Possible to obtain custom modern PC with ISA slots?

[Galahad]

I know that contemporary PCs do not offer ISA slots.  However, does anyone know if there are any specialty PC manufacturers that that offer the option of building a (new) custom PC that retains the ISA hardware architecture that they could sell to interested customers?

[Great Hierophant]

There are companies that produce industrial motherboards that support modern processors and ISA slots, but they cost $300-$400.  Whether they would be willing to sell to a consumer is a question.

[Tom]

http://www.baber.com/baber/411/soyo_sy-p4i-845pe-isa.htm
...
for $225.  I've had my eye on this.  My PIII m/b only has two ISA slots and I've been thinking of upgrading.

[Galahad]

Many thanks to Tom and Great Hierophant for the helpful and informative replies!  Tom:  thank you for the link; I will definitely be sure to check this out -- looks very interesting!

[BlueMax]

http://www.baber.com/baber/411/soyo_sy-p4i-845pe-isa.htm
...
for $225.  I've had my eye on this.  My PIII m/b only has two ISA slots and I've been thinking of upgrading.

Exactly what I was going to suggest.  I HAVE seen some places sell it for under $100!

Still, for the most part, you're better off using a classic PC for the classic hardware.  LAPC-1 or MPU-401AT+DB could be replaced by an external module cheaper/easier than this odd motherboard.

And it's already old tech....  533FSB Pentium4's (socket478) aren't even made anymore, you'd have to find old stock (and lots of people are selling their old equipment for new stuff...)

[glendower]

http://ishopdirec.com/product_info.php?products_id=22601

Here it is for 87. Damb, that's tempting! It's a real i845, too. There are a lot of interesting hacks done to that chipse by various manufacturers.

Edit Ach! That might not be the version with ISA. Shoot.

[shad0wfax]

I must confess that I cannot see the point of having a modern PC with ISA slots; maybe someone could tell me some good reasons I missed out.

If you want a computer for retro-gaming, a modern one with ISA slots wouldn't be a good solution, because most problems with old games don't come from ISA-realted stuff, but from OS' imcompatibilities (most games simply won't work under windows 2000 or newer), so it's better to have a dedicated old PC for this, that can be obtained for less money than the 'modern-with-ISA' motherboard.

If, on the other hand, you want a computer for audio and midi, I cannot see the point either. Regarding digital audio, there are modern PCI, USB and FW soundcards that are better than any ISA card ever sold, no matter how good it was as its time. Regarding midi, there are USB and FW midi interfaces, and even a joystick-to-midi cable for a PCI card can be useful for this. OK, you can point out that anyone who had a ISA synth like a SW60XG or something (like a LAPC-I, SCC-1, RAP-10, etc.) wouldn't be able to use it, but again, you can obtain an external module version of those synths for less than the modern ISA MB alone, and those external modules are better (no electrical interference and 'protection' against OS and computer architecture updates, since they use standard midi).

So it seems to me that the two better alternatives are: a) a dedicated old PC; and b) emulation. Even though the first one is the "purest" one, the latter also works very well nowadays. I only have a single laptop with no ISA slots (of course), but even with no serial ports (only USB and FW), which I use it for working, midi composing and retro-gaming and it works very nicely for all those tasks. Today a single modern computer can do pretty much everything.

[glendower]

You can always set a computer to boot to multiple OSes. I had Win2K and DOS on one of mine for a while

[Juho Sippola]

I tried other day to boot to DOS with Win98 bootdisk. I tried playing some games, albeit without sound since I don't have ISA slots. With PCI-E graphics card and Pentium M Dothan at 2.5GHz, DAMN those SVGA games ran silky and smoothly...

...As long as they did work. Apparently two gigabytes of memory or something else is going to be too much for DOS games. Quake 1 didn't even start up and Shadow Warrior crashed after two minutes. Starting Whiplash ended in black screen.

You might find out that your games and apps won't work with too recent hardware at all, even if it has ISA slots.

[Galahad]

Definitely some good and compelling points there shad0wfax.    As you suggest in your post, I went the route of having a dedicated classic gaming PC, which in my case has 2 ISA slots.  95% of the time,  it works wonderfully for all my fave retro DOS games.  The DOS-based requirements/limitations (i.e., MPU-401 is required for the MIDI in DOS, ADPCM driver support needed requiring ISA compatibility to accommodate SB Pro II) might make it difficult to replicate on current-generation PCs, so I guess I consider my gaming PC to be irreplaceable in some ways.  Even more so since with my LAPC-Is and especially with the LA portion of my CM-500, I can't use a joystick/gameport-to-MIDI cable to connect to my sound blaster in UART mode without risking damage (assuming my understanding of the related previous threads is correct -- please feel free to correct me if I misunderstood).

However, ultimately at some point down the road, since the gaming PC will inevitably become inoperable due to natural aging, etc., I thought I might be able to breathe new life into the DOS games without having to go the emulation route by buying a new PC supporting ISA.  

Edited:  OS is not an issue, since because I require VxD driver support that is incompatible with NT+, the oldest OS I can use and still having everything work is Windows ME.  (For full gaming compatibility, I use a dual-boot combination between Windows ME and Windows 95 / MS-DOS 7.0.)

I must confess that I cannot see the point of having a modern PC with ISA slots; maybe someone could tell me some good reasons I missed out.

If you want a computer for retro-gaming, a modern one with ISA slots wouldn't be a good solution, because most problems with old games don't come from ISA-realted stuff, but from OS' imcompatibilities (most games simply won't work under windows 2000 or newer), so it's better to have a dedicated old PC for this, that can be obtained for less money than the 'modern-with-ISA' motherboard.

If, on the other hand, you want a computer for audio and midi, I cannot see the point either. Regarding digital audio, there are modern PCI, USB and FW soundcards that are better than any ISA card ever sold, no matter how good it was as its time. Regarding midi, there are USB and FW midi interfaces, and even a joystick-to-midi cable for a PCI card can be useful for this. OK, you can point out that anyone who had a ISA synth like a SW60XG or something (like a LAPC-I, SCC-1, RAP-10, etc.) wouldn't be able to use it, but again, you can obtain an external module version of those synths for less than the modern ISA MB alone, and those external modules are better (no electrical interference and 'protection' against OS and computer architecture updates, since they use standard midi).

So it seems to me that the two better alternatives are: a) a dedicated old PC; and b) emulation. Even though the first one is the "purest" one, the latter also works very well nowadays. I only have a single laptop with no ISA slots (of course), but even with no serial ports (only USB and FW), which I use it for working, midi composing and retro-gaming and it works very nicely for all those tasks. Today a single modern computer can do pretty much everything.

[Tom]

I must confess that I cannot see the point of having a modern PC with ISA slots; maybe someone could tell me some good reasons I missed out.

I have only one reason for using ISA slots:  MPU-401 and AWE32 support.  I really don't care about game compatibility.  If someone where to ever create a Windows-based sequencer with an interface that's comparable to Sequencer Plus, I'd have no other need for ISA slots.  But since no such software exists, I'll continue using Voyetra's DOS sequencer, which supports these two ISA MIDI interfaces.  The only drawback of my two systems that currently have ISA and PCI slots is, speed.  (Though, my PIII 1GHz system is usually fast enough.)  Since I usually later record the MIDI files into WAV's, working with digital files can be somewhat extensive with my other PII 333MHz system.  I normally copy large digital files to my P4 for editing, after recording them on one of these other systems.  Having a P4 with ISA slots would eliminate the 'middle-man', as it were.

So, my point would be:  Speed + compatibility.

I was hoping that DOSBox might offer a solution, but it doesn't work with multiple MIDI ports, and also doesn't work well for sequencing multi-track compositions.

[shad0wfax]

That's a good point, Tom, although it wouldn't be necessary if using a windows' based sequencing software such as Cubase, Reason, Logic Audio or Pro Tools, as everybody in the world now does

A bit more seriously, it's quite tough to master such a complex software, but once you know how to do the basic things you wouldn't ever need to revert to DOS. I began hating cubase vst 5 but now I love it and I couldn't live without it

[Tom]

Oh, I use Windows sequencers, too, and have been for years.  I'm quite used to using both Voyetra's Orchestrator, and Cakewalk 7, under Windows.  They're easy enough to use.  Basically, every Windows-based sequencer I've tried looks and works about the same.  Sequencing is actually easier for me  in Windows.  But I do A LOT of manual editing of sequenced MIDI data, and Sequencer Plus is designed for extensive and easy editing.  It takes me twice as long to do the same things under Windows.  :smt020

[Zemus]

...As long as they did work. Apparently two gigabytes of memory or something else is going to be too much for DOS games. Quake 1 didn't even start up and Shadow Warrior crashed after two minutes. Starting Whiplash ended in black screen.

Some BIOSes lets you create a memory hole between 15MB and 16MB which will cut off those old DOS games from the rest. That's worth trying if your BIOS supports it. I had to use it to get digital sound in Privateer.

[Great Hierophant]

I think that the most advanced PC to boast ISA slots only requires three of them, maybe even just two.  One is for a Sound Blaster, preferably nothing more advanced than the non PnP AWE32.  The second can be for a Gravis Ultrasound, and the third for an SCC-1 or SCM-15AT.  

If you want to use earlier cards, get an earlier system.  In my idea older system, probably built around an AMD 386DX/40.  I would need at least four sound cards, a Sound Blaster Pro 1.0, a Game Blaster, a Roland LAPC-I and a IBM Music Feature Card.  For a system of this category, assuming the motherboard is bare, you need eight slots, but that usually is not a problem.

[Laust]

Old machines for old games is the way to go. You don't really need all that many ISA slots, since once initial interest dies down, some of the more obscure sound cards (IBM Music Feature Card and Game Blaster) aren't likely to get much use. Some generic Sound Blaster for FM and digital and a Roland card/interface for LA/GM/GS will get you a long way.  

I personally favour small form-factor PCs, since they take up less space and are quiet (especially if you get a fanless one and replace the harddrive with a flash card or microdrive like Cloudschatze did). Only downside is that you can't fit a full-length ISA card in them.

A KVM (Keyboard-Video-Mouse) switch is a very useful add-on to any retro computer collection. With this device, you can share the keyboard, mouse and monitor (I bet that surprised you, huh? ) between several PCs. I use one to control all my old PC systems and it really cuts down on the amount of space they have to take up.

[Galahad]

A KVM (Keyboard-Video-Mouse) switch is a very useful add-on to any retro computer collection. With this device, you can share the keyboard, mouse and monitor (I bet that surprised you, huh? ) between several PCs. I use one to control all my old PC systems and it really cuts down on the amount of space they have to take up.

Excellent point Laust -- I also use a KVM device as well to switch between my retro gaming and new PCs.  As you had mentioned, saves a lot of space (and $ for extra peripherals)!

Out of curiosity, how many systems do you have connected to your KVM device?    Currently my setup only uses 2, but I have considered upgrading to a KVM switch that can handle between 3-4 connected devices.

[BlueMax]

Hey.... that IS a good idea!  You can get really cheap KVM's designed to work ONLY with 2 PC's, but it's only $20-ish!

[shad0wfax]

My experience with KVMs is that they usually are so cheaply built that they degrade the video quality in a quite noticeable degree. They even don't shield the cables and connectors to avoid electrical interference. I don't know if there're high-quality devices, but if so, they will be expensive, I'm afraid.

[glendower]

you might be lucky enough to have multiple inputs on your monitor... DOS looks weird on my 2005FPW

Anyway, you can sometimes find a 15" flat screen for 50 bucks new. You're probably going to spend at least that much on a good, lossless KVM switch, anyway. But yeah, most of those switches are garbage. More than that, the CABLES that you have to use are garbage. I bought a 'gold plated' extension cable that degraes the signal to a sickening degree.