TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-20, 07:30:PC Direct 286 machine only . .its not a 286 but a 486SX in disguise with a thrown together parts list.
Oh my .. has a 52MB Quantum Pro in it ..
That is near-enough my exact first computer, the heart of my youth's PC nostalgia. Obtained new in late 1991.
A PC Direct 286 with 52MB Quantum HDD, which, a couple of years later I had upgraded with an SBPro 2, then a 486 motherbard + an SX-33 processor (which I "overclocked" by jumper setting to 40Mhz), and eventually a Cirrus Logic VLB card.
Then in 1995 I gave it away to a friend, who within a year had gone off PCs and passed it on, and so I never saw or thought of it again. Until many years later, when grown old enough that it's memory brings the intense nostalgia and longing for our youths which we all know.
It's almost mind-bending to imagine that somehow that actual machine made it's way through time, all those long years and decades, and is still going to this day - perhaps in the hands of somebody just like you.
I hope you treat "the old girl" well. 😀 It's probably had almost as long and complex a journey as we have ourselves.