luckybob wrote:

soviet conscript wrote:

unfortunately I damaged the RAM sockets trying to get it into a smaller case and they need replaced 🙁

that makes me VERY VERY SAD.

Me to. its was late at nite and I was trying to transfer my 386 setup to what I thought was a much cooler looking and era correct looking case. Problem is it was a really tight fit and it was late and I was tired and frustrated and I just forced it a little to much. its just the RAM sockets and I bought replacements. I'm sending them to a guy to be replaced within the week.

Whatever happens if you have an old computer and it works DONT TOUCH IT, for some reason I decided swap one of my 386 boards to another case but decided against and put it back in the original case, for some reason it now wont read floppy disks... Ive tried different drives/controller cards/cables but it still says those typical lines about non system disk or OS2 or some sh!t, im really getting sick of old floppy drives they seem to work beautifully or be a complete an utter C##T when they don't.

dirkmirk wrote:

Whatever happens if you have an old computer and it works DONT TOUCH IT, for some reason I decided swap one of my 386 boards to another case but decided against and put it back in the original case, for some reason it now wont read floppy disks... Ive tried different drives/controller cards/cables but it still says those typical lines about non system disk or OS2 or some sh!t, im really getting sick of old floppy drives they seem to work beautifully or be a complete an utter C##T when they don't.

dirkmirk wrote:

Whatever happens if you have an old computer and it works DONT TOUCH IT, for some reason I decided swap one of my 386 boards to another case but decided against and put it back in the original case, for some reason it now wont read floppy disks... Ive tried different drives/controller cards/cables but it still says those typical lines about non system disk or OS2 or some sh!t, im really getting sick of old floppy drives they seem to work beautifully or be a complete an utter C##T when they don't.

If you have problems with your floppy drives, i recommend to give them an internal good clean with one of those cleandisks.

DonutKing wrote:

I don't think I've mentioned it 🤣

In the manual it says you can buy an MS-4901 daughter board, which I assume is just an ISA card with a 486 CPU and chipset on it. There are about 3 jumpers you need to set if you want to use the daughter board's CPU instead of the 386 on the motherboard.

I'm not sure where you'd find one of these MS-4901 boards though, I reckon they would be as rare as rocking horse poop

Does the manual happen to have an image of such MS-4901 card? I want to find one but so far couldn't figure out how it looks ....

Nope, no picture.

I just created an account to say that I not only had a similar Am386-DX40 as a kid, but it was in the EXACT same case that you used. You have no idea how nostalgic this makes me 😀

Glad you enjoyed it !

On another note, this machine was built more than 6 years ago... kinda sad to think, that in the 90's it would pretty much be considered trash at this age 🙁

I still have it, and its still going, but I have added a RealMagic MPEG card and an LAPC-I, but I have sold the Music Quest MIDI Card. Unfortunately the CDU-33A died so I replaced it with a standard 2x IDE CD-ROM drive.

DonutKing wrote:

On another note, this machine was built more than 6 years ago... kinda sad to think, that in the 90's it would pretty much be considered trash at this age 🙁

PC's aged so fast back then, and not just for gamers. Even the latest version of your word processor of choice could push your machine into the 'too old' basket.

I realised the other day that I've owned and used my retro machines longer than I owned any of the machines I was trying to recreate from back in the day.

badmojo wrote:

DonutKing wrote:

On another note, this machine was built more than 6 years ago... kinda sad to think, that in the 90's it would pretty much be considered trash at this age 🙁

PC's aged so fast back then, and not just for gamers. Even the latest version of your word processor of choice could push your machine into the 'too old' basket.

I realised the other day that I've owned and used my retro machines longer than I owned any of the machines I was trying to recreate from back in the day.

Definitely. I just upgraded my main PC after 7 years, and it barely even needed to be upgraded. Back in the day that would have spanned from my 386DX-40 to my PIII celeron...huge gap.

Actually nothing much changed in the upgrade speed of "computers" today. It is still so fast, but the mainstream "computers" are not the ones we know anymore. Phones are the new "computers" today.

tayyare wrote:

Actually nothing much changed in the upgrade speed of "computers" today. It is still so fast, but the mainstream "computers" are not the ones we know anymore. Phones are the new "computers" today.

Even phones have slowed down. If it wasn't for the fact that many smartphones seem to start failing around the 2-3 year mark, I bet lots of people would be content with what they have. I know I have no reason to replace my 3 year old Sony Xperia.

probnot wrote:

Even phones have slowed down. If it wasn't for the fact that many smartphones seem to start failing around the 2-3 year mark, I bet lots of people would be content with what they have. I know I have no reason to replace my 3 year old Sony Xperia.

The problem with 3 year old Sony Xperias isn't that they're slow but that they are extremely limited in internal storage space.

Errius wrote:

The problem with 3 year old Sony Xperias isn't that they're slow but that they are extremely limited in internal storage space.

It has 16GB internal (which is admittedly really low) but had an SD slot that currently has a 64GB card in (can go up 256GB I believe). So I've never run into a storage issue so far.

Hah, that was pleasant to read. Your cable management is not too bad - You don't want to see the inside of my 486DLC - FOUR SCSI devices, a tape backup, two floppies and two IDE devices.