Net 2000 Plus
My "Work" System
My "modified" Compaq Prolinea "e" series. Now it's "AMD Inside!"
First WWWF Slam Cam pic - poorly lit room - no flash on this toy digital Cam! Monitor, keyboard, speakers, etc. are all on the larger desk with hutch to the left. Neatness kills! Compare this picture to the Kaypro II picture on the index page taken with a Vivitar ViViCam 2000 digital camera @ 320 x 240 resolution. The window lighting helps in that picture, I admit, but the Slam Cam can't even come close!
I have a Compaq Prolinea 575e system (originally Intel Pentium 75 Mhz), but it now runs an AMD processor at 120 Mhz. For what it's worth the AMD chip is really a 133 Mhz, but my motherboard won't go beyond 120 Mhz. I just started it using again. I had let my kids run flight simulators, etc. on that one because it was the fastest computer in the house. Since my son just bought a 400 Mhz Intel Celeron powered computer with all the usual features and Win98, the kids don't miss the Compaq.
It was rescued from a computer shop's scrap pile after it had been stripped of all it's goodies. I added 24 Meg of memory, for a total of 32 MB for it. I also installed an optional 256K external cache chip. I even managed to dig up a Compaq Prolinea 5120e case, to match it's new higher clock speed. Its' worst feature is the tiny hard drive (255MB before compression) that I installed. 2 GB or so would be much more appropriate. I had to add a monitor, mouse, keyboard, sound card, CD-ROM, speakers, and install Win95.
The system has Cirrus video with 1 Meg video memory on the motherboard. I use a PerComp SVGA monitor. It also has a 3.5 high density floppy drive.The last change to the system was the addition of a Cardinal external 33.6K modem. P.S. It's a real modem, not one of those silly WinModems, or SoftModems, that eat up CPU and system resources.
For what it is worth I started by reformatting the hard drive. I installed DOS 6.0 with drivers for the CD-ROM, mouse, and sound card. With that all working okay, I went ahead and did a Win95 install from a Win95 CD. I can run from DOS 6.0, Win95 DOS mode, or Normal Win95 mode and have all the hardware working because I installed all the drivers for it.
Hopelessly underpowered by todays' standards, but much stronger than the old 486 computers I used. It seems to be able to run several programs at a time without bogging down much. About the only thing it chokes on is some of the more demanding multimedia stuff, like RealPlayer G2. A bigger hard drive may be in it's future, but there is a good chance I'll just sell it off and try to get a faster machine.
UPDATE: Just installed a Seagate Medalist 2.5GB hard drive. There were a few minor gremlins in the software on the old hard drive so I just did a complete reinstall of everything from the ground up, rather than copying anything directly from the old drive. What a way to burn up a big chunk of time! The beast is running great for such an obsolete monster. Just like last time, the machine is able to run in DOS 6.0 or in Win95, as desired. This hard drive is faster to begin with, and not having to run DriveSpace 3 disk-compression helps too. There is still enough space to run a big swap file (virtual memory), when Windows needs it. Still lusting for a 500Mhz or better machine, but this one is much faster than my stable of 486 computers. Also, I traded my previous Compaq 486 work machine to a friend for a Peavey guitar amplifier. It is his first Internet ready machine and he and his wife seem to enjoy it.