PE> I bought a motherboard with Cyrix-100 chip on it for $460,
PE> and a Tseng Lab ET4000/W32P PCI video card (1 meg) for $109.

Conspicuous consumption of the very worst kind.
What about the poor starving children in bangladesh ?

PE> I expect to be buying the RAM tomorrow.

Hope springs eternal.

PE> I have two problems with the motherboard at the moment:

PE> 1. The CPU is covered by a fan, so I can't
PE> see whether I've really got a Cyrix.

Yeah, thats a problem. There is no real answer.

PE> 2. The com ports are just little things in the motherboard,
PE> instead of something suitable for plugging my modem cable
PE> into.  I suspect that what I need is a little connector
PE> to go from that to those things you put in the slots.

Yes. They should flog those.
@EOT:

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