Re: Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

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On Tue, 2006-01-31 at 16:17 -0500, Thomas Taylor wrote:
> Hi All:
> 
> I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC).  It's what was called a 
> semi-portable computer - requires AC power.  It's housed in a ruggedized case 
> and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive.  It has two serial 
> ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port.  It also has a network port, 
> supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working.  The bus 
> structure is ISA with room for two cards.
> 
> It currently has Windbloze 95 on it.  I would like to replace that with FC4 
> but don't have a way to do it currently.  I was thinking of getting one of 
> the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication 
> (called a backpack originally).  There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm 
> not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything 
> except the floppy or hard drive.
> 
> Anyone got a suggestion?

If it has a working floppy drive, there are PXE boot images out there
that *might* work... 

Another option would be to remove the hard-drive, install it on a
*similar* machine (486/isa) and then put the drive back into the Dolch.
I have several of the 586 versions of this box, and had to do something
like that when the built-in CD-R failed on one.

Steve

--
I am having the time of my life, but I would rather be whisting in the
dark.


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