VOGONS


New Project - Early 1991 i486 Build

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Reply 20 of 33, by Anonymous Coward

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I believe memory at that time was around $100 per meg.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 23 of 33, by Anonymous Coward

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I was curious, so read a couple of magazines from 1991. The answer is that it depends what month of 1991, and also what type of memory you want. An 80ns 1MB 30pin SIMM without parity would indeed be closer to $50. But, if you wanted a 60ns 1MB 30 pin SIMM with parity, the price would be closer to $100. Whether or not it had gold or tin contacts might also affect the price.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 24 of 33, by candle_86

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Anonymous Coward wrote:

I was curious, so read a couple of magazines from 1991. The answer is that it depends what month of 1991, and also what type of memory you want. An 80ns 1MB 30pin SIMM without parity would indeed be closer to $50. But, if you wanted a 60ns 1MB 30 pin SIMM with parity, the price would be closer to $100. Whether or not it had gold or tin contacts might also affect the price.

Even at 50/mb its still 800 dollars for Ram. I wasn't old enough in 91 to know anything about it, being born in 87, but was 800 dollars acceptable to pay for just ram?

Reply 25 of 33, by Anonymous Coward

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No, I don't think dropping $800 on computer upgrades was a top priority for families in 1991, especially considering most weren't even fortunate enough to own a 386 at that time. 4MB was considered a lot, and there wasn't much you could do with more unless you were a developer.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 26 of 33, by yuhong

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candle_86 wrote:
Anonymous Coward wrote:

I was curious, so read a couple of magazines from 1991. The answer is that it depends what month of 1991, and also what type of memory you want. An 80ns 1MB 30pin SIMM without parity would indeed be closer to $50. But, if you wanted a 60ns 1MB 30 pin SIMM with parity, the price would be closer to $100. Whether or not it had gold or tin contacts might also affect the price.

Even at 50/mb its still 800 dollars for Ram. I wasn't old enough in 91 to know anything about it, being born in 87, but was 800 dollars acceptable to pay for just ram?

It is 8MB of RAM not 16MB. But what is really not period correct is that the SIMMs used was using 4Mbit 1Mx4 DRAM chips, which was not common in early 1991.

Reply 28 of 33, by RetrOli

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I also need to resurrect this thread in the hope of finding some guidance as I came into possession of this board in full working condition (drained Dallas). It’s been rather a pain in the … to setup - so far no luck getting anything above 25MHz 😔

Reply 29 of 33, by kc_freak

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- FIC 486SC-P Motherboard - This was a tip-off from a fellow Vogons member in the eBay thread. Picking this one up kicked off this build. It came with nothing on it bar the processor (no cache, no RAM), and unfortunately it has a dead Dallas RTC soldered to the board which I need to swap out. But otherwise it's a pretty nice board, and in great condition. Tracking down information about jumper config took a lot of intense searching, but I finally found a text file with all the info I need.

Can you please share this text file? I have the same MB in front of me…

Merci

Reply 30 of 33, by sp3hybrid

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Hi Vogons community

I am also hoping someone may stumble across this thread who has the jumper configuration file for this board. I came across a FIC 486SC-P Rev D3 board populated with what appears to be 1Mb of cache. Is this amount even supported? Without the jumper manual it will be difficult to understand this board. I hope someone can post more information on the settings. Thank you

Reply 31 of 33, by Anonymous Coward

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I didn't realise this board uses the Symphony chipset. It's very similar to my DTK PKM 0031Y, but with support for 1MB cache!? I didn't even know 300mil 128kx8 cache chips existed in 1991.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 32 of 33, by sp3hybrid

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My board came with nine 32 pin Alliance AS7C1024-20TPC S-ram chips which I believe are 128kb each. I am also more used to finding 1Mb support on later dual voltage late 486 boards. I didn't get the board to post in this confirmation. I may try to recreate the jumper settings with four 32kb cache chips as is shown here in the original post. A jumper manual would be very helpful but the pictures here are a good start to hopefully get it to post

Reply 33 of 33, by sp3hybrid

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Hi Vogons community,

I was able to working jumper settings for a specific configuration and wanted to share my findings in this thread in case it may be helpful to anyone. Through examining pictures available online and some experimentation I have the board working in the following configuration:

CPU: Intel 486 DX 33 Mhz
Bios Post String: 20-0100-001121-00101111-042591-SYMP-F
Bios Core Version: 042591
Cache Chips: W24257AK-15 (256k bits or 32kbx8) x8 chips total
Tag Chip: AE88128AK-15 (128k bits or 16kbx8)

Jumper Settings:

JP3: 2-3

JP32: Closed
JP26: Open
JP27: Open
JP28: Closed

JP12: Closed
JP13: 1-2
JP14: Closed

JP33: 2-3

JP22: 1-2
JP23: 1-2
JP24: 1-2
JP25: 1-2

JP34: 1-2

JP38: Open
JP41: Open

JP35: 2-3
JP36: 2-3
JP37: 2-3
JP39: 2-3
JP40: 2-3
JP42: 2-3

Note:
The above configuration results in a total cache of 128kb (not 256kb). All eight cache chips (plus tag chip) have to be present. I am not sure if this board only supports a maximum 128kb of cache or if there are other settings which will enable the whole 256kb. After much experimentation I was not able to to get the full amount recognized.

On an unrelated note, this boards does not show any post codes on my post card during boot. This threw me off a bit in the beginning as the board appeared dead at first until I plugged in a speaker.

I hope the above may be helpful for others trying to get this board to work.