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.
