It is cramped, but it's a nice unique case....it would be awesome to have a few of those for all my retro systems all stacked on top of one another above my stereo system since they are so thrifty on space requirements. The coolest thing about that case though, is the proper turbo LED readout and the embedded power button on the right side.

I didn't realize it had 8bit slots on one side...thanks for the info...I think I have a couple extra riser cards with all 16bit slots though, so I may still look to buy one like that one day. I think I may have found a link to another website (saved on my other computer) that may be selling those cases as well...looks shady though because there is no phone number. Not sure if I want to risk it, but these cases are so hard to find now!

I guess these cases are built for simplicity...I know what you mean about the lack of space. That is why I got rid of my first pc (old 486sx in this style case) when I was younger. I got so frustrated because there was no room for expansion and fitting a hard drive with a CD rom and 5.25" drive was almost impossible. It originlly was just designed for 1 hdd, 1 3.5" drive, and 1 5.25" drive...and of course the tiny power supply was almost a proprietary one that could never be replaced with anything decent. Funny that regardless of how much frustration that thing caused me, I miss it and I want it back.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing more on your build.

I'm planning a AMD-386DX40 build myself very soon...it may be a lot like DonutKing's build 386DX40 build since my motherboard is kind of similar. I hope to post pics soon...for now, here is a pic of the motherboard:

I think your solution to get a SFX PSU (and installing with cusom backplate may be good...keep us posted.

Why is that battery still on there? 😵

Haha..I know! that's the first order of business - to get rid of it!

I have an external battery holder to use instead.

Little update:

I'm gonna have to wait, one week more or two, since i've found out today the board i ordered is stuck in customs. 😠

^ ouch!

Small update:

IDE extension cables arrived:

In action:

The cables work great, and will enable me to connect between CDROM and memory adapter without any further issues. 😎

Now the only thing that is keeping me from finishing up this project is the board stuck at customs. It's been there over a week and its status is the same still. 😠

I don't know what to say, other than 40MHz Cyrix FastMath chips go for ~10$.
Mind you, I didn't read the entire thread, so if you do have a matching FPU.
(also, I want to see someone benchmark a Cyrix 486DLC on one of these boards!)

My plan is not to use a FPU on this build. Won't really matter for 386 stuff.

Carlostex, how is that IDE to SD adapter working for you?

I believe they cost a bit more, but SD cards are easier to source. Have you been using it for a while?

carlostex wrote:

My plan is not to use a FPU on this build. Won't really matter for 386 stuff.

Why not? You could use it for Falcon 3.0 😁

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Carlostex, how is that IDE to SD adapter working for you?

I believe they cost a bit more, but SD cards are easier to source. Have you been using it for a while?

They work great, i have yet to find a motherboard or IDE controller that refuses working with them. Being using them for over a year, and i don't even think about going back to HDD's, unless i'm building a Windows 95/98 dual boot or something like that.

I'm also using Industrial Grade SD cards, they are based on SLC instead of MLC. A bit more expensive, but are very durable and maybe just a tad faster. One of this cards will work for a lifetime on these retro builds unless you are writing and deleting tons of data every day during countless years.

The reason why i went with SD instead of CF was because i had SD cards readily available. There are virtually no big advantages in using SD vs CF or vice versa.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Why not? You could use it for Falcon 3.0 😁

Not planning on playing Falcon 3.0. I'm a flight sim lover, big time, but Strike Commander has a more realistic flight model of the F-16 than Falcon 3.0. Even so, Strike Commander should be sluggish even on a overclocked 386. So that's a game to play in my Super Socket 7 system. That and Fleet Defender, Strike Eagle III, etc...

386 will be awesome for the earlier stuff like F-19 Stealth Fighter, F-117 Stealth Fighter, LHX Attack Chopper, Red Baron, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat.... etc....

That being said, i love MicroProse games. They were awesome.

carlostex wrote:

Not planning on playing Falcon 3.0. I'm a flight sim lover, big time, but Strike Commander has a more realistic flight model of the F-16 than Falcon 3.0.

Falcon 3.0 had a little bit more realistic flight model of the F-16 as it focused mostly on accurate flying models than beautiful renditioned 3D graphics like strike commander. But anyway, you're right about Strike Commander being sluggish on a 386...you would need a 486DX/2 66 (I believe that this was the minimum requirement at the time it came out).

BTW...that seller with the case you have is back on eBay...he want's a little too much for shipping to where I am though, so I may miss out getting one again.. 😢
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271373852348?ru=http% … 2348%26_rdc%3D1

retrofanatic wrote:

Falcon 3.0 had a little bit more realistic flight model of the F-16 as it focused mostly on accurate flying models than beautiful renditioned 3D graphics like strike commander. But anyway, you're right about Strike Commander being sluggish on a 386...you would need a 486DX/2 66 (I believe that this was the minimum requirement at the time it came out).

According to Chris Roberts that's not true, he claims that real life F-16 pilots gave input on the game. Watch and skip to 7:25:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8gj2YyB0Hg

carlostex wrote:

retrofanatic wrote:

Falcon 3.0 had a little bit more realistic flight model of the F-16 as it focused mostly on accurate flying models than beautiful renditioned 3D graphics like strike commander. But anyway, you're right about Strike Commander being sluggish on a 386...you would need a 486DX/2 66 (I believe that this was the minimum requirement at the time it came out).

According to Chris Roberts that's not true, he claims that real life F-16 pilots gave input on the game. Watch and skip to 7:25:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8gj2YyB0Hg

very cool...I didn't realize that. I tend to think Falcon is always the more acurate flight sim as the manual for Falcon 3.0 game is quite involved and the game also included input from real F-16 pilots...but Chris Roberts knows more than I do on this topic! ...if he says that Strike Commander is more accurate, I will not argue it 🤣

Falcon 3.0 might be better in terms of avionics simulation...

Some bad news... I picked up the motherboard today, tried the osci mod, and the board just can't work with such high frequency. Even with such fast cache, it was very intolerant and system becomes immediately unstable.

I had better success with another board which is cacheless, it runs fine at 50MHz and it effectively increases it's processing speed. WIthout the mod the board would score a bit faster than a 386DX-25 (with cache) and at 50MHz it's touching 386DX-33 (with cache) territory. Unfortunately the board has no cache, chipset doesn't seem to hold any as well, there's no option in BIOS for cache whatsoever, so there's virtually no performance advantage against a 386DX-40 with cache.

This seems to be possible, but there might be only a couple of boards who can do it. I'd love to get my hands on a FX-3000 386 motherboard.

Nice rig......yet you ran out of CD-ROM drives?I don't see any sense of having a DVD-ROM in there.

On the contrary, DVD-ROM drives are newer, better, more quiet, read whatever you throw at them and behave nice with CDBQ.
Why hunt for ancient optical drives that will bite the dust soon when you can add a dvd drive that you can get new for ~10e? It's not like they have different appearance 😉

Yes,DVD drives are new.........but it's a 386 after all,not some UFO server.