Mini MSDOS gaming PC - Part 1

Using PC/104 components to build a mini 486 MSDOS gaming PC with NO EMULATION!
Part 2 is here - • Mini DOS Gaming PC Par...
Thanks to Foone for the soundcard idea and just generally being awesome : / foone
MSDOS Setup Guide : www.legroom.net/howto/msdos
PC104 soundcard : circuitmaker.com/Projects/Det... (although I wouldn't try building it yet, I'm going to do a second revision to fix some issues)
ISA to PC104 adapter : circuitmaker.com/Projects/Det...
Virgin Megastore Micro Machines 2 tracks : rasteri.com/virginmm2.zip - copy these into the "construc" folder in your MM2 directory, the tracks can then be found in the construction kit

[@NielsHeusinkveld]

And the winner of the most casual "So I designed and build a working SoundBlaster compatible soundcard'" award for 2020 is....

[@LindenAshbyMK]

just reverse engineer the shit out of this crystal chip, solder a bunch of connectors - EZ, right?

[@twolechesconquick]

bout that life

[@CaptainDangeax]

@@LindenAshbyMK surface mount chips are not that easy to solder bro'

[@vandit6354]

Oh yeah, I design and build those in my sleep!

[@mzflighter6905]

@@CaptainDangeax How? xD You hotair the shit out of them

[@markhimself]

You could easily sell these... I would buy one!

[@szogun112]

me too !!!

[@stonebleeds]

✋

[@richardkind2794]

Same here. Let me know when you're building them for sale.

[@markhimself]

Take my moneh! 💰

Definitely would buy one (or more) too!

[@jody5661]

I'm not going to lie, coming into this I figured it would be some idiot shoving a raspberry pie into a box and thinking it's hot shit. What I found was actually a really cool story and some awesome specialty and custom hardware. Really enjoyed it.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

I too but then I saw the magic words (?) pc104. I remember drooling over them 20 years ago and thinking about building the tiniest computer evar

[@Joshikins360]

Finally someone who understands the importance of having a banana around for scale!

[@CraftComputing]

Incredible work on this! I was aware of the PC/104 boards, but stopped looking because of the difficulty of getting sound. You may have just sold me on building my own.

[@phate1489]

Came here for some 486 action... found craft computing

[@ITVOIP]

Best DOSCEMBER video i've seen so far! I hope everyone appreciates the huge effort involved in all this. Must have taken you a long time to complete this.

[@MadsonOnTheWeb]

Fantastic! I couldn't agree more.

[@crowsinthenose]

Yes! This not only wins DOSCEMBER, but is one of THE best retrocomputing vids I think I ever seen. Simply awesome!

[@munxcorp]

11:27 Build engine needs a FPU to render sloped surfaces, so Duke3d runs slow on this SX processor without one.

[@matsv201]

I seen several dx 486 industrial boards back in the day.. so they should be avalible. A 300Mhz Dx 486 should have excelent performance.

[@RetroSpector78]

Just hitting pause here after you created a custom sound card pcb. Wanted to say I am really enjoying this video so far !! Wow ....

[@winMANhun]

This is literally one of the coolest things I’ve seen in IT.

[@joefish6091]

ZX Uno

[@NZ2Pepper]

This came in my recommended and I am glad it did. This is also the first time I have seen DOS on a network. I had read about it, but never seen it work. THANKS!

[@JimLeonard]

This was crazy comprehensive; I had no idea these were still available. Your level of dedication getting a sound device onto these is really admirable. Really nice work.

[@matsv201]

Those industrial boards was produced far into the 00tys

[@kaitlyn__L]

This editing was really tight, your methodology really well thought out, your build satisfying! What a great thing to get recommended by the Google bot.

[@adamsfusion]

This was my favorite DOSCember video. That was a super neat idea.

[@johnshek8727]

This is so amazing, im blown away and so envious of people who cant find what theyre looking for and build it, you sir are amazing, and a great great engineer. I loved this so much.

[@vlaktorbb]

selling these soundcard board wouldn't be a bad idea at all :-)

[@TheRasteri]

Unfortunately I don't really have the analog skill neccessary to design one good enough to sell, but I'd absolutely encourage others to do so

[@spladam3845]

FANTASTIC build, what a brilliant project, your DIY approach to so much of it was very impressive, this got you an instant subscribe. Also, reaching out to Foone Turing was the smart call, I hope he's seen this build, he would love it.

[@9wattcat]

Thank you for making this video. I've been in the same mini 486 rabbit hole for quite some time.

[@MartinPaoloni]

You won DOScember... This is unbelievably cool! And thanks for open sourcing your work!

[@Kenny-bw2cz]

You rushed through this build as if it was easy-peasy. This is way beyond the normal geekiness..... Wow I'm impressed!

[@SUCRA]

I love how casual you sound about this AMAZING mini retro gaming pc you invented. Awesome video and accomplishment.

[@TheFalschspieler]

I just have to say I really like this guy's voice and how he explains. So casual, humorous... Subbed! Thank you KZbin for this recommendation.

[@Whipster-Old]

The name is absolutely perfect, you legend. Love it. My first PC was a Highscreen 486 SX from PC World in Northampton. It was DOA on Christmas Day, so when we returned it on boxing Day, my dad screamed at the manager and I played the devastated son. We got a free upgrade to a 486 DX, more RAM and an EA games collection. Badass.

[@otg-on-tech-and-gear]

It just dazzles me to imagine how much work and time you spent on this video! Its dope!!!

[@RobsonRoverRepair]

I'm absolutely in love with this. About to build a retro mini pc myself, but it will be emulation based as I've no where near the technical ability seen here. Fantastic work.

[@Destide]

Who remembers their first 1gb drive? Seemed like an infinite amount of space back then.

[@twolechesconquick]

I was a tech at circuit city early 2000s and I remember this photographer/videographer came in and wanted somthing installed he had a terabyte and all of us gathered around in awe of his like 20 harddrives jammed into this massive custome case hahaha I remember thinking there is no way I could ever fill this even with all my games , back ups ,rips, etc haahahah now I install like 3 games in a terabyte hahaha

[@sonkorinda7312]

I have a 42gb hard drive(win98 installed) and a pentium 3, some ram, (idk how much) culd it run win 10

[@UNSCPILOT]

And now 1TB drives are starting to feel small fast. Amusingly I still have a 900 megabyte iPod shuffle from ages ago though that still works, entirely eclipsed by my Fiio M9 with 500 gig SD but it's still cute

[@NoMoreCandies]

haha mine was the cheapest possible : a 5.25" ( yes, 5.25" ) Quantum Bigfoot hdd . huge and slow but... 1gb!

[@Colt45hatchback]

Yeah i thought all my christmas's came at once, was rummaging through a hard waste collection pile out front of a house when i was 9 or 10 and found a pair of western digital caviar 1gb drives in the pile, and amazingly a new in box quantum fireball 3.5gb drive. I was like "oh my god i can have all my games on the computer at once" turns out the wd drives were faulty hence thrown out, but one had jazz jackrabbit on it which i copied over to my old connor 512mb drive while it was still working (they worked fine for about 10 minutes runtime then seemed to start clicking and getting read errors) but then i put all the stuff onto the quantum drive and had the connor as the master with just windows 95 on it and a few small games. Was absolutely amazing to be able to not have to uninstall something in order to put another game on

[@TheBinaryAvenger]

Looking forward to a parts list and build guide. I think a lot of us retro computer enthusiasts would love to put one of these together especially considering it’s getting harder and more expensive to build an old legit 90s pc anymore. Also as great as vms and emulation is we love our bare metal! Thank you so much for sharing.

[@mangothedutchie7462]

And just like that. A new community of dos gamers was born. Really amazing job!

[@l3chevalier]

I was a developer in a embedded systems company that used PC104 boards to run a Speed Trap Camera system, I've worked on this project. Awesome to see it for real fun use! =D Nice video, congrats!!

[@justz00t48]

That tip to use PCBs for the front and back cover is pretty great. I never would've thought of that and it really opens up options for a wide range of projects.

[@SomePotato]

A PC104 soundcard? Sounds like a fun project to build in 2021! Great work!

[@Damaniel3]

Now I have to go buy a PC/104 CPU board before the secret gets out. I've been wanting a small DOS compatible PC for a while (mainly as a way to test games I develop), and this seems like the easiest way to get what I want. Thanks for the excellent video!

[@DarylCook63]

So the difference between men and boys are the price (and size) of our toys...except for the brilliant engineers who prefer a different tack. What a truly brilliant project and video! Kudos, mate!

[@davidinark]

Truly one if the coolest builds I’ve seen! I would buy one premade in a heartbeat as I do not possess the skills nor equipment to do all the soldering. Great video!

[@thesmokingcap]

The amount of work that went into this! Amazing haha, so cool to see this unfold

[@connercole100]

Awesome video, glad to find one of these videos from a guy that sounds local !!

[@zenitpro]

Wow, I'm amazed! I wish I had all this type of skill to build things myself, I've always wanted solutions that do not exist - yet. Thanks for sharing.

[@psychoticgiraffe]

please sell these, find a way to make 1000 of them, they'll sell.

[@_Digitalguy]

I am sure many 40 year old people like me would pay up to a $1000 to buy something as cool as this

[@psychoticgiraffe]

@@_Digitalguy yes

[@windwalkerrangerdm]

@@_Digitalguy Well, not 1.000 but I can safely say that I would cough up anything up to 500.

[@enilenis]

I built a decked out 486 just a few years ago. Since the temptation is high to go for the best retro components available, the pricetag ended up being well over $1K. Cache chips, RAM, sound, wavetable, network, I/O, video, POD83 CPU, Gotek Floppy, flash IDE, case, PSU, cables. Hundred dollars here, hundred there. Eventually it's ends up costing a fortune. But that's kind of the whole point of irrational nostalgia. To build things that could only be dreamt of back in the day.

[@jolex_nerd8132]

finaly someone that thinks like me...

[@stephanevermette145]

OK. You blew me away when you said you made your own PC/104 SB/Adlib card! WOW

[@TastyBusiness]

This is spectacularly implemented. Well done!

[@krank23]

I'd definitely buy one of these, if available. Perhaps do a kickstarter? I'd back it in a second.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Just for the network tutorial alone I have to give a big thanks. But the project itself is amazing. And I really love how dense the ports are on the finished system. There is a certain charme to machines that fully utilise the size they got available.

[@Toreonify]

Finally somebody that have time and passion to build a proper mini-PC! I am so tired of emulation boxes) They don't suck, but they lacking charm that building a PC or modifying a real game console gives you) Great stuff!

[@adamengelhart5159]

@6:48: I think the name "Wee86" is *great.* Also, KZbin's automatic captions spell the name "wii eight six," which is kinda hilarious. Very cool project! Just subscribed.

[@mattscomp]

Incredible. You made a DOS NUC! I wish I could just build a sound card.. I am in awe. So very well done!

[@RomaniaOverpowered]

LGR or Druaga1 should get their hands on your videos. Or the 8bit guy. The way you made a mini 486 in 2020 is AMAZING.

[@fnjesusfreak]

I could dig this, because I bought a mini Pentium similar to LGR's mini-486 a couple years ago. xD

[@LGR]

Not sure how to get my hands on a video exactly ;) But I have seen them. Love projects like this!

[@TheRasteri]

@@LGR not gonna lie when I saw the notification for your recent single-board-computer video my heart skipped a beat, I thought you'd beat me to it :)

[@lucasRem-ku6eb]

see them ever collab ??? too nerdy

[@cocusar]

wow, this is seriously awesome! I would like to see more about the building of that pc104 sound card! (or any other pc104 cards)

[@TheRasteri]

I'll do a follow-up with more details, as I haven't really finished the PC104 card yet (if you look closely there's some components bodged onto it to make it work :) )

[@trocitosdefresa]

Damn... You deserve a lot more views, you are a quality youtuber. Amazing job!

[@JamonyorkeRecords]

Wow!! This video blows my mind!!!! What a great job you did!!

[@buda3d2007]

You're a beast with the reversed engineering and shrinking boards down, thats a sub and like from me, thats awesome!

[@bartomatic]

Here's some engagement man, another cracking upload.

[@ben_jammin242]

2:21 Liked. Subscribed. Excited! Dude, you're a beast of a man. Thanks for the content.

[@mrsadrobot]

I had an industrial mini 486 a lot like this a few years ago and happily played DOS games for a few days. But, because it didn't have a sound card option it ended up shelved. What I didn't do is design and build a sound card module for the thing, that's next level DOS dedication!

[@ZeroWalker26]

Man that´s just brilliant and awesome little PC build.

[@CTFC-GERMANY]

I am totally blown away. Thats great!!!!

[@BadBunny]

I think this is the most wonderful thing I have ever seen in the world of pc retro gaming!

[@felixokeefe]

This sir is nothing short of brilliant. Very well done indeed. It makes my frustrating and failed effort to get DOS games working nicely on a full size AMD K8 machine with a SB live card seem rather pointless. I'm looking for pc104 boards now instead.

[@Vokabre]

And here i thought that period computers by Unisys were small. Very impressed with the concept and the result!

[@joefil1991]

This is incredible. Once this gets completely fleshed out and perfected, I'm definitely interested in purchasing an assembled unit if the price is sensible.

[@ms-dosman7722]

That's really cool! And the fact that you made the extra effort to build your own freaking soundcard makes it really really cool. Next to missing the fpu, do these boards come with any L2 cache?

[@jimmydansbo7847]

All I want for christmas is ... this :)

[@funxiobolic]

Wow, amazing build, great job!

[@CommodoreGreg]

REALLY cool build sir!

[@m__y-t-s]

Saw "Thanks to Foone" in the description and knew I'd found a good channel.

[@CZpersi]

What a blast from the past! We used to run Win95 on our 486 machine and boot to DOS for gaming.

[@draggonhedd]

ABSOLUTELY my kind of thing, LOve this stuff.

[@Edman_79]

This is simply amazing! Exactly what I was looking for! Also, you speak like a Gatling gun :D Subscribed immediately.

[@teslastellar]

Great job making the sound card.

[@santasl]

Impressive! Thanks for letting me learn that old hardware is still buyable and how "easy" it is to get something like this up and running. Yeah the "I design my own soundcard" isnt really an easy part, but I mean the BOM didnt seem too high.

[@SuperNicktendo]

This is what I've been looking for - I tried to build a pentium 2 and it just wouldn't work and it was bulky. I think I found my next new project. Thanks really for finding this and detailing the process.

[@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365]

Wow... I was familiar with PC/104 but I had no idea they still made modern versions of 486SX!! How cool is that!

[@gothfather8741]

This is great! Excellent video !

[@eotsdev]

Duke3d uses floats on sloped floors, might be the reason for the dropped framerate. Nice build!

[@lucasRem-ku6eb]

Where you run Duke3D on?

[@DosGamerMan]

Fantastic project. Great implementation!

[@akhurash]

This is awesome. Thank you for making this video!

[@grimreboot]

Excellent work sir!

[@rkornilo]

Great work! That was fun.

[@vkuolema79]

What an excellent build!

[@shkdzn]

This is probably the greatest way to build a modern DOS pc.. Awesome.. I might have a few new demoscene demos I'd like to try on there..

[@bledlbledlbledl]

You went through a heck of a lot of work to get a smaller fuutprint, but the end result is an awesome PC!

[@rille47]

I´m amazed, ata boy, phreakin´n fantastic good job Sir.

[@cosmicrdt]

You have some great content I've definitely subscribed! I'm definitely interested in making one of these. Would love to see a follow up on the design of the soundcard, for example what issues you ran into reverse engineering etc.

[@damjanmozetic]

Inspiring build! Congrats!

[@Maldroth]

Wow this is an amazing project. I think this and the ISA soundcard reviewed were among my favorites of #doscember

[@ThiagoPaes_mrprompt]

Awesome project!!!! Congrats.

[@angieandretti]

I love the Wee86, in design and the name too :) I think it's awesome that you designed a PC/104 soundcard from scratch too! I wonder how hard it would be to build an MCA SoundBlaster clone.

[@beforth]

Wow, that's some serious hackery. Great job!!!

[@tab8k]

Amazing job dude!

[@0katmandude0]

beautiful! brings back so many memories. And I was thinking, yesteday, where did I put my soldering iron. :)

[@benjaminvanderjagt]

OH MY GOSH! This is the greatest thing! I BEG YOU, make these and SELL them! Even just as a parts-kit, they would sell well, and as a completed set with FreeDOS you could make a bunch out of each one. Like many others, I have no love for the PlayStation 7 or the XBox-One-Zero-X-2.50. I *do* have love for an old PC. THIS would make me happy, and that matters!

[@imccrae]

Awesome build !

[@EmilianoFraga]

Amazing work, congratulations

[@hawaiianryan1890]

Nice work. I never knew that PC-104 boards covered such old hardware.

[@malx1289]

Yaaaas where has this been all my life

[@peppelorum]

Wow! Amazing researched and build! Love it! =)

[@EshmesVid]

Looks nice. Bet the amount of work is priceless

[@blabby102]

Much respect. You just casually design your own Soundblaster card rather than just somehow adapt an existing card.

[@HrLBolle]

I always find it great if KZbinrs are considerate and include metric measurements for us metric heads

[@SalvagedCircuitry]

This is pretty stellar. I had no idea pc104 existed. I just so happen to have a 486 powered CNC that would love a downscaled control box :D

[@lingux_yt]

that's one of the most amazing gadgets I've ever seen

[@midimusicforever]

Really cool project! :)