Re: Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

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

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Re: Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

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?

FC4 requires a Pentium II or later processor (586 minimum) so FC4 isn't
really a possibility for you.  FC1, perhaps (2.4 kernel).  As far as
install media, Smart Boot Manager may work.  It boots off floppy and
can handle lots of other devices that the BIOS doesn't grok.  I have
no idea if it works with a parallel-port CD or not.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens <at> vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-      I won't rise to the occasion, but I'll slide over to it.      -

Re: Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

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?

I'd check on how much memory it has. Linux likes to have more RAM
than Win95 is comfortable in. As far as booting and running,
you may try to boot using Smart Boot Manager (SBM)
http://btmgr.webframe.org/
I have used it to boot successfully Knoppix LiveCD on a 486 machine.
If it has an ATA drive interface (which I suppose it does) it ought
to be easy to add a CDROM drive to it, and boot SBM from floppy.
I don't know whether SBM can manage a boot from a parallel I/F CDROM
drive. I know that it can manage ATAPI.

Mike

Re: belkin wireless g+ desktop card support?

Neil Cherry wrote:

> The ipw2200 is an Intel chip set. I tried to use the ipw2100 with
> the ipw2100 driver under Linux on a laptop with an AMD processor.
> The bios wouldn't let it boot. The OS never got involved, the
> bios determined that it didn't like the mini-PCI card.
> 
> Sorry about mixing ipw2200 and ipw2100.
> 
I thought both were for Intel (think Centrino).

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Re: VPN Router for Linux (FC4)

Ryan D'Baisse wrote:
> I think the subject line may have thrown people off.  I'm looking for  a 
> HARDWARE or appliance solution... not software or a package.  I  just 
> want it to play nice with Linux servers and/or clients.
> 

Anything that sites at the gateway and has VPN capability should work. 
However, my own preferences is to run openvpn (as others have said) on 
bits I control. By default, you need UDP port 1194 open at both ends, 
but you can use other ports and you can use TCP.

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Cheers
John

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Re: Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

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 

This would be a very pain-filled process.

How much disk do you have? Unless it's extraordinarily large for a 486, 
quit now. It will not work.

How much RAM? As I recall the 486 is limited to 16 Mbytes, and that's 
nowhere near enough.

> 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.

Look for a machine with, at least, 512 Mbytes disk and 8 Mbytes RAM: 
with such a machine you have some prospect of getting a really old 
distro up.

Re: OT: Document Management

On 31-Jan-06, at 6:06 PM, Paul Lemmons wrote:
>  I am about Googled-out looking for a good GPL document management 
> solution that runs under Linux.

How about http://www.alfresco.org/
I'm not sure it's GPL but they offer some sort of OS version of the 
product.

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Re: OT: Email signing

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Re: Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

> How much RAM? As I recall the 486 is limited to 16 Mbytes, and that's nowhere 
> near enough.

that was the 286, his machine can't be that old:)

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Re: Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

On Tue, Jan 31, 2006 at 04:17:53PM -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?

tomsrtbt. http://www.toms.net/rb

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