I am currently planning on purchasing a Thinkpad 750CS from another forum member here to use as a DOS gaming and dev machine. I know from experience that a 33mhz 486 is good enough to run any of the games I want to play on it (I played them all [albeit without sound] on a 25mhz 486SX T4400C in the past - it died :/).
It has a CS4248 chip for audio, which I believe is SB-compatible, but I've had some bad experience with non-true soundblaster chips. Keep in mind I don't care about audio "quality", just as long as it plays back both digital sound effects and Adlib/FM without skipping one, the other, or both (I've had some cards refuse to play digital sounds but do Adlib fine while claiming SB compatibility).
The video card is my other worry. I've used lots of this era of WD cards, and they usually work fine, but my T6600c refuses to properly do VESA. It took a long time to find a VESA driver that would recognize it correctly and then be recognized itself by games. Once I managed that the bottom third of the screen liked to alternate between mirroring the top third, being blank, and being correct. Needless to say that didn't work out for me for VESA games.
I'd like to hear what you guys have to say about this era of Thinkpad's compatiblity with DOS games, VESA, and SB. Any success stories, horror stories, etc. related to this and similar models, or even the same chips.
Thanks.
Edit: Oh, and it has a PC speaker... right? I don't think my T6600C does, and it's been bothering me.
It has a CS4248 chip for audio, which I believe is SB-compatible, but I've had some bad experience with non-true soundblaster chips. Keep in mind I don't care about audio "quality", just as long as it plays back both digital sound effects and Adlib/FM without skipping one, the other, or both (I've had some cards refuse to play digital sounds but do Adlib fine while claiming SB compatibility).
The video card is my other worry. I've used lots of this era of WD cards, and they usually work fine, but my T6600c refuses to properly do VESA. It took a long time to find a VESA driver that would recognize it correctly and then be recognized itself by games. Once I managed that the bottom third of the screen liked to alternate between mirroring the top third, being blank, and being correct. Needless to say that didn't work out for me for VESA games.
I'd like to hear what you guys have to say about this era of Thinkpad's compatiblity with DOS games, VESA, and SB. Any success stories, horror stories, etc. related to this and similar models, or even the same chips.
Thanks.
Edit: Oh, and it has a PC speaker... right? I don't think my T6600C does, and it's been bothering me.