Well, I can't find my 286 motherboard... So I can't confirm the info about 30+ MHz 287. Sorry. 🙁

No problem. I bet nobody would want to run the coprocessor at that speed permanently... except for a crazy overclocker who does not care about frying vintage hardware.

i saw that artifact sys was selling an harris 286-25 only cpu.
i was interested to have a second one but i hesitated to long.
aah well i already own one, and a 20mhz version.
i can confirm that the 25 is faster than a 386sx16

d1stortion wrote:

There is a pretty obvious difference between 30 and 60 FPS and arguably an even bigger one between 15 and 30. It all comes down to the individual game though. I currently play Deus Ex on a Voodoo5 with 4xFSAA@800x600 and it's not what I call fluent, but due to the game being of the slower variety I have no issues with it. In fast paced games I definitively want high FPS especially because lower framerates tend to come with annoying mouse lag. The whole thing is certainly nothing to get all upset about though 😀

There IS a difference, but neither 30 fps or 60 fps are stuttery. And most games on old consoles/really old monitors in fact have even more "motion blur" than movies because of the low resolution.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

M1so you need to relax and accept that others have different opinions. I understand that back in the days we simply played on whatever we had. But these days I find it silly to play Doom on a 386 when you can play it on a fast Pentium.

Here is Doom on a 386DX: http://youtu.be/gzxnB2CD6aw?t=11m7s

I know many who played it on a 386DX and remember it as "playing fine". But for me, it's not fine and I prefer it on a Pentium.

Most people who remember it "playing fine" would have it running in low detail mode and with screen size slightly reduced. I hate how all youtube videos run games at ridiculously high settings on ancient HW. The reason why S3 Virge for example got such a bad rap was because reviewers tested in on high end machines in 640x480, where it indeed was slower than software. On the typical machine of the day, it would produce smooth framerates in 320x240, in 16-bit color and with billinear filtering. Many people forget that many SW renderers of that time only worked in 256 colors and in 320x200.

I am not writing this because I am accustomed to low fps, I just don't consider 30 fps low. I never had a PC where reducing detail to medium or low wouldn't solve the problem, so I am lucky in this issue.

Anyways, that Doom video is not running at anything near 30, 25, 20 or even 15 fps. Quake on 486 runs better than that and it runs at cca 8 fps. I guess this Doom video has it about at 2-5 fps.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

From the looks of it, I'd actually say that Wolf3D runs quite smoothly on the 16MHz machine. It's not 60fps, but I don't think i […]
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m1so wrote:

Not really at all, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gvz6PMtEuU this is how it runs of a 10 Mhz 286 with a good Tseng VGA card. This is how it runs on a 16 Mhz 286 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lBHxfsCqWw .

Wolfenstein 3D was a 286 optimized game that in fact played slower on 386SX than on 286s.

And Harris 286 25 Mhz is an awesome retro gaming machine. It pretty much runs smoothly any DOS game that does not use memory over 640 KB.

From the looks of it, I'd actually say that Wolf3D runs quite smoothly on the 16MHz machine. It's not 60fps, but I don't think it was supposed to even be played at 60fps. 😜 As for the 10MHz machine, I'd say that one actually runs it somewhat choppy.

I guess I was wrong about saying that it truly needed a 386 to run well. Shows you how knowledgeable I am about pre-486 systems. 🤣 (which of course, is not very. 😜)

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

M1so you need to relax and accept that others have different opinions. I understand that back in the days we simply played on whatever we had. But these days I find it silly to play Doom on a 386 when you can play it on a fast Pentium.

Here is Doom on a 386DX: http://youtu.be/gzxnB2CD6aw?t=11m7s

I know many who played it on a 386DX and remember it as "playing fine". But for me, it's not fine and I prefer it on a Pentium.

Now THAT is a slideshow. 🤣 I think even the SNES version runs better (though it's a slightly cut-down version utilizing the SuperFX2 chip).

Most people would reduce the view size on a 16 mhz 286 as well. I think you should get even 60 fps that way.

Jolaes76 wrote:

No problem. I bet nobody would want to run the coprocessor at that speed permanently... except for a crazy overclocker who does not care about frying vintage hardware.

286 motherboards have two oscillators on them, one for the 286 and one for the 287 so you can have them running at different speeds. You'll just have to wait longer for floating point calcs to come back if you mismatch the speeds.

A kind request to the OP: would it be possible to take an image of your BIOS and attach it here?

Many thanks in advance.

I have not yet received the motherboard and I will not be back home until next weekend. I will send you the BIOS dump when I get round to sort these thing out.

So... did you get the motherboard? I'd love to see some benchmarks!

VileRancour wrote:

Funny how that SX-33 seems to have a much better time at it than the DX-40 (or equivalent)...

I dont think you can compare it with each other. Because the 40 DX would be faster after all. But that 40mhz using color graphics and maybe a soundblaster card (requires more processor rendering power)

The slower 33 SX just plays the game on pc speaker and gray graphics and requires less processor power.

I did some benches when I got the board. Landmark pinned it down as a 25 Mhz AT with a 36 - 38 Mhz rating. I was more interested in games, though.
I recall I was not very satisfied with Wolfenstein 3D. It was still a bit choppy even without sound. (Although a 1MB Tseng -instead of a 1MB Trident 8900- could have helped a bit.)

Jolaes76 wrote:

After years of futile searching everywhere I finally got the ultimate 286: […]
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After years of futile searching everywhere I finally got the ultimate 286:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem … em=140971784286

No need to transplant oscillators any more. Raw power rulez by default.

It would be nice to have a faster coprocessor but one of Barney's last 87XLs (I have the last two he was selling) will do just fine...

$35 for shipping a board with some RAM and a VGA card? Wowsers! And people complain when I tell them that shipping a whole PS/1 would cost 40€...

Half-Saint wrote:

Jolaes76 wrote:

After years of futile searching everywhere I finally got the ultimate 286: […]
Show full quote

After years of futile searching everywhere I finally got the ultimate 286:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem … em=140971784286

No need to transplant oscillators any more. Raw power rulez by default.

It would be nice to have a faster coprocessor but one of Barney's last 87XLs (I have the last two he was selling) will do just fine...

$35 for shipping a board with some RAM and a VGA card? Wowsers! And people complain when I tell them that shipping a whole PS/1 would cost 40€...

He ships from Ukraine. I bought a 20mhz 286 motherboard from him with a Harris chip in it myself a while back. For run of the mill stuff that you can get anywhere his shipping charge is not worth it, but for the stuff that's difficult to find it's justified and he does list some real treasures on ebay from time to time.

Hmm.. probably not everyone is aware of the "safety measures" one has to take in order to get parcels delivered from countries like Ukraine, Belarus etc. When you want to make sure that your stuff get delivered you had better have connections at customs... even then, it may cost some extra. This is how things go around here. I know, have seen that the cigarette smuggling operation works real big-scale today at our border with the Ukraine.

Funny thing, I got ALL packages from Ukraine intact - almost all from Israel went through ordeals of fire before I got them. Some were destroyed as well. How could they take a Sound Blaster for an Uzi part, I don't know...

Jolaes76 wrote:

Funny thing, I got ALL packages from Ukraine intact - almost all from Israel went through ordeals of fire before I got them. Some were destroyed as well. How could they take a Sound Blaster for an Uzi part, I don't know...

Some parts can be used for multiple purposes. Motherboards, video game consoles, and other parts can be repurposed by terrorists for use in weapons systems so packages containing such items are always closely scrutinized.

Jolaes76 wrote:

almost all from Israel went through ordeals of fire before I got them.

I'd love to know who the seller is - that's the first time in ages I hear of anyone around here selling old PC stuff (older than P3 era, at least).

VileRancour wrote:

Jolaes76 wrote:

almost all from Israel went through ordeals of fire before I got them.

I'd love to know who the seller is - that's the first time in ages I hear of anyone around here selling old PC stuff (older than P3 era, at least).

Keep in mind that many countries behind the Iron Curtain made do with technology that would have been considered outdated by Western standards either due to export restrictions or simply because the people in those countries were poorer and not able to afford to upgrade as often. They would have still been using 286,386, 486, etc longer than many of the rest of us so a lot more of those parts would still survive today in those countries. Western Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, etc have all been picked clean by collectors already so parts are harder to find and more expensive. That pretty much leaves sellers like artifact systems from outside those areas as the only places to get those things for reasonable prices anymore.

Zuse81 comes to my mind first. They mostly deal with more modern stuff, too - but they were also selling several CT2940s, OPL3 version, new-old-stock. I bought 5 cards altogether. The first shipment was two cards; the package was mauled, one of the cards survived OK. I think there was no problem with the second package but that was also held back long at customs.
The seller has absolutely no blame in this - the packing material was H-bomb-proof; maybe that is why the C officers got frustrated when could not tuck it in properly..?
The seller turn a lot of the profit back to charity as well.

sliderider wrote:

Keep in mind that many countries behind the Iron Curtain made do with technology that would have been considered outdated by Western standards either due to export restrictions or simply because the people in those countries were poorer and not able to afford to upgrade as often. They would have still been using 286,386, 486, etc longer than many of the rest of us so a lot more of those parts would still survive today in those countries. Western Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, etc have all been picked clean by collectors already so parts are harder to find and more expensive. That pretty much leaves sellers like artifact systems from outside those areas as the only places to get those things for reasonable prices anymore.

That's why I get irritated when people try to "teach me about the 90s". The "90s" technologically lasted well into the mid-2005s here. Even nowadays almost nobody plays Crysis or newest CoD games here, simply because the price of about 6 console games exceeds the monthly pay of many people. Many people here moan how they are old and how every gamer wants everything like Crysis... well, if you wanted to be a "typical gamer" (read: prick who considers 60 fps choppy and builds a water cooled rig for games that run fine on a 5 year old PC), you wouldn't eat here. I am not complaining, after all, Famiclones and 16-bit Wii ripoffs are still sold in the third world, and Slovakia is fortunately "only" a second world country. Many "1980s" computer stuff is associated more with the 90s here seeing as in the 1980s many people didn't even know what a computer was. But I am happy to be born here, as I was not spoiled by always having the latest and "greatest" (although I still had better than almost everyone else). By the way you know what the games that even a 5yo kid knows are? Counter Strike, Minecraft and GTA: San Andreas.

I'd say that games like Crysis are more like a benchmark, or talking material. Everybody talks about that type of games but few people actually play it. I know ppl who played WoW and CS for 7 years, is there anyone who played Crysis for 7 years?