Re: Allround system
Posted on 2008-05-19, 23:08
Oh, I disagree. Hardware in the 80s and 90s was VERY beautiful. Clean and modular the way it should be. Ugliness is a byproduct of upgrading.
Re: Allround system
Posted on 2008-05-19, 21:48
I agree. Very nice system...but those face plates are just butt-ugly. You should go for matching drives and face plates. Sorry, but I discriminate against ugly computers 😜
Re: TI486SXL2 problems
Posted on 2008-05-19, 21:18
I finally made some progress on this problem. I was lucky enough to find a document on the internet that explained all the register values for both the Cyrix and TI CPUs. As it turns out the TI chip is not 100% register compatible with Cyrix. The one major difference is that Cyrix uses CCR0 bit6 for …
Re: Rockin' XT Clone
Posted on 2008-05-19, 17:04
Yeah, no such thing as 12MHz 8087. Some people can get away with overclocking a 10MHz part, but it doesn't always work and probably requires heatsinks. Since I need a 15MHz part this likely won't work without peltier cooling. I am actually not sure if there is anything particularly special about the …
Re: What's your Retro-Rig?
Posted on 2008-05-18, 17:14
My primary vintage PCs are: IBM 5160: 15MHz V30 planar, 640k + 32meg EMS, TMC 850 SCSI, SBPro2, Intel 8/16 NIC, VGAWonder 512kb, 2GB Flash, 1GB HDD, 8X CD-ROM, 1.44m and 360kb FDD IBM 5170: 8MHz 339 Planar w/40MHz TI486SXL & Cyrix 83D87 upgrade module, 8meg ISA SIMM expansion, SB16 + WB I module, …
TI486SXL2 problems
Posted on 2008-05-13, 00:02
This is an interesting 386/486 hybrid chip (cyrix 486DLC clone) that has 8kb cache and clock doubling. Certain models can be used as drop in upgrades, like the one that I have from Improve It Technologies (make it 486). I've been having some troubles getting mine working properly though. I have not …
Re: ISA clock rate
Posted on 2008-05-11, 14:23
I think in 286 systems there isn't really a standard method for determining the ISA bus frequency. Obviously it's better to have one of the later 286 boards where you could adjust the CPU divider in the BIOS. I have heard that the ISA bus in the original IBM AT runs at 8MHz regardless of the speed …
Re: another 486 box
Posted on 2008-05-05, 13:15
Interesting. I didn't realise that SIS made any single ic 486 chipsets.
Re: New 486 Motherboard
Posted on 2008-04-21, 00:14
Yeah, I put one in my XT. My setup was not easy to get going though, partially because I used a SCSI bridge. It seems that you can't always just buy an IDE-->CF converter, a CF card, pop it into your computer and expect it to work. For example, the 2GB Sandisk Ultra II card I have installed in my XT …
Re: New 486 Motherboard
Posted on 2008-04-19, 07:19
The board that you bid on was a rev 4. I believe that was the last and best revision. The UM8881F should work properly with EDO RAM according what I've read, but the PCI is only 2.0. So far my experience with PCI and 486 boards is not great, but I haven't tested out my UM8881F board yet. 5U3 …
Re: New 486 Motherboard
Posted on 2008-04-19, 00:12
I think everybody has heard of this motherboard. It's probably the best PCI 486 motherboard that money can buy. If you use google, you should be able to turn up all kinds of useful information on it. I actually planned to bid on that board myself, but got distracted by a 386SX with L2 cache. 😵
Re: Which gfx card to choose?
Posted on 2008-04-17, 01:03
From what I know about ARK, they came out too late (1995) to sell many VLB boards. I think the company only lasted for a couple of years, and most of the cards I see with the ARK chip are PCI bus. I believe that cards like the Hercules Stingray VLB version were special order only, but I could be …
Re: Which gfx card to choose?
Posted on 2008-04-16, 08:20
I have all three of these cards. This is how I feel about them: I have an ATi Mach64 VRAM card. The VRAM version is probably one of the best VLB cards you can get for Windows. It's fast, the drivers are pretty stable, and the output quality is nice. The DOS performance is maybe better than average. …
Re: A 486 and PIII system on steroids.
Posted on 2008-04-08, 13:12
Having a slower CPU can help, because it is very likely that they are capable of more than whatever intel locked them at. It is quite possible that all PIII-S and Celeron-T CPUs are capable of 1.4GHz since they are a late generation PIII with very small dies. However, I would guess that it would be …
Re: A 486 and PIII system on steroids.
Posted on 2008-04-08, 01:09
I think the problem you are having is that you are actually running the CPU way out of spec. If your CPU is locked with 14X multiplier then you'll end up with more than 1800MHz on a 133MHz FSB. If you are serious about running 133MHz FSB you should really use a slower tualatin Celeron or a PIII-S.
Re: Rockin' XT Clone
Posted on 2008-04-07, 02:05
The RAMquests can be difficult to find on eBay. I think the main problem is that there is no marking on the board whatsoever to identify the model name or the manufacturer. So, you need to know what the board looks like. Basically a full length card with 8 30pin RAM slots at the end with a single …
Re: A 486 and PIII system on steroids.
Posted on 2008-04-06, 00:27
I have a Upgradeware Slot-T in my Abit BF6 right now. A P3-S 1400 resides in it. And yeah, I too have stability problems, even just at 133/1400. The board itself doesn't seem to like either the FSB clock or perhaps even the CPU clock (EMI/RFI?). It could also be a limitation of the Slot-T, I …
Re: A 486 and PIII system on steroids.
Posted on 2008-04-02, 03:20
I like your PIII system. When the powerleap tualatin adapter first came out I tried to take my Abit BF6 PIII system to it maximum potential. In theory it should have made a pretty good machine, but in reality my system became somewhat unstable. I just ended up selling the adapter and getting an i815 …
Re: Building an Ultimate PCI 486 System
Posted on 2008-03-28, 07:57
Also, where do you get your numbers for 486 memory bandwidth? I have quite a lot of 486 motherboards, and the bandwidth can vary greatly. I have been using WinTune 2.0 for testing, but it may not be a very accurate tool. -opti495SX w/ti486SXL 40MHz reports ~14mb/sec -opti EISA VL am5x86 160MHz …
Re: Building an Ultimate PCI 486 System
Posted on 2008-03-28, 07:45
I am pretty sure that my Aires board is one of the buggy ones. It was relatively stable, but it just felt really slow overall. My Saturn board (I think Saturn II) may be one of the better ones. Actually, I never got around to testing it, butit looks nice though since it has on-board SCSI. I believe …
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