2022/08/27 Correction! After rechecking my notes and returning to work on some of the retro boards in my collection, the board I cited as 747 is actually a PCChips 726!
Hello! Finally back with some retro hardware! My time for tinkering with retro hardware was quite limited this past weeks due to several factors including the departure of one of my dogs, so sorry for my disappearance!
In the background of all that I took the opportunity here and there to move forward with at least a couple of my projects, and one of them was to bring back again to life my old K6 II based computer!
This Socket 7 motherboard and processor combo was quite important for me back in the day because was my first fully multimedia capable computer, with capabilities of running 3D games. This combination was an extremely popular life changer upgrade for a great part of Latin America, especially in countries like Argentina, were the difference in the pricing regarding the Intel counterparts of the time, like Pentium II and the first Pentium III models with the 747 and 748 PCChips motherboards were quite expensive in comparison. And to think that the other day I was able to put my hands in both of those motherboards for free in a retro/community sharing hard event! Thanks again to Nicolás Wolovick (@nwolovick on twitter) and the Cybercirujas movement!
Below you can see the invoice for my machine back in June of 2000, in that particular moment in time Argentina was using a 1 peso = 1 u$d convertibility so in fact, those were 841 US dollars. For comparison an Intel Pentium III Slot 1 based computer was around 200 to 250 more! If we update that with the current inflation and exchange rate for Argentina… this K6 II computer would represent a whopping 111555 pesos, even if that included a monitor! You can get an i7 or Ryzen 7 based machine for that now (here)!
So having access to a cheaper modern computer capable of doing most of what the pricier options able was huge! Of course, performance wise there were some caveats, but I will leave that for a second part where I will try to pit the 598 against the 747 and 748. For the moment I will summarize saying that AMD was the life savior for a good part of my generation by representing our entry level point in the modern gamming era.
Now, back to the rebuilding of my system. After using it for many years most of the original parts were lost with time after I pulled the system off use around 2005-06, but saved the motherboard and processor for a moment such as this. First we need a case! Last year I picked several cases for next to nothing, around 8 dollars. Circled in the picture is the one I ended using for this machine, was a bit rusted (forget to take pictures of that), but my father was kind enough helping me out by painting the case leaving looking like pretty much new!
For cooling I went with a somewhat overkill cooler from my stash, but since my intention is to not having to change that anytime in the near future was the logical option at hand. I remember chewing up cheap coolers back in the day, the K6 2 can get quite hot.
RAM was not a problem since I have an ample selection that need some proper testing, so after a quick search and test I was able to find 3 modules for a total of 256 Mb of RAM, that will be enough for the moment.
For a HDD I just picked a random 6.4 GB Samsung drive from my pile, if all goes well I will clone the operating system to a bigger one later.
Regarding the rest, and this was one of the biggest sales point for this type of motherboard, everything was included on board, including a very capable video card. That was not exactly new, but what was exiting were the capabilities promised to take advantage of the new technologies that the new generation of CPUs was heralding.
In the case of the 598 LMR, there were a couple of variants, and in some cases, like in my 598 and the 748 I picked up the on board LAN was absent, but pretty much all manuals were for the versions with LAN (makes sense since were identical aside that). But one thing that very board included but was “absent” at the same time was USB at the time. But… why?
Well, as you notice in the pictures (748 above, 598 below), this boards were not designed with the connectors soldered on the boards, but rather everything was in brackets. This allowed for a huge flexibility for system integrators to use pretty much any AT or early ATX case, lowering even more the cost. But speaking of those brackets, one that was not installed in a lot of cases was the USB/PS2 one, everybody over here was still using Serial for mouse and 5 pin DIN connector for keyboards. The easiest way to find computers using PS2 or some early USB peripherals here was in government or big companies offices until well inside the 2000s, Argentina has been always… weird.
Back to my machine, in those days I went to my city downtown and was able to find a generic bracket that with some modifications worked well for allowing me to connect my first ADSL modem, the infamous SmartAX MT810 (that is a story for another day). Luckily I was able to pick up a couple of brackets from random places and one of them was the one I needed to complete the set of brackets for my board. Network is going to be added using and old PCI Realtek 8139C from my stash. And yes, I´m missing the cover where the keyboard connector is, I will probably have to make one myself since finding one of those in the wild is rare.
With all that together inside the case, was time to grab some boot floppies (in this case a Windows 95 with CD support since I didn´t have any Windows 98 disks), and old HP 9100 series that I wanted to test out and my “original” Windows 98 CD and get to work!
Going thought the steps to do this installation Windows 98 SE was a very nostalgic trip since Windows 98 was the new and hot operating system when I started to fix computers as a teen.
Success! Getting to this moment was really exciting, like welcoming back a really old friend after a long time without seeing it.
Also you may wonder… “Wait, he says 500 Mhz, why it says 550?” Well, actually that is a very small and silly overclock that I always used with that machine, and to remain true to the original spirit of my computer, it will remain running like that!
After that and for the moment, was just a matter of adding the network card and get the others computers in my network to see it…
Another success! I will fine tune that later but all the basics are working.
Now was time to finish a bit the case. The case came without any 5 ¼ covers, but to my amussment I was able to find a couple on my stash that were the same exact yellowed plastic, making oddly… good looking!
Sadly the cover of the case as several big scratches, will see how to remediate that later.
For the moment… let´s close this video with the load of a Otaku Última Generación CD (Otaku Last Generation, also a history for another time ;) ) to celebrate until I return with the second part!