need parts for my keen o matic

[memsys]

i'm working to build a new keen o matic for a few years after my old one died however i can't find the parts i need
i have everything i need except for 1 part and 1 part really want
a specific motherboard like the acer ap 43 and a intel 486 dx4 100

the setup i wanted is the following
an acer ap43 like motherboard [i have the acer ap43 but i think it's dead and board like it that is also dead]
SGS-Thomson ST486 DX2-80GS [or the intel 486 dx4 100 if i could get my hands on it]
64mb ram [4x16mb]
soundblaster 16 vibra [sadly the cheap version but at least it was free]
a video card with a tritand chip no clue on what brand/model [pci]
network card [pci]
5" floppy drive
3" floppy drive
cd drive
2gb hdd
a brand new at form factor case
a load of 5" floppys

i was able to get almost everything for free except the 5" floppy drive and the dead motherboard
the cpu and the vga card are from my old keen o matic

i've searched far and wide but IF i find some thing ether the cost is to high or it's out of reach
yea i'm a bit paranoid about buying stuff over the net and a bit about computer security cough i put duckttape over my laptop webcam cough

it's ether buying the motherboard on the usa of a whole computer in germany

and yes i COULD take a pentium 1 but if i would do that but then it would not feel as a keen o matic to me

it's soooo fucling annoying to not be able to find the last piece of the bloody puzzle gaaaaaarg

edit i have a working ibm xt that runs keen dreams !

/rant

[StupidBunny]

I'm not sure what parts go into building a Keen-o-matic, although I would imagine it would contain old soup cans, vacuum cleaners, and liquor bottles.

Just kidding. I'm pretty sure you're talking about a computer that will run Keen, olde tyme style, without DOSBox.

...Right?

[q 90]

Good luck finding a 5" floppy drive somewhere...

[StupidBunny]

Actually, I'm pretty sure my grandparents own (or owned) 5" floppy drives. They got rid of a bunch of their old computer-type stuff, which is kind of too bad, but then again I'm not sure.

[Commander Spleen]

I have a stack of 5 1/4" floppy drives. The loose ones are a bit dusty, but there are a few that have been preserved inside a case. There are also a number of 486 boards/CPUs, but I'm not sure what the specific models are at the moment. Probably not DX/4. I could send you some stuff since it's going to a good cause, but the postage might be a bit high.

The Keen-O-Matics I run are around the Pentium 200MHz mark, and do the job nicely for the most part. Pure 486 would certainly be more fun for Keening, but I also use them for multiplayer gaming with the likes of Death Rally and Constructor.

Another machine might be in order for single player games sometime, as I've had trouble with a few, such as Zone66 and Cannon Fodder.

[Malvineous]

What's wrong with Zone66? That should work fine in plain DOS.

I've got a few Pentium-based Keen-o-matics, but these days DOSBox is so much easier - less fiddling around with cables and mixer settings to get the sound coming out of my hi-fi, IPX networking seems to be less troublesome (for network gaming with other DOSBoxes) and games that support MIDI sound way cooler with DOSBox's wavetable emulation.

I'm surprised you're so fixed with what you want memsys, do you really need 4x16MB sticks of RAM? I would've thought it'd be easier to get hold of 1x64MB, or whatever came your way...

And Spleen, do you still have all those PCs, or have you got rid of any yet??? Those pics were amazing, you should relink them for the newcomers to the forum

[memsys]

heh i have all those parts EXCEPT the motherboard and the dx4
and without the motherboard the other parts are o so useful

[Commander Spleen]

And Spleen, do you still have all those PCs, or have you got rid of any yet??? Those pics were amazing, you should relink them for the newcomers to the forum Happy

The photos are still here. I'll have to move them over to jimage.org someday. There's actually a more recent one, but it hasn't been uploaded anywhere convenient yet.

What's wrong with Zone66? That should work fine in plain DOS.

I don't remember what the problem was right now. Must tackle it again. DOSBox is more fun for games with a 320x240 or so resolution anyway. It's setup on my machine so the resolution is about double and the image sits in the middle of the screen, making it seem higher-res than it really is. Almost reminds me of playing on a C64.

[Genius314]

The photos are still here. I'll have to move them over to jimage.org someday. There's actually a more recent one, but it hasn't been uploaded anywhere convenient yet.

Holy garg that's a lot of computers!!

[StupidBunny]

I still keep around this real old laptop computer just for the purpose of playing Commander Keen. It's a Windows 95 (I don't know what the processor is, though) so it's not THAT old, but it will still run DOS games far better than my desktop computer will.

[LJH]

Heh, desktops... I can't even remember the last time I had one of those...

These days, only things I have are a laptop (Core 2 Duo, 1.66GHz, 1GB RAM) and a Nintendo DS... but thanks to emulators (and NDS's native GBA support) I can play pretty much any system I currently have interest in apart from PS2... (apart from PSX, I run all the emulators on the DS yay for portability).

[ZidaneA]

What's a Keen-o-matic?

[KeenRush]

What's a Keen-o-matic?

It's a PCKF slang for an older computer especially made for Commander Keen (and often other classic game) playing.

[Commander Spleen]

Actually, that could probably do with a KeenWiki entry...

[KeenRush]

For long I've been to make some small writing about the Keen slang here, but never got around tuit (:dopekeen) yet. It'd also need to cover the usage of 'fucl', 'ga(aaa...)rg', and probably a few other that I can't remember at this very minute.