, each chip pulls about 51W. For comparison, the 256k variant only pulled about 35W.

I don't recommend getting a black top, unless you just want it for the cool factor. On average, the 1 MB version is only about 6% faster in most applications, while consuming almost twice the power, and originally costing almost twice as much as the 256k variant.

https://kva-pl.translate.goog/artyk...=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_sch=http

You can pick them up on the bay for about $100 if you really must have one.
 
There was never a Pentium Pro that had 2 MB of cache. The highest were the black top 1 MB variants, you have the lowest tier 256 kb variant, as shown on your POST screen, and by the purple ceramic sitting under the heatsink. There was a mid tier version with 512k of cache. Both the 256k and 512k variants were in purple ceramic packages with gold lids.

I have a dual socket 8 board for wall art with two black top 1 MB Pentium Pro 200s.

View attachment 567147

These chips run HOT due to the dual 512k cache dies, each chip pulls about 51W. For comparison, the 256k variant only pulled about 35W.

I don't recommend getting a black top, unless you just want it for the cool factor. On average, the 1 MB version is only about 6% faster in most applications, while consuming almost twice the power, and originally costing almost twice as much as the 256k variant.

https://kva-pl.translate.goog/artyk...=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_sch=http

You can pick them up on the bay for about $100 if you really must have one.
I did see that. I thought I read it wrong after I ordered it.
 
I have no space to do this, and am massively annoyed with myself for recycling a bunch of excellent old hardware ten years ago, but I'd love to put one of these together. Tossed all my old software too
 
Can we get a dot matrix printer to go along with these retro builds? Anyone remember the old dot matrix printers that were so loud when printing. As a kid I remember printing long banners with them.
 
Can we get a dot matrix printer to go along with these retro builds? Anyone remember the old dot matrix printers that were so loud when printing. As a kid I remember printing long banners with them.
epson still makes and sell them, lots of businesses still use old school triplicate paper...
 
So my sister came down as she had some of my old stuff in her attic in Maryland. One was a box of books and one was a box of computer crap. Network cords, dvds, and other shit. I took everything out and noticed a plain white box. Opened it up and low and behold it was my Diamond Monster V550. Still looks brand new as the day I got her. Anyway I got NT4 loaded with all the Service Packs in order. Got the V550 installed and found the last set of supported drivers and my monitor got 65k color @ 1920x1080/60. I was surprised that Windows would pickup a much newer dell widescreen. Anyway all going smoothly and I decide to install Win2K. Upgrade goes fine. But I notice that the Diamond Application used had gone away. Nvidia never wrote a driver for the Riva TNT series and just the Microsoft basic driver. That is why I turned my old Pentium Pro machine into a true file server. I then went on to do a major upgrade and buy a nice Dell PIII machine because of the video card not being supported, but I digress...


So I have a bit of a dilemma. I am going to keep the machine at NT4. But I want a dual boot with Windows 98 SE so that I can use the V550 card and all its features under W98 since NT4 gimps what you can do. I found a few sights where you can download Windows from and burn it on an CD. No problem, dusted off my case of DVD that are at least 15 years old and burned a Win98SE ISO. Problem is it won't boot off the CD. Then I remembered: Didn't you have to use a floppy discs sometimes (They came with new OEM versions on a floppy and a cd I remember) So I need floppy...ugh. None to be found. I took a shot in the dark and called staples and ask if they had floppys. The guy laughed on the phone and I kinda chuickled as well. Ordered a set of floppies off of eBay for $5 for 10 of them.

So that is where we stand currently. The floor is open...advice welcome.

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Okay, so here is a melon scratcher: Windows NT 4 boots and installs off the CD, Windows 2000 boots and installs off the CD, Network works on both (Had to hard wire it for 10MB half as Auto at 1GB didn't catch on) I just can't get Windows 98SE to load at all. Works fine on my main desktop in a VM. Even when I have the W98 CD in the machine while NT or 2000 are booted, it says "Please insert disc" Not sure if the answer is staring me directly in the face or not. Kinda perplexed..Help [H]'ers Kinda itching for this now. LOL
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Okay, so here is a melon scratcher: Windows NT 4 boots and installs off the CD, Windows 2000 boots and installs off the CD, Network works on both (Had to hard wire it for 10MB half as Auto at 1GB didn't catch on) I just can't get Windows 98SE to load at all. Works fine on my main desktop in a VM. Even when I have the W98 CD in the machine while NT or 2000 are booted, it says "Please insert disc" Not sure if the answer is staring me directly in the face or not. Kinda perplexed..Help [H]'ers Kinda itching for this now. LOL
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make a new disk? could try copying it to c and run from there
 
At least with the several Win98 CDs I have used, I always had to boot off a floppy and get the CD drivers loaded to boot the CD.
 
At least with the several Win98 CDs I have used, I always had to boot off a floppy and get the CD drivers loaded to boot the CD.
Win 98 was the first that could boot from cd if my memory is correct. Maybe it was ME, I really liked Windows ME. I used it for a long time, almost missed XP completely.
 
Win 98 was the first that could boot from cd if my memory is correct. Maybe it was ME, I really liked Windows ME. I used it for a long time, almost missed XP completely.

CD booting was kinda a hit or miss back then as it really depended on both the board and the CD format. I never really used ME, so cant say for sure if it as able to boot. Im pretty sure my win 2k was bootable but it has beeen a long time since I installed that on a computer. My windows XP CD was definately bootable, except on certain old boards that I had to use my XP boot floppies.
 
Total pain to source cables for, though - so many connectors, SE vs. LVD vs. HVD for the higher speeds, and I lucked out in scoring the last few cables I really need at VCF East last weekend - HD50 to CN-50, and CN-50 to CN-50. (Gotta keep terminators handy for all of those, too!)
We typically had to get our cables made custom, and there was a really good company that only specialized in scsi cables that were ungodly expensive and I happened to pick up some of them for dirt cheap a few years back. I bet they are long gone now too as a company, which makes me sad. :(
 
MIDI memory bank back in the day.
If you're doing midi, you MUST get the yamaha wavetable that worked with the awe32. We have this and it was on par with our yamaha keyboards in terms of sound which was killer to have back in that era. (y)
 
Yep they really were! I was a high school senior (17) when Windows XP was first released in 2002!
Life mostly sucks now espically after losing both of my parents a year apart from one another :( (2017 Mom and 2018 Dad) :(
I was much older when xp came around, even older when I started using it over 98se. :D

But I feel you on losing both your parents 1-2 like that--I lost my mom in March of 2019 and then in Sept 2020 I lost my dad. Very though times. :( I try to remember how they would want me to feel after they've passed and what they would have said to me, and that somehow gives me comfort even though I do feel sad that they are not here anymore. It really hits me when there's something about life I wanted to ask my dad and it's just too late now. :(
 
Which Matrox card? Also for a P200 era machine are you sure you shouldn't be looking for a 3DFX card for 3D rather than swapping out the Matrox? Back around that time Matrox Millennium/preferably Millennium 2 was pretty top end for non-3D accelerated stuff, and 3DFX is what you wanted for 3D. In other words don't be so quick to toss that Matrox because what you want for 3D from that era doesn't do 2D.

XWing, Hexen/Heretic, and Doom are pre-P200 era games. I ran those on a 486. Or at least Doom, Hexen, and Heretic. They made way too many Star Wars games and I can't keep track of them all 20+ years later. I know I played some Star Wars games on my 486 back in the day, just not sure which ones anymore except for TIE Fighter.
THIS! 3DFX makes the most sense for this era and Matrox is the best choice for a pairing.
 
Can we get a dot matrix printer to go along with these retro builds? Anyone remember the old dot matrix printers that were so loud when printing. As a kid I remember printing long banners with them.
I still have a bunch from retired hotel property management systems. Those okidata microlines are a beast! I still remember one that was swiped by a call accounting company that had been on 12yrs 24x7--the ML182. I also have an IBM Proprinter XL that we kept since we used it to print forms in 11x17 that we then could shrink to 8.5x11 for use. We used to make a lot of forms in PFS:Write for our hotel operations.
 
could try copying it to c and run from there
This is what I always did. I would format and sys the c drive in another system, then copy the CD to it. Then move the HD to the system I wanted 98 on and run the setup off the HD--was much faster this way too.

As far as boot floppy, check these and see if they work:
https://winworldpc.com/product/microsoft-windows-boot-disk/98-se

Booting from a CD was pretty much non-existent back in those days from what I recall. I always had to create a boot disk with cd drivers of some sort and mscdex.
 
XWing, Hexen/Heretic, and Doom are pre-P200 era games. I ran those on a 486. Or at least Doom, Hexen, and Heretic. They made way too many Star Wars games and I can't keep track of them all 20+ years later. I know I played some Star Wars games on my 486 back in the day, just not sure which ones anymore except for TIE Fighter.
Can confirm. :) We didn't have a sound card in our 486, so I would fly around in x-wing to Dream Theater playing on the stereo. :D My brother beat Doom on our 486 playing one level each night. And Hexen and Heretic were just more first person shooters that didn't grab us that much, but ran on the 486.
 
I ordered a new IDE to USB connector so that I can copy the Windows 98 SE CD onto it and get it up and running. Floppys don't even want to work.
I vaguely recall at one point using a boot cd then swapping out CDs after it got me to a command prompt... I wish I could remember what or why.


Also unrelated Epson actually still makes dot matrix printers. I want one.
 
I vaguely recall at one point using a boot cd then swapping out CDs after it got me to a command prompt... I wish I could remember what or why.
Swapping CDs... this is kinda off topic but at least it involves Win98 on vintage hardware. It's also my origin story for a tradition of drinking during Windows installs. When I do a new desktop build I boot Linux as a smoke test, and if it comes up and sees all the hardware I go get a beer and start the Windows install.

Once upon a time back around 2000 or so my friend Nick got this Compaq on eBay. It didn't come with an OS disk. He had 2 copies of Win98 on CD. One was a generic disk and the other was a Dell OEM disc. The generic disk had a bad scratch, and while it would boot it would fail during Win98 installation. He also had a generic Win2k disk that worked just fine, but couldn't run some game. Sorry, I don't remember what game it was. Nick got this idea that he could boot from the generic Win98 CD, start the install on the Compaq, and then switch to the Dell CD. He tried it and failed a bunch of times. Then one night he got drunk, tried it, managed to swap disks at just the right time, and voila! Successful Win98 install! The really messed up part about this story is the Compaq was a dual slot1 server machine. You kinda need to be drunk to install Win98 on a dual processor server box, and apparently the beer gods enforce that rule?
 
I vaguely recall at one point using a boot cd then swapping out CDs after it got me to a command prompt... I wish I could remember what or why.


Also unrelated Epson actually still makes dot matrix printers. I want one.
All the win98 install needs is cd support to be able to access the drive. So almost literally any DOS boot that has CD support will work. But the problem is getting that boot on a system which has never booted. A bit of a chicken and egg problem. Hence my solution has always been to sys and format the drive in another system and then just move it over and boot up and install.

I know Okidata still makes theirs too. They're ridiculously fast too compared to the originals so they're still updating and improving them. (y)
 
Update: So I got and IDE to USB converter for HDD. I am able to see the drive and copy the Windows 98 SE contents to it. But still have the boot issue. I tried to use a FreeDos (1.3) and then run the Windows 98 setup but it says it is missing HIMEM.SYS I need a way to Install Dos 6.22 then run the updater. Any suggestions?
 
Update: So I got and IDE to USB converter for HDD. I am able to see the drive and copy the Windows 98 SE contents to it. But still have the boot issue. I tried to use a FreeDos (1.3) and then run the Windows 98 setup but it says it is missing HIMEM.SYS I need a way to Install Dos 6.22 then run the updater. Any suggestions?
Did you sys the drive? It won't boot without a format /s and sys c: done to it from bootable media.
 
Did you sys the drive? It won't boot without a format /s and sys c: done to it from bootable media.
Here is the problem: After I FDISK the drive, it asks to reboot. I reboot and I can't boot from the CD that contains DOS on it.

Having not worked with DOS for over 20 years, can I just copy from a bootable CD the DOS folder and have it boot from the drive that way?
 
Here is the problem: After I FDISK the drive, it asks to reboot. I reboot and I can't boot from the CD that contains DOS on it.

Having not worked with DOS for over 20 years, can I just copy from a bootable CD the DOS folder and have it boot from the drive that way?
Yeah, that's the chicken and egg problem. You need a DOS boot to be able to make something DOS bootable, but how do you do that without a DOS boot? :eek:

In a system of this era, the floppy drive was the boot device when there was no 'system' hard drive. You basically need the 98se boot floppy I linked to above, a working floppy disk, and then you should be good to go for a 98se install.

The only other way I could think of this working is if there is another way to get a dos boot onto that hard drive and then you can boot the hard drive and then modify the autoexec and config.sys to load the appropriate cd driver and mscdex to access the cd drive and run the 98se install. But I can't figure out how to sys the drive with DOS since you need a working DOS instance to sys a drive.
 
So there is the other problem; the Floppy drive does work, but won't boot using the Win98 SE or MSDOS 622. Windows NT4/2000 work perfectly fine. The reason I don't want to use 2000 is because of DirectSound and how it negates my AWE32 and basically neuters it.

Is there a way (In Windows 10/11) to plug an IDE HDD into a USB3 converter and make it bootable? It's a 21.5GB HDD that Windows 98 SE will see and utilizes the full size. Kinda stumped when two OS's work perfectly fine but can't get 98 to work.
 
So there is the other problem; the Floppy drive does work, but won't boot using the Win98 SE or MSDOS 622. Windows NT4/2000 work perfectly fine. The reason I don't want to use 2000 is because of DirectSound and how it negates my AWE32 and basically neuters it.

Is there a way (In Windows 10/11) to plug an IDE HDD into a USB3 converter and make it bootable? It's a 21.5GB HDD that Windows 98 SE will see and utilizes the full size. Kinda stumped when two OS's work perfectly fine but can't get 98 to work.
The only kludge to somehow do this will be to boot a vm that is dos (so you have a bootable drive) and then have the hdd recognized by that vm and then fdisk and format /s the drive in that virtual machine. Then the hdd should be bootable if all goes well.

But there's a lot of stuff that can go wrong here as making a drive bootable back in the day required certain sectors to be formatted a certain way, which may literally be lost in translation by an ide usb adapter and/or the virtual machine.
 
Steps I have taken:
1) Reformatted the drive with a 2GB partition and tried to install Windows 98...no success.
2) Performed a low level format on the drive and tried to install both Windows 98 and MSDOS 6.22. I can get to the install screen but after it performs FDISK and reboots...I am still stuck at the blinking cursor.
3) Windows NT/2000 install flawlessly.

So I am at my wits end.

When I try to use Virtual Box to "Hopefully" install Windows 98...It get stuck at the boot screen and just says "System Updating"

Don't know what else to do?

In a perfect world I would be able to hook the drive up via usb, fdisk it, format it to not boot, copy the windows 98 CD contents to it, plug it into the retropc with a boot floppy and just run the setup. I can do all those steps except boot it into a floppy after FDISK has been performed.

Suggestions? Thank you.
 
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Did you set it to boot from floppy in the bios before the hard drive and CD?
 
How big a drive are you trying to fdisk? I know it had issues with drives over 60-80 GB with FAT32, and you had to get the patched version directly from MS. Also are you using a PATA or SATA drive?
 
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