P5-75 upgrade but not mboard

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

What could i do to upgrade a P5-75 other than change a motherbord? It's not
worth th ework of replacing the mboard, but I'd put in another card. It has
an iozipdrive (100) that had the click-of-death (threw out all my zip disks,
but I have a parallel zip drive on another computer that I don't use much).

I need to open it to replace the clock battery.

I'm not sure it is just the cmos battery tho, because it doesn't see the
slave secondary (larger) hard drive..



- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://www.panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Phooey on GUI: Windows for subprime Bimbos]

[jurb...@gmail.com]

The only real thing you can do about the processor is see if you can get an old Evergreen kit. With the regulator plate and internally set multiplier you'll have an AMD K6-2 I think and I believe in that board it will run at 350Mhz. If you can get the clock speed up it will go 400 or maybe even 450Mhz. It will require a BIOS upgrade to use that chip, those were supplied by Evergreen on a CDROM and you had to make a floppy. That board might boot from a CD, but I'd bet it won't flah the BIOS from one.

The other thing would be to see how much RAM it'll take.

One of the best things to do to keep that thing running instead of crawling is to use old software on it. Win 98 would be good, but that was actually built for 95. Maybe even 3.11.

You should determine the make and model of the board and get the specs. They might be online somewhere. You can find out how much RAM it'll take, it probably maxes out at 64MB but Win 95 or 98 should run OK in that.

I don't know what to tell you about a web browser for it. One nice thing is that it is probably too old to catch a modern virus. I remember one tried to hit me but couldn't because my Java was not up to date. MWAHAHAHA.

You might want to try out Opera if you intend to take that thing online. Forget IE, you probably can't run higher than 5 on that so forget it. Maybe you can get an old enough version of Firefox, maybe. I can't help you configure a router or switch in those old OSes so you'll have to find an old guru for that.

Good luck with that old boat anchor. Sometimes I like to screw with junk just BECAUSE, or because everyone says I am wasting my time.

Now if you find something worse, like a 486SX, I got a game that'll not run on anything newer. I got some old ass programs laying around. I simply have no reason to get rid of them.

[jurb...@gmail.com]

Question : Did it EVER see that larger HD ? If it is big you might need a BIOS update or an overlay to use it.

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

jurb...@gmail.com wrote:

> Good luck with that old boat anchor. Sometimes I like to screw with
> junk just BECAUSE, or because everyone says I am wasting my time.

>
> Now if you find something worse, like a 486SX, I got a game that'll
> not run on anything newer. I got some old ass programs laying around.
> I simply have no reason to get rid of them.

There is a market for these computers. Old radios, like the kind used
in taxi cabs, ambulances, fire trucks, etc need to be programmed using
DOS and an old slow computer. They are very much still in use by amatuer
radio operators (hams), and someone may very much want your old computer.

The radios I program work very nicely with Pentium 200 laptops, but there
are others that won't. They would work with a Pentium 75.

As for running the 486 games, you could try using throttle:

http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS

There is also another program called MOSLOW that may work.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

Yes I used the larger HD from 1999-2009 and maybe later.
After the CMOS battery went, the disk was no longer available.
I found out because W98 is on the big drive.
Actually it is partitioned into 650MB segments.
It dual boots (win3.11WG came with the machine) and I use it mostly for DOS.

Back in 2009 I deleted a lot of stuff after I moved it to the newer XP
machine. THe scanner light on the 1995 HPOJLX died and I have a new HPOJ to
install when the ink runs out. Part of me says to dump the P5 with the OJLX.

I would only install PCI stuff, not play with as massive a project as a
motherboard.

Much obliged

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

*+-There is a market for these computers. Old radios, like the kind used
*+-in taxi cabs, ambulances, fire trucks, etc need to be programmed using
*+-DOS and an old slow computer. They are very much still in use by amatuer
*+-radio operators (hams), and someone may very much want your old computer.


Maybe I should sell them my 1980 hp2621a terminal (built in Puerto RIco)
hooked up to 1985 Ampro 2210 (80186 - MSDOS Generic, no bit map - assembled
in Mountain View from Signapore board). I ripped the printer ribbon cable by
accident and only recently found my notes on how I built it. I hardly use
it. The glasson the HP is peeling and looks like mildew. The battery that
allowed the HP to remember settings is no longer available. THe HP worked
with a pintout of five, like they taught me in EE class, unlike the newer
Asian stuff.

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

I just added a USB card and replaced the battery.
Initially it refused to work, but I had to reprogram the CMOS
settings. Once I did that, it the slave drive came online.
(the CMOS had lost the slave drive settings when the battery went)

17yrs for a battery is not bad