When it comes to retro computing, you can't beat the look and feel of old hardware. Eric Mackrodt, the mastermind behind the YouTube channel The Eric Experiment, must have had the same thought when he put together this awesome Intel 486 project. It uses original hardware but is housed inside a much smaller, custom case he designed completely from scratch, with a monitor to match!
A project like this takes a lot of planning, from designing the build to sourcing the parts to assemble it. According to Mackrodt, it took him over two years to finish the entire unit. To show off all his hard work, he produced a video and shared it on YouTube detailing all of the components used inside and a peek at the design schematics used in the 3D-printed housing.
Mackrodt explains that the whole PC is based around a small SBC with an Intel 486DX4 CPU with about 100 MHz of power. He is also using a four-slot ISA backplane which has channels for the SBC to connect to along with expansion cards. For graphics, he’s using a Tseng ET4000 video card. In addition, an ESS Audiodrive card is connected for audio support, while an SMC Ethernet card provides network support.
The small monitor is also built from the ground up. It uses an 800 x 600px LCD panel for video output. The shell is based on real-life monitor designs from the era of the Intel 486 and features working buttons and a front-mounted LED used as a power indicator. Both the monitor shell and PC housing are 3D-printed.
With everything assembled, Mackrodt got to the bottom line and showed us how well it runs various operating systems and a few classic games. His rig uses an SD card to act as a hard drive. On this, he first demonstrated Windows 95, on which he successfully completed a game of Solitaire. It also ran Windows 3.11, which was able to support Sim Tower. Lastly, he set it up to run MS-DOS, arguably the best of all three.
If you want to learn more about this project and see it in action (which we highly recommend), check out the original video shared on YouTube by Mackrodt, and be sure to follow him for more cool projects.
