Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

[Rick Stevens]

On Tue, 2006-01-31 at 16:17 -0500, Thomas Taylor wrote:
> Hi All:
> 
> I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC).  It's what was called a 
> semi-portable computer - requires AC power.  It's housed in a ruggedized case 
> and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive.  It has two serial 
> ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port.  It also has a network port, 
> supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working.  The bus 
> structure is ISA with room for two cards.
> 
> It currently has Windbloze 95 on it.  I would like to replace that with FC4 
> but don't have a way to do it currently.  I was thinking of getting one of 
> the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication 
> (called a backpack originally).  There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm 
> not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything 
> except the floppy or hard drive.
> 
> Anyone got a suggestion?

FC4 requires a Pentium II or later processor (586 minimum) so FC4 isn't
really a possibility for you.  FC1, perhaps (2.4 kernel).  As far as
install media, Smart Boot Manager may work.  It boots off floppy and
can handle lots of other devices that the BIOS doesn't grok.  I have
no idea if it works with a parallel-port CD or not.

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-      I won't rise to the occasion, but I'll slide over to it.      -
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