Actually it was the transition period between (Baby-)AT and ATX. As there was still lot of stock of AT hardware and production technology, the low end market of that time was represented by cheap and small Am386 AT boards, the midlevel (business) market was 486 region, and the highend (power user) …

Totally pointless update: I was getting sick of looking at the mangled BIOS sticker, so I printed a new one and replaced it. Cameo from my terrible battery connector. https://i.imgur.com/DR83nQpl.jpg This close-up gives you an opportunity to see some of the corrosion. It's not TOO bad, but there is …

Holy crap. You're making me want one of those stations...

About a year to take inventory and another 50 to test it all. LOL It's amazing people are still finding stashes like this. Hopefully it can all be saved. Look forward to hearing more about this. Dibs. I call dibs. Dibs. edit: I just noticed no one had invoked the 1982 International Dibs Protocol so …

In some respects, make-do DIY builds like this can be more interesting and enjoyable than another run of the mill IBM XT, PS/2, or favoured brand of OEM machine of any given time period. They are nice as a museum and historical piece, but doing something creative is much more rewarding I feel. You …

Desktop icons for hearts, solitaire, and freecell... I think we're dealing with an expert

At least it wasn't facing pins-up

I have perhaps inadvisably begun to impulse-purchase some random cards. So far a random multifunction card for floppy/IDE/serial/parallel, and, perhaps indulgently, a new in box (but inexpensive) dual-port serial card. I still need a VGA card, but all of the inexpensive ones I can find seem to be in …

I am curious what conditions they were stored in.(edit: like, temperature, humidity, etc, not just sun exposure) I've heard so many different results with the process, it would be interesting to actually compile some evidence to see what leads to what. Is there any kind of text or symbol inside any …

Ahhh I really hope you can get into that role and give them some attention. This is like seeing those commercials of sad neglected puppies for me.

[hyperventilating]

Hopefully that board works. Every AT board that I've come across has been completely and totally dead. There are some signs of life, at least. The turbo LED works when I short the turbo jumper, for instance - at first I thought it was just a passive thing, but it seems like the LED actually traces …

If you want to be able to transfer files easily and quickly between a modern pc and the 386, I would highly suggest getting an ISA network card and using the FTP server from mTCP. mTCP is a software suite that makes it really easy to connect a DOS computer to a modern network. All you need is any …

My first thoughts are: 1. Wet baking soda on a paper towel (cheap and easy, but messy) 2. Magic eraser (whatever the generic name of them is) Both act as gentle abrasives and might help to clear up the scratches. If you're doing it to something with a texture to the plastic, it might smooth that out …

As I'm still waiting on parts, I decided to have a little fun. https://i.imgur.com/MrEmXbhl.jpg Hell yeah. I need to figure out why the first layers of my 3d printer always come out so terrible. An exposed first layer is not very good for visible parts. I did try to sand it as flat as I could before …

CompactFlash - pretty popular lately it seems, although I do worry about wear leveling. Don't. One of the things about the OSes of that era is that, when idle, they don't sit there and write useless cruft to the disk every single second. Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. There's not many …

Ahh you're all too kind - don't worry, I'm finding a fair bit of humor in how it's turning out, and I already love the system to bits just for how weird it is. On a more serious note, I really wonder what the heck sort of motherboard this is. I've seen a few floating around the internet, usually in …

I'm not proud of myself. I'm really not. First, a disclaimer: I am quite a newb when it comes to old hardware. A lot of it is indeed older than myself. Even computer building is a relatively recent interest; I only really have been doing that for myself within the past 5 years. I am fueled not as …