No doubt I am still very naive despite reading this list for
some months, but I hope you will bear with me.
Recently I was given an AST 486 with 2MB RAM, no
hard disk and one 3-1/2" floppy. Since I've also got an
Everex 286 and an XT lying around which contain useful
bits, I would like very much to cobble things together but
am a complete ignoramus when it comes to hardware
standards, so:
- Can I simply remove the 5-1/4" high-density floppy
drive from the 286 and add it to the 486 without frying
anything? (That way, I could keep using some of my huge
collection of shareware and "obsolete" programs.)
- Does the 486 require a different kind of hard drive or
can I just shove the XT's original hard drive into the "new"
machine?
- Would it make more sense to install one of the 2 Seagate
40MB hard drives I have lying around for the 286 and, if
so, does anybody know what the proper drive definition is
(number of heads, cylinders, etc.) since I seem to have
lost the paper I once had and the 286's set-up has lost
the definition too?
-Would it make more sense to leave the XT intact and try
to set it up as a file server, and how could I do this cheaply
so as to access the files from both the 486 and my Mac
Powerbook 100?
-Is it likely that the extra 1MB RAM chip from the 286
would be a useful addition to the 486, or should I pass the
286 on to somebody else and try to scare up additional 486
RAM free or cheap?
- What kind and speed of CD-ROM could I add cheaply to
the 486 which would be functional enough to use for
running a bilingual dictionary or installing CD-based
software? (i.e., I don't really need games, music, etc. but
would need to look up terms while translating, probably
using WordPerfect 5.1 or a text editor.)
-Does anyone know where I could find a Y2k compliant
BIOS upgrade for the AST and what I'd need to do to
accomplish it? or should I not attempt it myself?
Then, on the software end:
-Is there any form of Linux which is small and relatively
easy for a newbie without a lot of RAM? (I gather that the
version which fits on a floppy still needs 4MB to run, and
I would like to run some applications as well as the OS!)
- Given that I need to work rather than play, would it
make more sense to stick to some flavour of DOS? (I'm
proficient with 3.30 but would love to switch to another,
preferably more recent open-source version if it does not
involve a lot of bugs and crashes.)
- Which would you recommend, given that the programs I
use mostly work nicely with 3.30 and 640k? (On the
other machines, I've used Stacker and kept things running
with an old version of Norton Utilities, and I gather that the
latter does not work well with DR-DOS in its 1991 version,
so any tips and warnings will be very much appreciated.
Is there a book you would recommend particularly for
somebody like myself (fairly good at mechanical changes but a
complete dunce with electronics) who wants to upgrade an
old 486? I've got a couple of volumes already but they seem
not to explain which parts are compatible with what and don't
tackle software issues intelligibly.
Thank you for all of your suggestions.
Judyth
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