Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

[Thomas Taylor]

Hi All:

I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC).  It's what was called a 
semi-portable computer - requires AC power.  It's housed in a ruggedized case 
and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive.  It has two serial 
ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port.  It also has a network port, 
supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working.  The bus 
structure is ISA with room for two cards.

It currently has Windbloze 95 on it.  I would like to replace that with FC4 
but don't have a way to do it currently.  I was thinking of getting one of 
the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication 
(called a backpack originally).  There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm 
not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything 
except the floppy or hard drive.

Anyone got a suggestion?

Thanks,
Tom

-- 
Tom Taylor
Linux user #263467
Federal Way, WA