mills26 wrote:

Is the MCGA really integrated inside the mother board?

Where else would it be?

Could I connect an Adlib sound card and a VGA into it?

It would have to be an 8-bit ISA VGA card.

And what about RAM and CPU?. Could I get a 286 or 386 and 2MB of ram, and connect them in to the mother board?

Definitely not. Also, there would not be much point to getting 2 MB of RAM without a 386.

Besides, what's the point of making such large alterations to a Model 30? If you want a Model 30, then stick with the original processor and RAM. If you think the original processor and RAM are inadequate, then don't get a Model 30.

There are some models of Model 30 with a 286 chip, apparently, but they are explicitly called the Model 30-286, it seems.

Most early 16bit VGA cards work fine on 8bit ISA slots on a PC-XT. Some of them might be jumper selectable 8/16bit.

Thanks for answering

Jorpho wrote:

Besides, what's the point of making such large alterations to a Model 30? If you want a Model 30, then stick with the original processor and RAM.

Well it was my old pc, i gave it to a neighbour long time ago, and now i'm thinking of bringing it home again 😀. I just thought it would be like the other model 30 IBM's, and I could change the ram and the cpu to use as MS-DOS machine.

So vga is ok, but, how many cards can i connect? will it have room for a vga and an adlib card at the same time?

mills26 wrote:

I just thought it would be like the other model 30 IBM's, and I could change the ram and the cpu to use as MS-DOS machine.

Do you mean you can't use it as an MS-DOS machine as it is?

Jorpho wrote:

Do you mean you can't use it as an MS-DOS machine as it is?

😊 no.. I wanted to play games that require a 286 or 386 cpu to play OK. like Day of the tentacle, wolfstein 3d.. etc

That's awesome, my family had the model 25 when I was little. I vividly remember playing Chagunitzu, LHX Attack Chopper, Earl Weaver's baseball and X-Men on it. I tried very hard to get Mega Man to work, but ours only had 512K RAM. We didn't get a 2nd floppy drive either. I used it until 2000 when the monitor burned out. I still have "Freddy's Rescue Roundup" from the IBM Entertainment Disk.

jmrydholm wrote:

That's awesome, my family had the model 25 when I was little... I used it until 2000 when the monitor burned out.

I think you can use it with a modern monitor, if it uses an vga connector:

If I'm wrong, somebody tell me, because I wanted to use my model 30 with a modern TV.

Model 30 is pretty much top of the line as far as 8086 systems go. However, you can squeeze a little more juice out of it by overclocking to 10MHz and swapping out the 8086 CPU with an NEC V30.
As you already have an EMS memory board with 2MB, I think that is more than enough to run basically anything that would support an 8086 as the minimum requirement.
You can do all sorts of things with the model 30 and 25. There was some guy on vintage-computer that was really crazy about this model 25 8086 and upgraded the hell out of it. (large HDD, overclock, VGA card etc).

Another possible route would be swapping the 8086 planar with a "Reply" board. This company made replacement boards for certain PS/2 systems. However, they are probably quite rare (and expensive). Apparently there was a 486DX board available for the model 30.

mills26 wrote:

If I'm wrong, somebody tell me, because I wanted to use my model 30 with a modern TV.

If I am not mistaken, the connector you are showing is only useful for very specific video cards that are capable of specifically outputting S-Video or composite through their VGA port. Except I've never actually heard of any video card that can do this, and I find it exectionally unlikely that this feature would be standard on a Model 30.

There are adapters that can change VGA to S-Video or composite, but they're sort of expensive.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartme … 4&cs_id=1011407

You can also try to find an ISA VGA card that can output S-Video or composite, but I don't think it would be very easy.

Well, thanks for answering.

I won't be able to get the computer... So I decided to look for another one to buy.

I'm now thinking of a 486 machine, are there any compact or "mini" 486 pc`s or motherboards?