You could buy an EMS card and an XT-IDE interface card (e.g. https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/product-category/retro-ibm-pc/). Those would let you use CF cards (and boot from them) as well as add additional (EMS) expanded memory to your system.

I'm not sure there's an easy way of adding (XMS) extended memory though; I'm not aware of an ISA card that lets you do that - is there a proprietary expansion slot on the board that does it perhaps?

Slot "S1" is apparently a 16bit memory expansion slot.... but good luck finding anything to put in it.

Most 286 boards used either DIP sockets, SIPP or SIMM slots. It looks like HP wanted you to buy an entirely new machine if you wanted more RAM!

would the 3mb ems card help at all? i struggle to play basic games like commander keen as i run out of memory

You should be able to just plug in a memory expansion board into a regular ISA slot. It may or may not be slower than the proprietary expansion port. It depends on what the ISA slots are clocked at. You need something like an AST Rampage/AT, Intel Aboveboard or BocaRAM/AT. There were tonnes of these cards made by many different companies, and in multiple revisions. The very last ones could handle 32MB of RAM (XMS + EMS).
Just make sure the the card has a 16-bit edge connector, and avoid the really early ones. The first versions of AST Rampage for example only worked at 6MHz. Also avoid cards that don't have documentation, because some of them have dozens of jumpers and you'll never figure out what they do by yourself.

Hi thanks ill look for a modern board with some ram on it. these early at computers are a little outside my comfort zone.
its made me have a all new appreciation for PNP motherboards.
i also need a new storage solution as it only has a 20mb mfm drive and i dont know a whole lot about them
im currently just using the drive to boot to dos and load all the drivers and then using an external iomega zip drive for extra storage

You can probably use this expansion https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_1MB_RAM_Board to provide upper memory (between 640KB and 1MB).
Drivers and other TSRs could be loaded there (mouse driver, etc.).

If you want to replace the drive, you'd better dump the MFM setup. I recommend moving to MR BIOS so that you can run a flash memory card directly off an IDE controller without the need for XT-IDE.

Before doing all that, team UH19 is interested in a good resolution picture of front and back of the motherboard and a bios dump.
http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/2824

i was told by the previous owner that the motherboard would not accept a ide interface card as the bios would not see it.
as i said im a little outside my comfort zone so i think i will leave the computer all original.
i did not realize how complicated these old machines were to work with ive only worked on PNP systems.
id hate to stuff anything up on the pc. its just a little annoying that it has such a small amount of ram that even the oldest of old dos games have issues running with.
i have other Pentium pc's that can run later dos games so its not really an issue.
im not sure what collectors see in these old machines but for me it its a little too slow 🤣
i still love it and it is the nicest computer i have in my collection it would have just been nice to run a few more games from the early 90's
instead of games from the 80's

Where is the 640kb located on your PC? I dont See any RAM on your pictures?

The soldered ICs under the PSU?

The above linked Lo-tech board will not work for you. Its for a XT and will not provide RAM above 1MB.

You need a 16-bit RAM card like the Intel Above Board or the AST Rampge 286. But there are many others.

Of course you board will accept a IDE-controller but should remove the MFM-controller if you wish to use a IDE card. Both can co-exist but this is complicated...

All this is not difficult an fun to get it running 😉

i am to believe that the mfm controller is built into the motherboard and yes the ram is soldered on the motherboard.
there are not many options in the bios which needs to be loaded from a floppy by the way for any controller cards.
i would much rather buy one of those ram expansions and a modern mfm to sd card adapter but there are many and im confused on what to buy.

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-05-18, 10:55:

Slot "S1" is apparently a 16bit memory expansion slot.... but good luck finding anything to put in it.

it says this is used also for a bus mouse? what does that mean a mouse controller board in the same slot as the ram expansion?

Predator99 wrote on 2021-05-19, 11:47:

The above linked Lo-tech board will not work for you. Its for a XT and will not provide RAM above 1MB. […]
Show full quote

The above linked Lo-tech board will not work for you. Its for a XT and will not provide RAM above 1MB.

You need a 16-bit RAM card like the Intel Above Board or the AST Rampge 286. But there are many others.

Of course you board will accept a IDE-controller but should remove the MFM-controller if you wish to use a IDE card. Both can co-exist but this is complicated...

All this is not difficult an fun to get it running 😉

Ok. But it will provide memory between 640k and 1MB UMA. Won't it work with 286 ?
At least umbherc.sys should work on 286 machines https://www.robvanderwoude.com/dosmem.php

I have never seen onboard MFM. Please take a picture of the expansion card in the middle, for me it looks like a IDE/floppy card. I dont see any MFM-connector.

No, additional mem between 640k and 1MB is not much benefit...you will get additional 64kb or so which will not help to get games running that require 1MB. This card is wasted money for you. Invest in a 16-bit memory board. I have listed some here, all will work for you
ISA XMS/EMS Memory Extension / Expansion cards: Now Running without Driver / Documentation :-)&

zyga64 wrote on 2021-05-19, 13:09:

Predator99 wrote on 2021-05-19, 11:47:

The above linked Lo-tech board will not work for you. Its for a XT and will not provide RAM above 1MB. […]
Show full quote

The above linked Lo-tech board will not work for you. Its for a XT and will not provide RAM above 1MB.

You need a 16-bit RAM card like the Intel Above Board or the AST Rampge 286. But there are many others.

Of course you board will accept a IDE-controller but should remove the MFM-controller if you wish to use a IDE card. Both can co-exist but this is complicated...

All this is not difficult an fun to get it running 😉

Ok. But it will provide memory between 640k and 1MB UMA. Won't it work with 286 ?
At least umbherc.sys should work on 286 machines https://www.robvanderwoude.com/dosmem.php

Hi! That should work, I think.
The only drawback would be that of the slower 8-Bit bus.
However, in practice, I think, this isn't so bad depending on the stuff that's loaded into the UMA.
A keyboard or mouse driver doesn't need an high access speed, for example.
Plus, many EPROMs found on 8/16-Bit ISA cards are using 8-Bit i/o, anyway.
Except if they are interleaved (two EPROMs in tandem) or if the code is copied to shadow RAM after boot.
Having no free memory is worse than slow memory. 😉

Windows 3.0 in Real-Mode can use EMS, as can PC/GEOS.
SmartDrive also can use EMS, I think.
Commander Keen 4 uses the 64KB Page Frame of EMS, at least (not sue about EMS).

The Bocas RAM boards sometimes show up on eBay, also.

Loading installable device drivers into 8-bit UMBs on a fast 286 sucks. I've done it and the performance drop is perceptible.

can someone please link a known working ram expansion card that will work and a storage solution please.
there are too many reply's now and its getting confusing what to buy. i have a very limited income so i cant afford to waste money on something that will not work.
ps i want to run windows 3.11

Hi all there is a mfm controller card in one of the isa slots. those pics i posted were from the seller when he was selling the pc.
question is would a normal ide controller card work in this motherboard? it has to be able to control the 2 floppy drives plus it has the com connectors at the back of the card.