Hacksaurus

Hacksaurus is a retro gaming PC build. The original idea was to hack together a machine with spare parts that is able to natively run many DOS and Win9x era games. But it went so well that I also treated it to some (at the time) modern parts in order to make it more enjoyable & reliable.

Components as of August 2018

Type Component
Mainboard Gigabyte GA-6BXC rev. 1.9
CPU Pentium II 400 MHz
RAM 256 MB SDRAM
Graphics card 3Dfx Voodoo 3 3500 TV with BIOS 3.15.12 (previously: 3Dfx Voodoo 3 3000)
Storage 32 GB Trancend SSD via P-ATA to S-ATA adapter
Optical drive NEC CD/DVD drive
Floppy drive 1 5.25" TEAC FD-55GFR
Sound card Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (previously: Creative Sound Blaster SB32 ISA PnP with 8 MB 30-pin SIMM)
External MIDI Roland SC-88 Pro and midipi
Keyboard Cherry G84-4100
Mouse Lenovo Scrollpoint Mouse (31P7405)
Gameport Gravis Gamepad Pro and Gravis Xterminator Gamepad
USB gamepad PS3/XBox360 controllers or Mad Catz Fightstick Pro
Display Extron HDMI-RGB_300_A or VGA to HD TV
Case Midi tower Cooler Master Elite RC-330K and Akasa FC06 V2 fan controller
PSU Artic Cooling Arctic Fusion 550R

BIOS

Settings

BIOS V.F4c bold are changed from PERFORMANCE DEFAULTS.

  • STANDARD CMOS SETUP
    • Date (mm:dd:yy): Mon, Dec 20 2021
    • Time (hh:mm:ss): 21 : 55 :23
    • Primary Master: Auto 0M 0 0 0 0 0 AUTO
    • Primary Slave: None 0M 0 0 0 0 0 ------
    • Secondary Master: Auto 0M 0 0 0 0 0 AUTO
    • Secondary Slave: None 0M 0 0 0 0 0 ------
    • Drive A: 1.2M , 5.25 in.
    • Drive B: None
    • Floppy 3 Mode Support: Disabled
    • Video: EGA/VGA
    • Halt On: No Errors
  • BIOS FEATURES SETUP
    • Virus Warning: Disabled
    • CPU Internal Cache: Enabled
    • External Cache: Enabled
    • CPU L2 Cache ECC Checking: Disabled
    • Quick Power On Self Test: Enabled
    • CPU Update Data: Enabled
    • Boot From LAN First: Disabled (default enabled)
    • Boot Sequence: C only (default C,A,SCSI)
    • Swap Floppy Drive: Disabled
    • VGA Boot From: AGP
    • Boot Up Floppy Seek: Disabled
    • Boot Up NumLock Status: Off
    • Gate A20 Option: Fast
    • Typematic Rate Setting: Enabled
    • Typematic Rate (Chars/Sec): 30
    • Typematic Delay (Msec): 250
    • Security Option: Setup
    • PCI/VGA Palette Snoop: Disabled
    • Assign IRQ For VGA: Enabled
    • OS Select For DRAM > 64MB: Non-OS2
    • HDD S.M.A.R.T. capability: Disabled
    • Report No FDD For WIN 95: Yes
    • Video BIOS Shadow: Enabled
  • CHIPSET FEATURES SETUP
    • EDO CASx# MA Wait State: 1
    • EDO RASx# Wait State: 1
    • SDRAM CAS latency Time: Auto
    • DRAM Data Integrity Mode: None-ECC
    • System BIOS Cacheable: Enabled
    • Video BIOS Cacheable: Enabled
    • Video RAM Cacheable: Disabled
    • 16 Bit I/O Recovery Time: 1
    • AGP Aperture Size (MB): 64
    • Memory Hole At 15M-16M: Disabled
    • Delayed Transaction: Disabled
    • Spread Spectrum: Disabled
  • POWER MANAGEMENT SETUP
    • Power Management: Enable
    • PM Control by APM: Yes
    • Video Off Method: DPMS
    • Suspend Mode: Disable
    • HDD Power Down: Disable
    • VGA Active Monitor: Disabled
    • Soft-Off by PWR-BTTN: Instant-Off
    • System After AC Back: Soft-Off
    • CPUFAN Off in Suspend: Enabled
    • PME Event Wakeup: Disabled
    • ModemRingOn/WakeOnLan: Disabled (default Enabled)
    • Resume by Alarm: Disabled
    • IRQ[3-7,9-15],NMI: Disabled (default Enabled)
    • Primary IDE 0: Disabled
    • Primary IDE 1: Disabled
    • Secondary IDE 0: Disabled
    • Secondary IDE 1: Disabled
    • Floppy Disk: Disabled (default Enabled)
    • Serial Port: Disabled (default Enabled)
    • Parallel Port: Disabled
  • PNP/PCI CONFIGURATION
    • PNP OS Installed: Yes
    • Resources Controlled By: Manual
    • Reset Configuration Data: Disabled
    • IRQ-3 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • IRQ-4 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • IRQ-5 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • IRQ-7 assigned to: Legacy ISA
    • IRQ-9 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • IRQ-10 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • IRQ-11 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • IRQ-12 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP (default Legacy ISA)
    • IRQ-14 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP (default Legacy ISA)
    • IRQ-15 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP (default Legacy ISA)
    • DMA-0 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • DMA-1 assigned to: Legacy ISA (default PCI/ISA PnP)
    • DMA-3 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • DMA-5 assigned to: Legacy ISA (default PCI/ISA PnP)
    • DMA-6 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • DMA-7 assigned to: PCI/ISA PnP
    • Used MEM base addr: N/A
    • Assign IRQ For USB: Enabled
  • INTEGRATED PERIPHERALS
    • IDE HDD Block Mode: Enabled
    • IDE Primary Master PIO: Auto
    • IDE Primary Slave PIO: Auto
    • IDE Secondary Master PIO: Auto
    • IDE Secondary Slave PIO: Auto
    • IDE Primary Master UDMA: Auto
    • IDE Primary Slave UDMA: Auto
    • IDE Secondary Master UDMA: Auto
    • IDE Secondary Slave UDMA: Auto
    • On-Chip Primary PCI IDE: Enabled
    • On-Chip Secondary PCI IDE: Enabled
    • USB Keyboard Support: Disabled
    • Onboard FDC Controller: Enabled
    • Onboard Serial Port 1: Disabled (default 3F8/IRQ4)
    • Onboard Serial Port 2: Disabled (default 2F8/IRQ3)
    • Onboard Parallel Port: Disabled (default 378/IRQ7)
    • PS/2 Mouse Power On: Disabled
    • Keyboard Power On: Disabled

OS PnP settings

anything not listed is set to auto/default

Component Settings
Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold PCM based on basic config 0001: IRQ 7; DMA 1,5; IO 220-22F, 330-331, 388-38B (seems to give good compatibility with older SB games)
Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold MIDI based on basic config 0000: IO 620-623, A20-A23, E20-E23
Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold Gameport auto/default (based on basic config 0000: IO 200-207)