Built myself a 486

[eightbit]

I have to say that this was a lot of fun and jogged my memory quite a bit. I never owned a 486 personally. Things were VERY expensive back in the day. I lived with my C64 up until I scored a second hand 386 machine (386 SX-16 IIRC) and that was around the time of the 486 DX-2 66 machines. My friends had them and were enjoying all sorts of DOS gaming glory, but not me. I tried to save up for one but by the time I had the money I think we were in the Pentium 166 era. 

 

I built a Pentium 166 machine at that time and the rest is history. I kept moving on through the generations until today. But I always thought about that 486 machine that I never had. Until now!

 

Between a couple of local donations and a few ebay purchases (the new old stock case especially) the dream is now a reality!

 

Some new, some old. This is a 486 DX-2 66 machine with an Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 VLB video card, SB 16 value ISA sound card, an I/O board (NOS as well) for I/O stuff, 4MB of RAM (for now, 32MB coming), Gotek with flash floppy firmware, Startech CF to IDE for HDD, 52X Asus CD-ROM, and a real floppy drive so that I can still read floppies when I need to. I forgot to add that 256K of cache is onboard too.

 

I am extremely happy of how this build turned out and it closes a chapter in my life of a computer I never owned. It also plays games of the era awesomely.

 

 

For the people that say "just use dosbox", you have no idea at all. The satisfaction of getting everything to function was bliss. It was a few weeks in the making (mostly waiting for parts, testing, jumpers, resolving issues/conflicts, etc), flashing the Gotek and setting that up, removing the barrel battery and hacking a battery replacement, and the feeling after getting everything working perfectly is a great one. 

 

I am pretty proud of this thing!

 

 

Edited March 5, 2022 by eightbit

[Cebus Capucinis]

All Glory to the Beige!

[mr_me]

That's how it was in the 1980s and early 90s.  The PC compatibles were primarily business machines and the latest and greatest cost several thousands.  When the 486 was out I also got a 386sx-16 which itself was a cost reduced 386.  When Pentiums were a few years old I got a 486slc, again a cost reduced 486.  And VGA nearly doubled the cost of the computer.

[eightbit]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

That's how it was in the 1980s and early 90s.  The PC compatibles were primarily business machines and the latest and greatest cost several thousands.  When the 486 was out I also got a 386sx-16 which itself was a cost reduced 386.  When Pentiums were a few years old I got a 486slc, again a cost reduced 486.  And VGA nearly doubled the cost of the computer.

 

Yup. People complain nowadays about prices, but if you look at the cost of things in 1991 they shouldn't complain at all. I was watching a 1991 episode of The Computer Chronicles and the cost of a 17 inch NEC CRT monitor was $1700. Thats over $3500 today...for a montor!

 

 

 

[Keatah]

15 hours ago, eightbit said:

For the people that say "just use dosbox", you have no idea at all. The satisfaction of getting everything to function was bliss. It was a few weeks in the making (mostly waiting for parts, testing, jumpers, resolving issues/conflicts, etc), flashing the Gotek and setting that up, removing the barrel battery and hacking a battery replacement, and the feeling after getting everything working perfectly is a great one.

Had a 486 in the heyday, when it cost $2500 and was considered a workstation. So using using DOSbox today is a bit of magic. Just in reverse. Getting all that old stuff working on a modern 12th gen i9..

 

Had many good times back then however. It was fun (even rewarding) to mod AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS so store-bought games'd play. Made me feel like an I.T. professional! I even put that down on a resume.

[Keatah]

What brand/model of I/O card did you select?

 

[schnuth]

I’ve been thinking of doing this too but never took the plunge. Great looking machine! [emoji7]

[Reaperman]

Nice! I really like the IDE-to-CF slot out the front. Easy swapping to, say, OS/2 Warp, Win95, or just different MSDOS installs for maybe those troublesome 'all the base memory' games. I've been toying with the idea of putting my sd adapter out there for that kind of stuff.

 

I'd imagine the CF probably runs better than SD, being basically IDE, but the scarcity of larger sizes of media kind of pushes me toward trying SD. 

[eightbit]

3 hours ago, Keatah said:

What brand/model of I/O card did you select?

 

Its from UMC and its VLB, this card here (new old stock):

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/324106541585

 

The card is a revision that only has one IDE port so only two IDE devices on this one. But that's fine, I just needed HDD and CD-ROM so it worked out for me.

 

The drivers are not really needed, but I will say that once installed it boots into Windows 3.1 so fast that you only catch a glimpse of the Windows loading screen

 

The drivers are also available for this on archive.org in case you don't have a floppy drive. When I was initially testing I did not have one so I made a floppy image out of them using WinImage and loaded them in using the Gotek:

 

https://archive.org/details/umc8672

 

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by eightbit

[TheDevil'sCompass]

Very cool. I bet that was indeed fun to put together. VLB, man that brings back memories.

[eightbit]

1 hour ago, Reaperman said:

Nice! I really like the IDE-to-CF slot out the front. Easy swapping to, say, OS/2 Warp, Win95, or just different MSDOS installs for maybe those troublesome 'all the base memory' games. I've been toying with the idea of putting my sd adapter out there for that kind of stuff.

 

I'd imagine the CF probably runs better than SD, being basically IDE, but the scarcity of larger sizes of media kind of pushes me toward trying SD. 

 

This particular CF adapter is the BEST. I have tried many models (cheaper) and they all had some kind of issue somewhere...or just were not reliable. This one is rock solid. I have used it on a few builds over the years....even a PIII machine with Windows 2000. Never a hiccup, always detected. Even Western Digital EZ-Drive sees the card as a Sandisk 16GB (what is in there now) and allows the max partitioning of it for DOS (2GB x four partitions).

 

I once used a SCSI to SD adapter and an Adaptec SCSI card.....and even still this CF adapter felt faster and worked better. It's a bit pricier than others but it is literally the only one I FULLY trust:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000T9QQP0

 

Lol...my Amazon order history says I have purchased this SEVEN times

 

 

This also provides an HDD header for the HDD light if you need it, but thankfully the UMC I/O board does as well so I didn't need to hack the original HDD LED cable that came on the case to make it reach this!

 

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by eightbit

[eightbit]

1 minute ago, TheDevil'sCompass said:

Very cool. I bet that was indeed fun to put together. VLB, man that brings back memories.

 

A lot of fun...I had a blast! I still needed more RAM which came today. Two new old stock 16MB 72-pinn Parity DRAM modules for $20 total plugs shipping. 

 

A few of the DRAM configs on this board allows all memory slots to be consumed and used. So that is what I did. The board when I got it came with four 1MB 30-pin SIMMs and I wanted to leave those in for posterity. Adding the two 16's today and I am now counting at 36MB of ram. I think that is really as far as I am going to take this memory wise. You can actually run into software issues with some of the old programs with too much RAM. 36MB might even be too much

[newtmonkey]

@eightbit

Awesome project!  I really wanted to do something similar a couple years back (specifically 486-66, since that was my second PC back in the day), but decided instead to go with a P133 as it was a lot easier to get the parts for that here.  Like you mentioned in your OP, it was a ton of fun getting all the parts together and seeing the machine take form over time.  I also enjoyed getting used to DOS again.

 

I also agree with your comment about DOSBOX.  That's a great option, too, but nothing beats playing these games on original hardware.  I know that there are forks of DOSBOX that allow you to set a specific CPU speed, and of course there is also PCEM which allows you to emulate a specific model of computer, but I've found that speed-sensitive games (Wing Commander, Ultima VII, Thunderscape) just run wonderfully on my P133 (caches disabled to bring it down to 486 or 386 speed).  Wing Commander running at the correct speed with a genuine Thrustmaster FCS Mark I plays like a dream!

 

I have a ton of fond memories playing games on my DOS PCs back in the day, and it's been a blast creating new memories with my current P133—I completed Ultima III for the first time a while ago on this PC, mapping the dungeons out on graph paper while listening to old episodes of Coast to Coast AM, and that's definitely a memory that's gonna stay with me.

 

Enjoy!!

 

[EDIT] I also use the same Startech CF adapter you are using.  Rock solid!

Edited March 6, 2022 by newtmonkey

[eightbit]

Oh, and before anyone asks, I didn't forget the CD-ROM audio cable For some reason I NEVER have these on hand....same was true back in the old days. Or, at least I never had the right type. Two came in today and I rocked out to the WWF Album on CD for a little bit!

 

And I took some time to dust that SB16 card. I didn't realize it was so dusty until I viewed my own pictures. That was a purchase from an "e-cycle waste" seller. Thankfully it works great. Just a SB16 Value CT2770 that generates the sound I remember. And, it has an OPL3 which is a good thing.

 

And I should mention some things about the case. It is solid, heavy and was brand new. Same seller on ebay that I purchased the I/O card from. The only drawbacks are:

 

1. No "turbo" button

2. The ports on the back of the case are all popped out by default

3. Standoffs are those type you can't remove (welded to the case! Thankfully everything lined up with this board.)

 

 

 

Otherwise, great case. Not too many options for brand new old stock AT cases from sellers here in the USA, and it was absolutely imperative to me to build into a brand new case. I probably would not have built this at all if I couldn't score a new case...that is how important that was to me.

 

I also know that "period accuracy" is important to a lot of people. I was not about to go that route. My primary concern was using real hardware with modern solutions to get software to it. I personally find no nostalgia waiting for a 2X or 4X CD-ROM drive or dealing with dying/dead old hard drives. With this setup I can easily get anything I want to the machine in various ways (copy to the CF card, use the Gotek with .img/.ima images, even burn stuff to a CD) and read it on here if I really wanted. When it comes to getting software to the machine I like options.

 

The floppy drive is there so that I can back up real floppies that I find in the wild to the CF or the Gotek. Sometimes I find unique hardware with a driver disk that is not archived anywhere...so that is a good option to have too and as it stands this is the ONLY machine in my house with a floppy drive atm

 

 

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by eightbit

[eightbit]

And I forgot to add that the most difficult thing for me with this build were getting the floppy drive and the Gotek to live together in harmony. I have used these Gotek drives in the past (and I highly recommend them...they are a necessity!) and the jumper settings on these to get them to work with IBM PC and compats was always jump S1 (or S0 depending on the drive letter) and JC. Well, the new Goteks that are based on the Artery chip do not have a JC jumper. Well, I mean its there physically but it is not labeled on the board.

 

I couldn't get this to work at all in the beginning. What turns out is that the "JC" jumper on these new models does nothing. You have to actually have a FF.CFG file on the USB with "JC" as the interface specified in the file. Now it works...bah..

 

And then came the floppy drive. It came with the case and is labeled "Techmedia"...so I am not sure who makes the drive. As many are aware the jumpers on these drives are like fleas. Very hard to move around without losing them...very hard to just manipulate in general. With no reference as to what jumpers to set to make this floppy B: for example, a lot of trial and error. An hour of trial and error between that and the Gotek. 

 

Both work now as A: and B: thankfully...but that was so NOT fun.

 

 

 

[eightbit]

Oh yeah, another fun part of this. The keylock works too and the case came with those keys. I showed my 17 year old daughter and she was like "why don't they do that anymore?". Indeed...I love that!

[Keatah]

Was there any consideration (when selecting the cards and mobo) for how they looked - such as color, or a certain layout or being sure all the chip positions were stuffed? Was there any preference for a specific name brand?

[wierd_w]

The issue I have had with SD->IDE adapters, is that they are almost always all based on the sintech CF->IDE, and that version of the firmware they have mangled multiple ways, simply cannot do 48bit LBA.  This would be fine, if the adapters did not advertise (digitally) that they support it.  This leads to all manner of problems when more modern OSes with 48bit LBA aware ATA stacks try to access large disks inserted.

 

I have such an adapter, and I learned this lesson the hard way.  It is vitally important in those chinesium SD->IDE devices that you use a drive smaller than 8gb.

 

I am rather curious if your CF->IDE adapter is able to do 48bit LBA.

 

*edit

 

DERP, I am clearly very tired from staying up.  CompactFlash is based on a subset of the ATA standard, and the LBA capabilities would be wholly dependent upon the actual module inside. (It is practically a straight-thru connection. For some reason this was just not clicking in my head-- I already knew this. Derp.)  The issue with the SD->IDE adapters, is that there is a baked on SD->CF adapter bridge, then glued to a hacked CF->IDE adapter chip.  It is this SD->CF conversion that is buggy.  Later versions of discrete SD->CF converters (meant for high end digital cameras) can deal with large capacity SDCards, and do the 48bit LBA modes fine.

 

I guess I should just stack some adapters, and buy a good quality CF->IDE like the startek one linked.

 

*shrug*

Edited March 6, 2022 by wierd_w

[eightbit]

5 hours ago, Keatah said:

Was there any consideration (when selecting the cards and mobo) for how they looked - such as color, or a certain layout or being sure all the chip positions were stuffed? Was there any preference for a specific name brand?

 

Everything was considered  But, the most important consideration overall was budget.

 

For the motherboard I really wanted an ISA/VLB setup with a SIS 471 chipset. I didn't want a later motherboard with PCI. Just a personal preference. Keeping it old I guess

 

I really wanted to go with a motherboard with a CR-2032 battery holder on the board by default. I did find a board that had that (an Asus board of the era) and I now have that board too, but I had already invested al of this time into the SIS board and I know it well so it'll stay. Removing the battery was no big deal and hacking up an external battery all but cost me time, a speaker wire and a CR-2032 holder that I think I gutted from a dead Sega Saturn at some point in time

 

I do like the layout of this particular board. It's cool to me to see the 30-pin simms and the 72-pin. This was the beginning of a transition over to 72-pin DRAM. The Asus board I have only has 72-pin sockets and only two VLB as opposed to the three on this board. They are both really nice boards actually. Pictures of both actual boards are attached.

 

As for color, etc....not much preference really. I just researched a lot and searched a lot for the best deal I could find on what I had needed. The board came with the 4MB of ram, 256k of cache as well as the CPU and fan so I was well on my way there from that point. I just needed I/O, video and sound.

 

The I/O card intrigued me as it was new (a big plus) and VLB. It worked out great. The Soundblaster had the OPL3 chip which was something I wanted and it was cheap too as it was the "value" model. Its really a great card. I like Creative and grew up using Soundblasters. So, the soundblaster name had to be on the sound card I chose!

 

The video, again I went cheap (well, if you want to call $70 cheap) and took a chance on the Orchid card. This actually was a mistake and I should have researched a LOT more. This card is a dog...it's a bottleneck. It might be called the "Fahrenheit"...but it's not a hot card...lol! Doom runs like crap. It was really a Windows office type of card and that is what it was meant for. It's DOS performance is abysmal. 

 

I have a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 which will be worlds better than this coming. You live and you learn. I really should have invested more time researching video cards. So, that was a mistake.

 

 

Anyhow, here are the two motherboards I scored. One is SIS brand and the other Asus...both using the same 471 chipset. I used the SIS branded one for this build. That blue battery is obviously long gone!

 

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by eightbit

[Keatah]

7 hours ago, eightbit said:

For the motherboard I really wanted an ISA/VLB setup with a SIS 471 chipset. I didn't want a later motherboard with PCI. Just a personal preference. Keeping it old I guess

VLB seems a good choice. PCI isn't a balanced match because it is transaction oriented, and the 486 too simple a processor to fully utilize it. ln fact, having to manage transactions (on PCI) is a liability in this class of machines. The comparatively small cache of the 486 thrashes more than desired on PCI.

 

PCI is really made for Pentium 60/66 through PII/PIII.

 

7 hours ago, eightbit said:

The Soundblaster had the OPL3 chip which was something I wanted and it was cheap too as it was the "value" model. Its really a great card. I like Creative and grew up using Soundblasters. So, the soundblaster name had to be on the sound card I chose!

Also agree. SoundBlaster was (and remains) the standard for 486-era games. And when building a retro-rig, I'd rather not get into exotic esoteric "standards" that require hoop jumping for and babysitting of complex configurations.

 

OPL3 and SoundBlaster Digital Audio (complete with artifacts and noise) are signatures of the time. I also grew into PC gaming with an SB16 and I wouldn't have my own 486 equipped with anything else.

 

Other higher-quality alternate cards sometimes sounded so good that they didn't match the game graphics. And things felt unbalanced. Be like playing Atari 2600 games with background MIDI or 7.1 surround. No thanks.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Keatah

[Keatah]

 

6 hours ago, eightbit said:

The video, again I went cheap (well, if you want to call $70 cheap) and took a chance on the Orchid card. This actually was a mistake and I should have researched a LOT more. This card is a dog...it's a bottleneck. It might be called the "Fahrenheit"...but it's not a hot card...lol! Doom runs like crap. It was really a Windows office type of card and that is what it was meant for. It's DOS performance is abysmal. 

 

I have a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 which will be worlds better than this coming. You live and you learn. I really should have invested more time researching video cards. So, that was a mistake.

While not the best performing chips of the era, Cirrus Logic 54xx was seemingly everywhere and had good all-around support. I was always looking over my shoulder at other chips' supposedly higher performance, but most seemed to be one-trick ponies. Excelling in a certain bit-depth or some specific Windows' mode. And I really hated that advertising took that one "win" and turned it into the end-all, be-all. Hated all that artificially-created confusion. Hated that they made my dick feel too small.

 

As the 486 machines sunset, and Pentium 60/66 came online, Cirrus Logic fell by the wayside. Last gasps being the the Alpine and Laguna series. 2D performance was not a selling point the industry cared about anymore since 3D was the next big thing. Good 2D was endemic and everywhere. 2D benchmarks were a thing of the past.

 

Today though, any vintage rig I may build would have Cirrus Logic or S3 Trio/Virge for graphics. Mainstream is good! Never cared much for Matrox Millenium/Mystique, Number 9, or early ATI. Way too proprietary and specialty.

[Keatah]

Got my Apple II in the late 1970's and used it till I got a 486. There was a sense of continuity between the two machines even though they were generations and megahertzes apart.

 

Some of the connecting software would be ProTerm on the Apple II and Procomm Plus. Not in the sense of actually connectivity with modems and serial cables, but in that it was easy to segue back and forth between one and the other. The operating concepts were similar and just the user interface (and expanded capabilities) were different. I suppose part of that was a sign of the times, or we hadn't yet moved away from dial-ups and BBS'ing.

 

In the gaming department it was subLOGIC's Flight Simulator and Microsoft's Flight Simulator. MSFS was a natural progression and evolution of A2-FS1 & A2-FS2. Microsoft's new franchise had direct programming roots straight away from subLOGIC. Direct licensing and transfer of tech.

 

Also loved Stellar 7 & Nova 9. Thought Stellar 7 on the Apple was a nice and upgraded clone of Battlezone. BZ was too monotonous with no real levels and a rather bland selection of enemies. S7 had a world (series of worlds) to progress through. And even a storyline. The PC versions kick it all into high gear with color graphics, speech, sound, and multiple weapons and defenses (on your tank). Yet the mechanics of the game were true to the Apple II. Nova 9 continued the story. And I always wanted them to make Quasar 13 as yet another sequel.

 

Then there was Arctic Fox. Despite it being an obvious successor to Stellar 7, I never got too much into this branch of the Damon Slye franchise. Seemed to think the Apple II was underpowered for it and that ruined any potential good experience. Some games should just have not been made.

 

But just playing Stellar 7 on Apple II, and then on PC, side by side, was a real hoot!

Edited March 7, 2022 by Keatah

[zzip]

On 3/5/2022 at 1:13 AM, eightbit said:

For the people that say "just use dosbox", you have no idea at all. The satisfaction of getting everything to function was bliss. It was a few weeks in the making (mostly waiting for parts, testing, jumpers, resolving issues/conflicts, etc), flashing the Gotek and setting that up, removing the barrel battery and hacking a battery replacement, and the feeling after getting everything working perfectly is a great one. 

If you're bitten by the hardware bug, sure..      I did something similar at the start of the pandemic,  dug out my 486,  "moderized" it with a Gotek, and IDE->SD adaptor, reinstalled DOS, Win 3.1 and some of my games.  All worked great.   But at the end of the project I was hit with a "now what?" moment.    The 486 takes up a considerable amount of desk space for what it does,  it needs a special monitor (one that still has VGA ports) needs an ancient serial mouse (486 was before USB and even PS2 ports were standard on PC), uses ancient PC Gameport joysticks (which all tended to suck).   Then you have to deal with all the DOS-era issues including IRQs/DMA channels/TSRs/EMS/XMS/config.sys.   I had forgotten how much of a nuisance that stuff could be was because DOSBOX does a good job of hiding it.   So it wasn't long before the 486 went back in the basement and I resumed using DOSBOX for my periodic DOS gaming fix.  ?

 

 

On 3/5/2022 at 4:47 PM, eightbit said:

Yup. People complain nowadays about prices, but if you look at the cost of things in 1991 they shouldn't complain at all. I was watching a 1991 episode of The Computer Chronicles and the cost of a 17 inch NEC CRT monitor was $1700. Thats over $3500 today...for a montor!

That was a special monitor no doubt.   Run-of-the-mill monitors could be had for a few hundred dollars.   Also many desktop PCs sported 14-15" monitors back then.   Every extra inch added considerable weight and cost to a CRT.

[eightbit]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

If you're bitten by the hardware bug, sure..      I did something similar at the start of the pandemic,  dug out my 486,  "moderized" it with a Gotek, and IDE->SD adaptor, reinstalled DOS, Win 3.1 and some of my games.  All worked great.   But at the end of the project I was hit with a "now what?" moment.    The 486 takes up a considerable amount of desk space for what it does,  it needs a special monitor (one that still has VGA ports) needs an ancient serial mouse (486 was before USB and even PS2 ports were standard on PC), uses ancient PC Gameport joysticks (which all tended to suck).   Then you have to deal with all the DOS-era issues including IRQs/DMA channels/TSRs/EMS/XMS/config.sys.   I had forgotten how much of a nuisance that stuff could be was because DOSBOX does a good job of hiding it.   So it wasn't long before the 486 went back in the basement and I resumed using DOSBOX for my periodic DOS gaming fix.  ?

 

 

That was a special monitor no doubt.   Run-of-the-mill monitors could be had for a few hundred dollars.   Also many desktop PCs sported 14-15" monitors back then.   Every extra inch added considerable weight and cost to a CRT.

 

My case usage is a little different. I find hardware often and I like to test/try it out and that of course can only be done on real hardware. I have this brand new parallel port flatbed scanner here that I can been wanting to test for ages, so now I can. Sometimes I find hardware at yard sales, goodwills, etc and its nice to have a machine where those things can be tried out.

 

I have about 20GB of .ima disk images for both DOS and Windows. Games, apps, etc. Its cool to go through the library of stuff and try things...see how things run on the hardware. It's something I like to do when I am bored (which is more often than not nowadays!

 

I have multiple serial mice (a few boxed new ones too) so that is a non issue. I have a great selection of game pads too. The one I currently use looks like a PS1 controller and all buttons have rapid fire options. There are some pretty good controllers for these computers if you shop around

 

The IRQ/DMA handling was really a problem when you added a LOT of stuff to the machine. If you stuck to video card, I/O card and sound card...not so much. It was when you started adding all sorts of stuff that the conflicts arose. I used to work at Computer City in the 90's and there was a guy to kept adding stuff just to have more stuff. He never used any of it. Every slot full and a PITA resolving conflicts. 

 

And memory issues, well Quarterdeck QEMM always resolved everything for me. That app is magic!

 

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by eightbit

[zzip]

22 minutes ago, eightbit said:

My case usage is a little different. I find hardware often and I like to test/try it out and that of course can only be done on real hardware. I have this brand new parallel port flatbed scanner here that I can been wanting to test for ages, so now I can. Sometimes I find hardware at yard sales, goodwills, etc and its nice to have a machine where those things can be tried out.

Yeah that was me in the 90s=  taking in any piece of PC hardware other people didn't want for use later,  so I get it.  

 

25 minutes ago, eightbit said:

I have multiple serial mice (a few boxed new ones too) so that is a non issue. I have a great selection of game pads too. The one I currently use looks like a PS1 controller and all buttons have rapid fire options. There are some pretty good controllers for these computers if you shop around

I have a few gamepads like that too, but even the best ones were not that good IMO,  not compared to the options we have now.   I would usually get frustrated with them and end up using the keyboard

 

28 minutes ago, eightbit said:

The IRQ/DMA handling was really a problem when you added a LOT of stuff to the machine. If you stuck to video card, I/O card and sound card...not so much. It was when you started adding all sorts of stuff that the conflicts arose. I used to work at Computer City in the 90's and there was a guy to kept adding stuff just to have more stuff. He never used any of it. Every slot full and a PITA resolving conflicts

I had a an extra sound card-- Gravis Ultrasound ACE and an SB16.   The ACE was a stripped-down Ultrasound whose purpose was to augment the features of your primary soundcard.  For instance, it added wavetable music which sounded much better than OPL3 music, and extra sound channels which meant the CPU would spend less time mixing audio.  So for me it was worth the extra IRQ, port and DMA it consumed.  

 

39 minutes ago, eightbit said:

And memory issues, well Quarterdeck QEMM always resolved everything for me. That app is magic!

I used the memmaker tool that came with DOS 6.2x.   It did a good enough job reorganizing my config.sys and autoexec.bat that I stopped having mem issues.   But before I learned about that app,  configuring that stuff seemed like voodoo!   I had several boot disks with different autoexec/config for different games!

 

But it's all DOS-era quirks that I can't say I miss and have no real desire to revisit ?