Socket 7 into 2011
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 11:48 pm
Hello everybody,
This is my first post in the forum. I've been lurking around for some time but didn't feel I had much to contribute. I'm not an old fan to be honest, my interest is recent.
It re-appeared because my first years in the computer world were in the days of Socket 7, dial up modem and single digit GB hard drives. I observed the transition from SIMMs to DIMMs, from AT form factor to ATX... from DOS based operating systems to true 32 bit ones. In my opinion, the computer world nearly froze when Windows XP was released and most of modern day products are a mere attempt to convince people to keep throwing money into things they don't really need.
Well, that and the fact that I've got a couple Socket 7 machines from friends to play with that I decided to restore to fully operational order and upgrade as much as possible. I'm realistic, I don't expect much from them but I've been astonished to find that youtube works (albeit a bit jumpy and on the lowest setting) without modifications.
A big issue today is that K6 processors aren't fully i686 compatible, they lack CMOV instructions and some modern software plain doesn't work. For example, with exception of Flash, MPEG-4 decoding is impossible to do because codecs are compiled for i686 or higher.
Linux... I don't know who got the "brilliant" idea of requiring i686 or higher as default, so many current distros doesn't work. Ubuntu, which is the most popular right now, simply doesn't work as support was explicitely dropped in 11.x. And future doesn't look bright... I hate to say it but you're better ofo with Windows than Linux at this point.
I received the system in this order:
Machine 1:
PC Chips M571 / SiS TX Pro II / 512K / 4PCI / 2 ISA / 2DIMM / 4SIMM
Pentium 166 MHz MMX
80MB RAM / 16 + 32MB SIMM and 32MB DIMM (mixed and all running fine)
4GB 5K4 HDD
Trio64V+ 1 (2MB upgraded) PCI Video card
AT From factor and AT power supply
(I upgraded this machine for my friend several years ago; had integrated video by the time and I this 16MB of RAM and I don't remember but the 166 MHz processor was also mine)
Machine 2:
Soyo 5EHM / Via MVP3 / 1MB / 3PCI / 3ISA / 1AGP / 2DIMM / 2SIMM
K6-2 400 AHX (2.4v, failed K6-3?)
102MB RAM / 16 + 64MB SIMM and 32MB DIMM (again, mixed and running fine)
No hard drive (failed)
ATI Rage Pro, Xper@Work 4MB with SO-DIMM slot
Hybrid AT/ATX form factor. Case is AT, power supply and button are ATX.
I've added quite a bit of stuff to them already. I'll post about it soon. Stay tunned!
This is my first post in the forum. I've been lurking around for some time but didn't feel I had much to contribute. I'm not an old fan to be honest, my interest is recent.
It re-appeared because my first years in the computer world were in the days of Socket 7, dial up modem and single digit GB hard drives. I observed the transition from SIMMs to DIMMs, from AT form factor to ATX... from DOS based operating systems to true 32 bit ones. In my opinion, the computer world nearly froze when Windows XP was released and most of modern day products are a mere attempt to convince people to keep throwing money into things they don't really need.
Well, that and the fact that I've got a couple Socket 7 machines from friends to play with that I decided to restore to fully operational order and upgrade as much as possible. I'm realistic, I don't expect much from them but I've been astonished to find that youtube works (albeit a bit jumpy and on the lowest setting) without modifications.
A big issue today is that K6 processors aren't fully i686 compatible, they lack CMOV instructions and some modern software plain doesn't work. For example, with exception of Flash, MPEG-4 decoding is impossible to do because codecs are compiled for i686 or higher.
Linux... I don't know who got the "brilliant" idea of requiring i686 or higher as default, so many current distros doesn't work. Ubuntu, which is the most popular right now, simply doesn't work as support was explicitely dropped in 11.x. And future doesn't look bright... I hate to say it but you're better ofo with Windows than Linux at this point.
I received the system in this order:
Machine 1:
PC Chips M571 / SiS TX Pro II / 512K / 4PCI / 2 ISA / 2DIMM / 4SIMM
Pentium 166 MHz MMX
80MB RAM / 16 + 32MB SIMM and 32MB DIMM (mixed and all running fine)
4GB 5K4 HDD
Trio64V+ 1 (2MB upgraded) PCI Video card
AT From factor and AT power supply
(I upgraded this machine for my friend several years ago; had integrated video by the time and I this 16MB of RAM and I don't remember but the 166 MHz processor was also mine)
Machine 2:
Soyo 5EHM / Via MVP3 / 1MB / 3PCI / 3ISA / 1AGP / 2DIMM / 2SIMM
K6-2 400 AHX (2.4v, failed K6-3?)
102MB RAM / 16 + 64MB SIMM and 32MB DIMM (again, mixed and running fine)
No hard drive (failed)
ATI Rage Pro, Xper@Work 4MB with SO-DIMM slot
Hybrid AT/ATX form factor. Case is AT, power supply and button are ATX.
I've added quite a bit of stuff to them already. I'll post about it soon. Stay tunned!