If you make the pictures smaller that would help...

I always wonder if people never check their own posts?

386SX with 8 SIMM slots isn't that uncommon, but you're right that many of the ones produced towards the end only had 4. The reason is that having 8 isn't that useful, since you can install the memory in pairs and the 386SX can only go up to 16mb anyway.

The 12 slot 386DX board is a bit more unusual. I'd like to see that one in action. I'd really like to see a speedsys of the memory performance on a VLSI chipset that has been tuned. The reason for the 12 SIMM slots is probably that the board doesn't support anything higher than 1mb density SIMMs as it was likely an early one. It appears to have a 287 socket still, which was a trademark of very early 386 boards.

vetz wrote:

If you make the pictures smaller that would help...

I always wonder if people never check their own posts?

If you haven't noticed, I've linked them from ebay - so they are what they are. I even tried with BBcode IMG parameters to reduce widthxheight but I guess in this forum the required code is not implemented.

@Anonymous Coward

Thanks for the explanation.

kixs wrote:

If you haven't noticed, I've linked them from ebay - so they are what they are. I even tried with BBcode IMG parameters to reduce widthxheight but I guess in this forum the required code is not implemented.

Then you save the images, resize and reupload or attach to post. Those pictures will be deleted in a couple of weeks and people browsing this thread in a month or two won't be able to see them.

As already mentioned, 8 slots for an sx isn't that uncommon, I even own one myself.
But the 12 slots are another story. Aren't those slots for two different kind of simms? If this is the case I'd bet that you should choose (via a jumper or something) which memory type to have enabled, rendering it a 6-slot motherboard.

I don't see anything unusual. With the introduction of the 82385 cache controller a few mainboard manufacturer wanted to make use of the whole cacheable area, thus having slots for 16 MB RAM. Which means that it requires 16 slots if you are limited to 9x1 MBit SIMMs. And there are mainboards with 16 SIMM Slots.

Like this board: http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/mb_chips_386.jpg
With this memory board: http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/cache3 … memory_card.jpg

These might not be unusual, but there are uncommon - at least I have never even seen them before and I'm in the "PC scene" since 1991... and still discovering "new" things 😉