Did not want to move beyond 386. Like, not a huge fan of XT or earlier machines (the only exception is Commander X16 and homebrew 6502). But yesterday I could not resist and it started.
First I thought about MDA videocard for my 386 setup to try 2-display debugging. Then I thought about EGA graphics. So ordered EGA videocard (looks like Octek EGA EG-3000 with 800x600x16 resolution - kind of SuperEGA).
Then I found mostly assembled Polish clone of IBM AT in good condition - hell, yeah. 12MHz AMD CPU, 10MHz AMD FPU, 1MB of RAM, working 500MB IDE (pretty big), 1MB of IC RAM extendable with SIPP modules.
Oh, so why not buy Harris 286-25 and try it? Done. And 50MHz crystal for sure - thank you, AliExpress.
And what about better FPU - IIC 287 has matrix instructions, want to try - done.
Oh, why go SIPP - it's boring, just SIMM with legs. I want real memory card - 2MB EMS/XMS memory board - done.
And then 80 ICs to populate it with tool to straighten DIP pins - also done.
Blasterboard 2.0 - modern replica of SB2.0 will also go there. Probably along with PCMidi to add MT-32 hardware emulator.
It will be nice 286+EGA build of year 1990. And while most of the stuff is coming and I don't have EGA-VGA adapter, I'll play with Paradise VGA of the same year.
And it's also capable of real mode DOS programming being not so slow.
The only remaining question is FDDs. It has black 3.5 FDD matching the front case put into 5.25-3.5 adaptor. And I want 5.25 one, but seems like all black 5.25 floppies were 360K. That's also cool to have as lots of software was on 360K floppies in 1990, but I think it would be quite strange 360K floppy + 1.44Mb.
486: ECS UM486 VLB, 256kb cache, i486 DX2/66, 8MB RAM, Trident TGUI9440AGi VLB 1MB, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, FDD 3.5, ZIP 100 ATA
PII: Asus P2B, Pentium II 400MHz, 512MB RAM, Trident 9750 AGP 4MB, Voodoo2 SLI, MonsterSound MX300