First post, by Ozzuneoj
- Rank
- l33t
EDIT: Just to clarify, I have this card and its cable and it has been working fine for over a year, I just want to see if its possible to upgrade it to a faster CPU.
I'm just curious about this, but what would be required to upgrade an 8Mhz 286 on an Orchid Tiny Turbo 286 upgrade card to something faster? The chip is socketed, but I'm not sure if one can simply replace the CPU with a 16mhz and have it work. It is currently being used in an IBM 5150 with a 4.7Mhz 8088.
Here are some pictures of my card: https://www.amazon.com/photos/share/xvNDyfA8t … qqVIFC5d9c5qiYq
Here's a flyer for this card: https://computerarchive.org/files/comp/hardwa … Turbo%20286.PDF
This setup is neat because I can flip a switch on the back of the card for immediate (after reboot) 8088 speed compatibility, or switch it back for faster loading and smoother frame rates in very early CGA and EGA games. I'm just curious to see how far this system can be stretched, and its quite fun! The 5150 actually gets quite a bit of use from my family members who like to play these old games, and its awesome to have authentic hardware to run them on, rather than emulators. Extending the computer into the 286\EGA era expanded its usefulness exponentially, but a little more performance wouldn't hurt.
I've read that there are 10Mhz 286 versions of the Tiny Turbo, but there isn't really enough documentation out there to tell if there are any other changes to the cards or if they simply have a different CPU. I'd also be curious to know if 10Mhz is the realistic limit of an expansion board like this, or if a 12, 16 or faster 286 could be used. Obviously with a CPU on a card in an 8bit ISA slot, with a ribbon cable attaching it to the CPU socket, that's going to be the bottleneck at some point.
There is also a slightly different version of this card called the Tiny Turbo Xtra that has cache and a 12Mhz CPU:
http://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/archive/Microni … ls/1632plus.pdf
(there are a lot of differences but that is the only manual I can find for a Tiny Turbo card... I'm not sure if mine has cache or not)
If I had a 12Mhz 286, you can bet I'd just drop it in and try it, but I don't have one at the moment. 😀
Now for some blitting from the back buffer.