[Gloucs] Ancient '286 computer.

[Andrew Oakley]

Linux is pretty much off the menu for pre-386.

FreeDOS plus OpenGEM is probably about the best combo you'll get for a
FLOSS GUI on the 8086. You're still going to lose functionality over Win
3.x + WordPerfect though. It will give you the Intel equivalent of an Atari
ST (but none of the compatibility).

http://freedos.org
http://www.freedos.org/software/?prog=opengem

You might find an ISA network card, although it will probably be
BNC/coax/10base2 rather than RJ45/twisted-pair; you would then also need a
network hub with a BNC bridge (ten a penny second hand). FreeDOS has a
couple of TCP/IP stacks available and you could run the Lynx text browser
or SSH2DOS secure terminal.

http://www.freedos.org/software/?cat=net

Without network, you could use the serial port plus a FreeDOS terminal for
a VT thin client. I seem to remember that serial cable lengths could get
quite long before they started dropping.

FreeDOS will support almost all old DOS software. Original version of
classics such as Sim City might work. Elite for the PC might work.

I use FreeDOS to run the original version of Tomb Raider, I've even
compiled in Voodoo graphics support. But that's running on an emulator on
an Intel Atom netbook (after emulator headroom that's equivalent to about a
133Mhz Pentium), not an 8086.

-- 
Andrew Oakley andrew at aoakley.com

On 30 March 2012 11:01, GEOFF BAGLEY <geoff.bagley at btinternet.com> wrote:

> We have a very ancient IBM 80286 compatible.   It is branded "Tandon".
> It has both 5.25 inch and regular floppy drives, and the usual parallel
> and serial ports.
>
> It has no internet connection, and no CDROM or USB capability/
>
> It currently has Windows 3.1 and runs Wordperfect 5.1.
> My wife has used it for over twenty years as a typewriter !
>
> It really ought to be in a museum,  but I thought it would  be fun to try
> installing  some decent software such a Debian to see what it could do !
>
> Any suggestions please ?
>
> Geoff.
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