The 486 DX2-66 Tower: An Original PC Living Alongside Its FPGA Twin

Long before Atari ST and Amiga took over the retro corner, a Vobis-Highscreen 486 DX2-66 in its distinctive Colani-designed tower case was the main PC. Decades later, it's kept around as both a museum piece and a genuine gaming machine, running alongside a MiSTer FPGA equivalent.

Original Hardware vs FPGA Twin

• The original tower — an Intel 486 DX2 @ 66MHz in its iconic Colani case, the go-to machine for early-90s classics like Doom, Wing Commander, Duke Nukem 3D, and Lemmings.
• MiSTer's AO486 core — a full FPGA-based 486 emulation, configurable across variants from 386SX all the way to 486DX4, using swappable virtual hard disk (VHD) images instead of a physical drive.
• Open project — DOS-era BBS access is next on the list, likely tackled via the MiSTer core first since its networking path is simpler than wrangling period-correct ISA network cards.