First post, by jake_friz
My goal is to hotrod 1 PC from every Intel CPU generation between 8088 & 486. After months of painstaking work, here is my first submittal for your approval. An 8088 generation, hot-rodded XT clone.
HW
CPU: NEC v20 @ 10Mhz
FPU: Intel 8087
Conventional RAM: 640k
Expanded Memory: Intel Above Board Plus 8 IO w/ 8MB 100ns RAM
Video: Video Seven VEGA
Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Original
Serial: see Expanded Memory
Mouse: Logitec 2 button serial
KB: IBM 83 key PC KB
Floppy Controller: Unknown w/ BIOS extention for High Density Floppies
Floppy Drive: Teac Duo Drive (3.5 & 5.25 in one)
SCSI Controller: Rancho Systems RT1000
SCSI HD: Seagate Cheetah 10k RPM 4.5G
NIC: 3COM 3C503 10Mbit RJ45
SW
OS: Dos 6.22
GUI: Win 3.0, Open GEM, New Deal 3.0
Web: Arachne (slow but it really works)
Drive mapping: PCNFS (Maps a NFS share on a linux server - no more sneaker net)
Mouse driver: CuteMouse 1.9.1
Speedup: Speed max
command history: dosed
Games: Need more
Free memory upon full boot
Conventional - 551k
EMS - 8192k
Other available HW:
Sigma Designs VGA card w/ 256k RAM. I don't know if this is better than the video sevan card. Advice?
QuadRAM 386 upgrade card - PC doesn't function stably when this is in 😢
Microsoft 286 upgrade card - who wants a 286 when you got a 386 card?
MFM HD controller & drive - 😵
AST 6 Pack Plus Clock card - I get time on boot from the network now.
Serial & LPT card - takes too many IRQs for I/Os I don't use
Bus Mouse cards - serial does the job
Central Point copy II PC - no use for it just now
Apple talk card - Need drivers and a Mac
Token Ring card - dont have a long enough token ring cable 😜
Other goals
There has to be a way to get memory into the upper memory space. I have an old shareware app that will loadhigh on an 8088. I found a howto for an XT to get UMBs installed. How do i get memory into that space on my clone?
Get a 386 upgrade that works properly. Then put a cyrix 486 CPU on it and load Win 95 😁
Fix time on boot script - It doesn't always work and I don't know why.
Configure Arachne to run from a RAM disk in EMS
Get DOS to access >2G of the HD
Multi-boot CP/M, MS-DOS, FreeDOS, ELKS, and Minix - Advice on a mutliboot loader for an 8088?
Get a CD-ROM working - Nothing I've tried has worked. No CD driver for the RT1000 on an 8088 and multiple 8bit propriatery controllers have failed. 🙁 Advice?
Add a serial wireless mouse
Get a game controller to work - Nothing I've tried has worked. Test program says the port is OK but never sees input from the controller. 🙁 Advice?
Conclusion:
The 286 project is underway. However, I feel like there's more to do on the 8088. I still have two ISA slots and loads of HD space free. I'd love to hear suggestions. Hope you approve of my claim to calling this a hot-rod XT clone.