I have made the designs/STL files for the Mini 486 computer available on my Patreon. You can get them if you are a member or you can purchase the monitor or the case for 3 dollars each. Yes, you are able just sign up for the $1.50 membership, download them and then cancel your membership. Here's the link to the store: www.patreon.com/theericexperiment/shop

Blown away. This is brilliant and so, so well executed.

@jason_a_smith_gb

Жыл бұрын

Me too. A nice piece of nostalgia art there.

@DaveVelociraptor

Жыл бұрын

Fancy seeing you here Jason. I was just thinking about you too.

@captainsmackyou302

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely beautiful. I don't have the skill to accomplish something like this, but I've lived a history that really makes me appreciate it.

Amazed at how perfect your 3D printed parts look. They don't look 3D printed, they look real

Amazing job. If these PC cases were retail I'd have picked one up. The monitor is something special as well. Well done, good job all round.

your channel feels criminally underrated thanks for this fun build!

How you managed to design all those pieces to fit together is beyond me, amazing work!

I'm impressed by how well designed all the parts are, they fit perfectly together. I especially liked the floppy drive. Well done 🙂👍

This is pure talent on your part. I'm so impressed!

LGR would get such a kick out of this. Fantastic job on the period-accurate subtle bumpy texturing of the front bezels of the monitor and case by printing them face-down on a textured printer bed! Almost looks like you got it injection molded for a high price!

That has to be one of the coolest retro pc projects i've ever seen! Amazing job!

Back in the 80s I had a mini calculator computer and took it everywhere with me. This is really awesome! Great work and design! Love how it looks like a early 90s CRT monitor.

First of all, congratulations to the great work you have done. This case is an absolute masterpiece in regards of looks and also the ideas you put in there. The floppy drive is absolutely stunning. But I feel there is something wrong with your system, the DX4 is a pretty hefty 486 and the ET4000 is the peak of ISA graphics performance. The overall performance should be much higher. Two ideas: Either the board is lacking of L2 Cache (could be quite common among industrial SBCs, then unfortunately you cannot change a thing about this on this SBC board), or the cache is disabled in some setting (BIOS/Turbo/...). Does the SBC have a turbo switch connector? Because not all boards handle it the same way, if closing the turbo-switch-jumper will turbo (full speed) or de-turbo (reduced speed - in modern systems typically a combination of disabled cache and added waitstates) the system. So if you have a turbo switch currently open, it might be worth to put a jumper on it and see how the performance changes. And in regards of checking on cache, try the benchmarks collection from Phils Computer Lab.

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

I'll give it a go, I'm not sure if the mobo has the connector for a turbo switch, I'll have to check the manual! Thanks for the comment!

@cptcrogge

Жыл бұрын

I agree, it should run faster with a DX4. In the video it behaves like a DX2. Try to run some benchmarks. I love the small form factor by the way.

@severussnape8544

Жыл бұрын

@@cptcrogge I played Lemmings paintball pretty well on my DX-2 back in the day. Acts more like a 386. Something is definately up with the system.

@h3llr4iser1

Жыл бұрын

The ISA bus is EXTREMELY slow at 8Mhz, an ISA graphics card will severely cripple any 486 CPU. That said, the performance in the video seems too slow even for an ISA card, which might point to something else being off. I've used a crappy Trident 8900D ISA on a DX/33 in the early '90s and it was faster than what is shown. The possibility of there being a turbo switch on the board is one to check - although I gotta say, the loading times for Win 95 and Win 3.1 seem quite good and in line to what'd be expected from a DX4/100 (assuming there aren't cuts...). A good way to figure out what's going on would be to run the standard DOS benchmarks suite from PhilsComputerLab. That would give some figures to start comparing from.

@cptcrogge

Жыл бұрын

@@h3llr4iser1 Indeed, that was the very reason why VLB was a thing.

I love everything about this. Awesome idea for a project, superb implementation, and very entertaining presentation.

The coolest 486 project I have seen so far!! Well done dude. I clearly love the outcome. 😊

This is freaking cool. Great job!!!

That case and monitor are SO CLASSIC. I absolutely love what you’ve made here. In reference to the video card - hunt around and find an ISA Cirrus Logic card. They were one of the first accelerator cards to come out. I used a whole bunch of them. They weren’t as fast as the S3 cards like Diamond made at the time, but they were heaps cheaper. Thanks for the video. Cheers 😊

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

I'll search for them!

Little update: I checked on the BIOS and all cache levels were enabled. I think the next steps to increase performance are to either use a Pentium Overdrive or an AMD CPU, I'll give it a try eventually. A lot of people asked if the computer can run Doom, here's a little video demonstrating it: kzread.info/dash/bejne/qXh4vLehepvPqbw.html Thanks everyone for watching the video, I'm really mind-blown by the fact that this video passed 100k views, that's absolutely crazy! And I really appreciate all of the positive comments as it gives me more motivation to keep going with this. Again, I'm not gonna promise any schedules as my videos take a lot of time and energy and I have to balance it with my day job and stuff, but I hope that's not something that will keep you all from sticking around and checking out future videos.

@aaronbrenkus9126

Жыл бұрын

A 200Mhz-250Mhz Pentium CPU (if compatible with the board) should do the job for most of the games to play on that generation, for the card try to find a voodoo, I remember them being the cards to get when I built mine new, and sound blast pro would be best card for the size and shape you made. In regards the monitor, they still make 7" CRT screens, usually for industrial use, but that would make this device amazing! Overall I love to see stuff like this, gives me all the nostalgia feels :)

@jason_a_smith_gb

Жыл бұрын

@@aaronbrenkus9126 Yeah, I had a Pentium 200 MMX and a Matrox Millenium/3DFX Voodoo 1. It did Descent 2, DOOM nicely. I would prefer that to a 486. Just too slow…

@bad.sector

Жыл бұрын

Nice experiment! I just installed a Pentium Overdrive w/ 83 Mhz, but it's not really much faster than an AMD 5x86 P75 (which is basically a 486 at 133 MHz). For your case you should try a Cyrix 5x86, which is a cut-down Cyrix 6x86. It outperforms the two, and given the description of your CPU socket, it should work as well. You'll probably have luck with 100 Mhz versions, 120 Mhz ones are rare. But I was able to overclock mine to 120 MHz without stability losses. For graphics, you're limited by ISA, BUT you have some options: Try overclocking the ISA bus. Also, the ET4K you have is no Windows-Accelerator. The W32P version for example is, or many S3 (Vision) cards, which are cheaper and are really good (surely cheaper than the Mach cards). Getting an accelerated card will at least speed up scrolling (done on the card itself).

@banks3388

Жыл бұрын

As an Australian I was just wondering where you sourced your SBC since the only place I know of is eBay and the prices are absolutely jacked at the moment...

Ok BIG missed opportunity to have Worms playing in the background when you said "whole can of worms! Amazing video! Very well executed!

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

OMG, I wish I had thought of that!

You are beyond talented building this. I don’t recall anyone showcasing such a wide skill set in one video! This video brought back so many great memories of that time period. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I pray and hope you get the success you deserve.

This was SOOOO cool! Hearing that Windows 95 startup sound was a mental trip into the past. Nice job!

This is the coolest build i've seen in a long time. God tier cable management too! also, lemmings paintball ftw!

Amazing job, all around top notch, design, manufacturing, modifications and video production. I'm pretty sure I will love your content. Thanks!

I remember going to computer shows back in those days(when 486dx was the dream), and they actually had vendors selling full fledged systems that size complete with crt and floppy drives. I was going to call b.s. on your video thinking you had found one of those machines. But you done shocked me with what you did here!! Nice work and spot on the esthetics and functionality.

That's the cutest thing I've seen in ages. Throughly enjoyed this video!

What a great build! Its so cool that you use actuele hardware from the time with a modern 3D printer. It looks really amazing!

My guy, This is REMARKABLE. I LOVE this, and really want one of my own! Excellent video man, you're an inspiration for a nerd like me! 😁

This video gave me a lot of great nostalgia. Great work and thanks very much!

Awesome! Congrats on your project's success!

Great video! I've always wanted a tiny retro gaming computer. I've been messing around with old thin clients which has gotten me close to what I really want, but not quite getting their. Something like this would be perfect. Time to start looking at old SBCs 🙂

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

Go for it! But quick because they are only getting more expensive =(

@Aaron.Newman

Жыл бұрын

@@TheEricExperiment Wow, you deleted a helpful comment I made. Unsubscribe!

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

@@Aaron.Newman I never deleted any comments!! Even the nasty ones are up!

Such a cool video, well done man! Great skills and very well presented.. Subbed! Would you mind sharing the STL's of that monitor BTW? I have a full size CRT that needs a stand, and the one you designed looks very very close to what I need!

This is bonkers! Congrats on seeing your vision through!

Fantastic work dude excellent job keeping it period looking too, brought back fond memories working on these machines !

That’s a super smooth looking 3D print! No wait, it’s actually properly textured on the outside? How did you manage that?

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

That's the bed of the Prusa mk3s

@AlistairBrugsch

Жыл бұрын

Fuzzy skin can also do it. But textured beds are great too 😊

This is incredible. What a build.

Man! Congratulations!! 🎉🎉 I was thrilled about this build!

One of the coolest things I've seen on KZread in a long time.

I was thinking while watching this, Man. I wish I could effortlessly design and print a project as massive as this without messing up so much.. Cue the waterfall of failed parts 😂 Great job on this project though!

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

Hahahaga I'm a hobbyist, messing up, a lot of frustration and almost giving up is part of the processes! =)

For the gotek I would have moved the port further in and use a very small sandisk flash drive so you can close the cover and hide it while it was in use. Just by looking on the thumbnail if the video I thought that case was a very small original metal one and not a 3d printed one, great work on the design.

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

I really wish I could have done some aluminum work for the case, but that's way out of my skill set. Yeah, maybe that could've worked, maybe that could be an improvement for a future update video!

FANTASTIC content! Subscribed!! You are incredibly talented!

ur website is now my new homepage for my compaq, its so vintage looking and you got alot of useful stuff for all my old pcs

Does it run DOOM?

test your internal cache. It sounds like the bios settings (or hardware jumpers) might have the cache disabled. That would explain your lacklustre performance.

Great video man, very cool to see this all put together!!

Watching the old games brought back memories from school years

Congratulations on the case. It looks absolutely fantastic. If this was available as a kit I’d absolutely buy one! I’d also love to see something like this build but with a Pentium III/AMD K6-2 processor and a Voodoo 2/3 card to run early 3D accelerated games.

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

That'd cool, but hard to fit in the case haha

Brilliant build, attention to detail, integration, just about everything is spot on. Awesome job. I would take a look at your BIOS settings and see what is holding you back. You should be getting much better performance out of this thing than you are. The ET4000 may not be the greatest thing ever but it shouldn't be that weak. I suspect your ISA bus may be limited in some way, likely due to the industrial nature of the thing, reliability > performance. There may even be BIOS updates/custom BIOS versions that unlock better performance and features out there for it.

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, I'll look into that, and I'll post a pinned comment if something improves.

@DavidAStephenson

Жыл бұрын

A DX100 and a ET4000 should be a serious powerhouse for running anything up till about 1996.

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

@@DavidAStephenson yeah, heard that multiple times in the comments. I'll see if I can improve it.

@DavidAStephenson

Жыл бұрын

@@TheEricExperiment It's a stunning build, and really deserves to be running at it's full potential . Looking forward to follow up video 🙂

Fantastic work all around! Your perseverance paid off.

Magnificent! Your moddleing is next level. Well done! Subbed!

Whoa. Phenomenal project, man! Great work!

Amazing work and design. Thank you for this video.

That is too cool! Thank you for sharing this video!

Okay I was already blown away by 5:40 but at that point you more than earned a Sub and like! Unreal how good this is! beautiful work!

Absolutely incredible. Great work. You should be proud of yourself, this is a fantastic project.

This is dope! Your hard work paid off!

This is amazing. What a lot of work to get it done. Looks beautiful.

Brilliant work! Real pleasure to watch the process and the result

😲😲😲 I can't belive my eyes! I'm so impress. It is increadable. Just... WOW!

This is one of the coolest retro pc projects on KZread. I love it. It's absolutely beautiful. Maybe I should give it a go too, at least the monitor, that was my favourite part :)

Mind blowing, that's perfectly suitable as an accessory on a regular desktop. I love that!

Such a great build and your video editing was well executed too. A thoroughly entertaining video. Loved it. Well done.

Fantastic work. This video needs a million views asap!

wow the details you put in your 3D design is incredible

Amazing work. Well done!

Awesome job! 🙂 Thanks for sharing.

This is SICK! So well done!!! Kudos mate! KUDOS!

Revenant from Small Form Factor Network here. Awesome build! I’m going to link it in our news section tomorrow.

@TheEricExperiment

Жыл бұрын

I'm glad you like it, thank you so much!

Unbelievable! excellent work and video. It's so well done I am speechless!

Worth every moment of your time dude! Good work!

an incredible project. it is especially impressive that this is not an emulator but a real 486. and although there were no such technologies as USB and a card reader then, I really liked the idea of hiding it in a fake disk drive. if I had the opportunity, I would order one for myself. I think many retro lovers will be interested in such a project

That's a very impressive project, mate. Hats off!

I'm impressed! So cool to revive a 486!

What an insane project! Beautiful work!

Just discovered your channel,didnt finish the video,but that intro...I LOVE IT

One of the best projects. It's so nice to see that almost everything is on screws and latches, and not on glue. Great job.

dude your attention to detail is freaking awesome!

WOW! I am speechless. This is absolutely amazing

Good God how do you only have 3.9k subs.... the 3D printing and design alone is crazy

Respect for not going down the route of crappy emulation, and most of the AMD 486 processors can be overclocked to double their clock speed

Google actually suggested something I wanted to see, subbed. Great work on this, it looks awesome!

This is really rad. Keep up the good work, Eric!

Really fun to watch, and remembering that time. Oooh,win 3.11 😁. Thank You for this. Really good job!

An amazing project, congratulations!

What an awesome project. Those models came out really nice.

For sure, this is one of the most epic video I've ever seen on youtube :0

Impressionante Eric! Parabens pelo projeto! Keep up the good work mate!

dude what the hell i cant imagine the amount of work you put into this! it looks soooo good! that floppy drive is the coolest part!

Absolutely Stunning build!!!!! Every single component was so perfect!!!! I learned a lot and really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for sharing! I was also a huge Sim Tower fan, I remember holding Control + Shift and placing the lobby to have the three floor lobby.

You are the first retro gaming youtuber i see that play Sky roads. This game was not maybe so well known on those days.

Coolest video, because of size. Best one I've seen in a while. Great idea. Thank you

I loved this, as someone who had a full sized, similarly specced computer back in the day. Amazing work mate.

This is incredible! Very well done! 👍

Bro i need more of your vids! Love this channel!

Nice job, all those 'iterations' paid off in the end!

Oh man, even the monitor base slots in like the real thing! Absolutely brilliant!

im honestly not even into old tech that much but i still find videos like this so fascinating i feel compelled to subscribe

Omfg. This was my very first computer way back in the day. My dad built one of these for me when I was 9 years old because I kept crying about how I wanted to play DOOM. God, watching you build one brings back so many fond childhood memories.

That’s one machine I will love to own, very satisfying video, you’ve earned yourself a subscriber 👍🏾

Wow you are brilliant, this is so cool, man... this really takes me back to early/mid 90´s, my fav game of all time for an old computer like this is Doom and then Quake 2, i still have a couple of old towers with AMD K6-2 CPU, kinda fun to play around with from time to time. Great video.

Looks amazing, great job designing and putting it together.

IMO this is SO MUCH COOLER than anything built around a Pi or even a Mister could be! I love the custom stuff you did with the front of the case! That's worth a Subscribe right there.