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[UPDATE 4 / DONE] The journey of Tulip Vision Line DC 486sx TC35

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First post, by tabm0de

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So i got my self a old Tulip Vision Line DC 486sx TC35 with built in 486 sx 25mhz.

Bord info:
http://th99.classic-computing.de/src/m/S-T/31924.htm

front
front1.jpg

back
back1.jpg

inside
inside.jpg

So i started to do some benchmarks and i got like 11fps with vga test ( dont get me wrong i windows 3.11 i can have a resolution of 1024x768 )

I also feelt it was a bit to "slow" for gaming and starting games.

3dbench
3dbench.jpg

cpu
cpu1.jpg

overall
overall1.jpg

So i started to think about "upgrades".

My first upgrades i did was getting "StarTech.com 3.5-Inch Drive Bay IDE to Single CF SSD Adapter Card Reader (35BAYCF2IDE)" as you can see in the last isa slot on the back picture.

I also had 16mb memory lying around after a purchase i did some weeks before the computer, so i added them and got up to 20Mb ram since the board has 4Mb built in.

Now i just need some speed, so i asked around in vogons and as i notice i could add a overdrive ODP version with dx2 50mhz or dx4 at 75mhz, sadly odp in those speed arent common on ebay, sure dx2 66mhz and dx4 100mhz odp would work since it would go down to 50/75mhz as a vogons member told me.
That option didnt feel that right so i got my hands on a brand new dx4 75mhz on ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-DX4-Overdrive-P … cvip=true&rt=nc.

Also with the help of vogons members i found out that i could upgrade the vga memory from 512kb to 1mb with help off zip modules right under the isa slots.

So i am in the moment waiting for the cpu,zip module, working network card and gotek to arrive soon, new picture will come when they are here.

UPDATE 1

So the new cpu arrived, i was happy until i started new benchmark 😉

box
75_box.jpg

install
75_install.jpg

3dbench
75_3dbench.jpg

cpu
75_cpu.jpg

overall
75_overall.jpg

Sadly i was expecting better results with benchmark 🙁

To come: video memory, gotek and maybe repaint top cover since its cleaned now but there are scratches and paint missing on some parts.

UPDATE 3

So i just wanted to start thanking everyone that have helped me out with cache question!

I upgraded the video memory and i have now added 256kb cache which made the computer run as it should with the overdrive!!! so f happy 😁

video:
75_vga_chip.jpg

cache:
75_cache.jpg

cpu
cpu_cache.jpg

overall
overall_cache.jpg

No the only repaint is left, otherwise i am real happy with the project that has cost me around $240 which is worth it since the overdrive,soundcard,networkcard was brand new.

UPDATE 4 / DONE

Well i think i will stop here did a lite repaint but i think that needs to be redone someday but for now it will do 😉

75_paint_off.jpg

75_paint_on.jpg

Since the gotek is plastic and the holders arent stable its hard to get the gotek in right position sadly.

Last edited by tabm0de on 2017-04-10, 13:16. Edited 5 times in total.

naa, nothing yet...

Reply 1 of 17, by Calvero

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I've got the same computer.

Could you tell me if the floppy drive is anything special?
I think when I got this computer I removed the floppy drive and its cable.
Then some time later, I wanted to use this machine so I grabbed a random floppy drive and a random cable, but it didn't work.
I ended up using the first floppy drive I've ever got, which came from a 286 computer, but I had to change the position of a jumper on the drive.

Reply 2 of 17, by Kamerat

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I guess soldering jumper pins to J17 can get your motherboard to 33MHz FSB, but that's maybe taking it too far for you?

"Factory configured - do not alter" 😜

Edit: wrong motherboard... 😜

Edit 2: This one look more like your board. Looks like your board don't have any pins on J14 to enable 80486DX or 80486DX2, so you might have to do some soldering anyway. For some performance gain you could install level 2 cache.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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Reply 3 of 17, by tabm0de

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Calvero wrote:
I've got the same computer. […]
Show full quote

I've got the same computer.

Could you tell me if the floppy drive is anything special?
I think when I got this computer I removed the floppy drive and its cable.
Then some time later, I wanted to use this machine so I grabbed a random floppy drive and a random cable, but it didn't work.
I ended up using the first floppy drive I've ever got, which came from a 286 computer, but I had to change the position of a jumper on the drive.

I think the guy i got the computer from has replaced the original one ens my color, so i dont think its something special with it.
I will test with gotek next week so we will see.

naa, nothing yet...

Reply 4 of 17, by tabm0de

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Kamerat wrote:
I guess soldering jumper pins to J17 can get your motherboard to 33MHz FSB, but that's maybe taking it too far for you? […]
Show full quote

I guess soldering jumper pins to J17 can get your motherboard to 33MHz FSB, but that's maybe taking it too far for you?

"Factory configured - do not alter" 😜

Edit: wrong motherboard... 😜

Edit 2: This one look more like your board. Looks like your board don't have any pins on J14 to enable 80486DX or 80486DX2, so you might have to do some soldering anyway. For some performance gain you could install level 2 cache.

If im not wrong a "odp" version and not "odpr" does the same with the extra pin, if i was going to use a standard cpu dx2 50mhz/dx4 75mhz and not overdrive odpr i would probably need J14 enabled. But i think the system still would run with 25Mhz bus and not we avaible to use default speed as 33/66mhz?

As im not sure i could be wrong.

naa, nothing yet...

Reply 5 of 17, by jade_angel

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Well that's weird. I wonder if it's disabling the L1 cache somehow? It should definitely be faster than that. It's faster than the SX/25 was, but it should be at least double as fast, closer to triple. And the video shouldn't be holding you back - that's an S3 83c805, right? If so, that's decently zoomy, especially if it uses VLB (which it might not, but it's hard to tell.)

What do tools like CACHECHK find?

Main Box: Macbook Pro M2 Max
Alas, I'm down to emulation.

Reply 6 of 17, by Skyscraper

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Without any L2 cache in the system going from 1x multiplier to 3x multiplier will not improve the performance as much as if the system had L2 cache.

I'm not sure this fully explains the poor improvement but I'm sure it's at least a part of it.

Run Speedsys, it should let us know if the CPU works as intended.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 8 of 17, by tabm0de

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here is a ss from cachechk

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naa, nothing yet...

Reply 9 of 17, by feipoa

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Is the slope really 1-to-1 for performance increase? Check the slope of the Ultimate 486 Benchmark comparison for Intel DX1/2/4 CPUs. I have not checked, but perhaps the slope is 1:1/2, which would explain your "only" double performance increase.

Adding L2 cache will help performance. That th99 link you sent claims it handles 256K, so if your cache sockets have 28 pins each, then you probably want 32K x 8 for the cache configuration. You need 8 units of 32Kx8 for the cache. It looks like your TAG is also of 28 pins, so you need another 32Kx8 for a total of 9. I'm not sure where there is an extra DIP socket near your TAG socket. Is that a dirty TAG? Anonymous Coward knows a lot more about these older 386/486 systems than I do.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 10 of 17, by tabm0de

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Calvero wrote:
I've got the same computer. […]
Show full quote

I've got the same computer.

Could you tell me if the floppy drive is anything special?
I think when I got this computer I removed the floppy drive and its cable.
Then some time later, I wanted to use this machine so I grabbed a random floppy drive and a random cable, but it didn't work.
I ended up using the first floppy drive I've ever got, which came from a 286 computer, but I had to change the position of a jumper on the drive.

Sadly i couldnt get gotek to work on this pc, its seams to be as you said.

I also found a "french" video with the tulip model after this one at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNAFbC1oVWk, what i can see in the comment he refers to:
Configuration des lecteurs floppy :
http://dliapp.wizhut.com/blog/?p=59
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/fdd/conf_C...
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/fdd/const.htm

Sadly i dont understand french and subtitles not working on that video so i dont really know what that means.

naa, nothing yet...

Reply 11 of 17, by tabm0de

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@Calvero

I got a gotek working following a atari post regarding gotek.

http://www.tonmann.com/2014/08/gotek-floppy-e … e-the-atari-st/

"The Atari (in contrast to a PC) expects the first drive to be ID0." <- so tulip would need to see the drive as ID0

naa, nothing yet...

Reply 14 of 17, by Skyscraper

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Great! 😀

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 16 of 17, by lihinian

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Hi tabm0de,

That is a great project you did, excellent results along with the paint job!
I just purchased a similar Tulip Vision Line dc 486 dx/33i.
However, the thing I have most trouble understanding, is which ram, dram and sram I would need to find.

I found out a little on a dutch tulip website:
ram is upgraded with either 4x1mb or 4x4mb in slot U41 to U44
sram is upgraded with 9x32Kb in slot U51 to U59 + 1x64Kb in slot 60
dram is upgraded 4x256Kb in slot U65 to U68

But I still dont know what to search for on ebay. Any pointers would be much appreciated! 😀

Edit: I figured it out by doing more research.
Edit 2: Upon arrival I found out I have a slightly different mobo. Decided to make my own thread: Tulip Vision Line DC 486dx TC38 Restoration [Update 5] Finished

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