You're right. Because of this, I once built myself an Composite to S-Video adapter for my 1702.
It was essentially the one from Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Video#use
I'm afraid it wasn't perfect, though. The old Chroma/Luma ports had a different impedance than modern S-Video.

Edit: Just found some photos. Seems I've also made an S-Video to Chroma/Luma adapter. And an audio mixer, too.
Wait, here are a few photos.. The pictures taken with StarWing used an S-Video connection. Don't know about F-Zero, though.

Just one more thing! I've just seen two 128KiB upgrade cards at eBay, ending today (16:18 UTC, 17:51 UTC).

They claim to be for the PC/AT 5170. Maybe they also work for clones ? The original AT was running ISA at 6MHz, after all.
Anyway, here's the link: http://www.ebay.de/itm/152671099914 and http://www.ebay.de/itm/152671202346

Maybe the seller can clear things up ? He says "International bidders welcome: IBAN/BIC for banktransfer."
So he seems to be friendly, even offers to answer questions happily. Only dowside: Shipping costs (cards are located in Germany). 🙁

Edit: Don't panic! I've seen such auctions come and go many times before. I just wanted to show you some memory boards
which *could* be useful for machine. It's likely that these auctions will end with no bid (as of writing, no one has bid so far).

Just to update - I managed to find a VGA card for this system, but on the same trip found a much better 286 motherboard.

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/A/AM … N-286-286H.html

It has a Harris 20MHz CPU (soldered on). It supports a maximum 5MB ram (4x1MB simms + 8x44256 chips). It also has onboard IDE and floppy, but weirdly no onboard Serial/Parallel ports. So I installed this new motherboard, with 4MB of simms in it, and it works flawlessly with the CF to IDE adapter! It's so smaller compared to the old board.

Next step is loading it up with all the games that wanted a better graphics adapter! Also, I may be getting a SB Pro 2.0 to install in this.

I really love the more period specific builds that happen on here. I still have my original 286 motherboard from 1991. I keep thinking I will rebuild it some day, and I know it is going to be a pain with some of the time-appropriate hardware I am going to use.

Thanks for the update on yours, probnot. But 20 MHz! Absolute, screaming insanity. Also nice that you can use SIMMS. Offering encouragement to keep the thread updated with your progress!

That first motherboard is likely several years older. Very cool.

@hwh Yup, I do think the same. The prior one is using chips by err.. CHIPS. 😁
It's perhaps one of the first NEAT boards, too ? That ol' Award BIOS looks ancient for sure. ^^
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEAT_chipset

Jo22 wrote:

@hwh Yup, I do think the same. The prior one is using chips by err.. CHIPS. 😁
It's perhaps one of the first NEAT boards, too ? That ol' Award BIOS looks ancient for sure. ^^
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEAT_chipset

I would love to know when it came out, it's definitely an early board (The HDD settings on the BIOS are blank for Types 40-47)

I found info on the 286X Ver.A motherboard (mine is Ver.C, but the jumper settings seem to line up well).

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/L/LA … 286X-VER-A.html

Hm. I guess it was made somewhen between ~85 and ~87 then.
By 88/89, BIOSes were usually more advanced already (like the colourful AMI BIOS),
except if they were released as updates/fixes for earlier machines.
I'm speaking under correction, though. Maybe the reality is different. 😅

Hmm... the 512k/512k split would stick in my craw. What are the chances of burning an updated BIOS PROM? For that matter, could XT-IDE be integrated with the Award BIOS?

with only 1Mb RAM and 384Kb being shadow ram.. 😀

Oh looks like you got a Heatland Motherboard with Harry.
This also will run with 16Mb.
Mine supports 4x4Mb Modules 😀