rayjay wrote on 2022-02-07, 19:16:

whats the best video card

Currently that'd be NVidia RTX 3090 or AMD RX 6900 XT. You might want to wait for 3090 Ti, or AMD's 7k series, if you have the time and money.
On a more serious note, what "best"? Are we talking performance? Looks? Does it have to be period-correct? Why would you even want a top performer in a 286 anyway?

As for HDD I would argue you can't beat a CF card, unless of course you want the sounds to go with the looks. Then anything from 40 to 500 MiB would be more-or-less period correct. I'm assuming you don't want to use non-ATA drives, because a) those are rare now and expensive, and prone to die at any time, and b) you'd need a different HDD controller than the "usual" multi-I/O cards.
Well, I guess it's possible to have both, kind of, you can have CF card and the HDD just spinning, but there won't be any cool head noises to amuse your friends. Hm, I wonder if there would be a market for a device to randomly move HDD heads every now and then...

rayjay wrote on 2022-02-07, 19:16:

just trying to build an 286 machine
whats the best video card
whats the best way to get someform of hard disk

The most expedient approach would be

1. pretty much ANY ISA VGA card. The difference between the "best" and the "worst" VGA card will be unnoticeable for anything a 286 can run. Although for 286 builds I prefer to get 16bit ISA over 8bit, in real world you won't notice, its just preference.

2. search ebay for XTCF. its' pretty much an XTIDE 8 bit ISA card. Throw in a small (I'd say 256mb?) CF card and you should be good to go

Best video card is a Tseng ET4000AX

For hard drive the easiest thing would be a compact flash card, as mentioned earlier. Don't use XTIDE though, you're crippling a 286 with an 8 bit disk interface. Just get a CF to IDE adapter on Ebay for pennies and a standard IDE card

What is your goal for building a 286 machine? You have to establish that before we can guide you to "the best".

Deunan wrote on 2022-02-07, 21:22:

Hm, I wonder if there would be a market for a device to randomly move HDD heads every now and then...

.. I'm working on an MFM/RLL HDD sound simulator in my free time.
My goal is to simulate spin up, idle, spin down sound.
Head movement sounds are performed through a miniature stepper motor or a microcontroller, with the activity LED as a source.

what i want to do is build a 286 machine to use with a coms card i have to comunicte with an old plc5
i have a motherboard coming but nead to get a videocard and something to set up some form of hd storage i will also need a flopy controler
i dont nead any thing serfisticated just enough to get a display and save software to oviously for the isa bus and its cheap
link to whats required on ebay apreciated

See, you should've mentioned that from the start. Perhaps even before you made any mobo purchases. I would say you don't stricly need a 286 (which are rare by now), slow and probably also expensive. A 386 or maybe even 486/Pentium system would be a better fit, and easier to get parts for - unless the programs you have to use somehow do not work properly with faster CPUs. Which does happen.

Anyway, any ISA VGA should work for you, pick a cheap one that's available, but preferably not Realtek becuase these cards suck in both performance and picture quality. A Trident 8900C should work, though a 286 mobo is old enough to just not like some video cards. So again it's better to pick a cheaper one and then maybe another if the first pick turns out not working properly.

For both HDD and floppy you need a super I/O aka multi I/O card, it has 40-pin ATA connector for HDD, or as I suggested a CF card, do note a mobo this old will only see up to 500MiB or so - and might be picky about the card as well. Get a few cheap 512MiB CFs (and/or some 256MiB), one of them should work. The I/O card will also support up to 2 floppy drives via the standard PC 34-pin ribbon. It should also have up to 2 COM/serial ports and 1 LPT/printer port - some of these will require additional connectors on ribbon cables though.

the reason i need a 286 is because the special coms card to comunice with the plc5 is an old card that was used in the original alan .bradley pc 286 based terminal,it is isa based qnd wont work on any modern hardware other than 286
whats a mobo

ISA is gone now but it was still present on motherboards of Pentium II and III - and the card would most likely work. What I'm trying to say is do not make assumptions that, just becuase the original system was a 286, you need exactly that kind to run the hardware it had. So if things do not work out with the 286 mobo you will get, or there are annoying issues like the mobo not liking any video or CF cards you try, think about 386/486 or even Pentium system. Might be less hassle.

EDIT: mobo = short for motherboard.

ok thanks for that .i have tried it on newer pcs and it does not work i think the card was only quite slow clock speed ,so i just thought i would go as to original pc as posible and i got a 286 mother board quite cheap localy

even the plc5 is now quite old 1980 era

its a bit of a catch 22 i am not sure if the plc is faulty so i cant cominicte with it or the pc end and comms card are faulty .i have another plc5 tested on way and then i can try it all on the 286 mobo
i have looked at the ouput of the comms card with my scope and it apears to be transmitting some data
it is presently runing on a 386

thanks for help ,ile post on here when running
its a bit dificult to remember these old pcs and set up ect even though my first one was a 286 or nascom 2 all those years ago

Few extra tips that might help you:

* If you didn't know it yet, you need AT (not ATX) power supply, older standard. Obviously nobody makes them anymore so your choices are to get ATX to AT adapter - but a modern ATX PSU can easily damage old motherboard simply because it's over-current protection is set way too high (meant for modern systems). Now this will only happen if something shorts out, but it's a risk, these old motherboards and cards sometimes suffer from shorted capacitors. Easy to fix if caught early, and not when it's already smoking. Well, the capacitor smoking (or on fire) is not big deal if turned off within seconds, just replace it, but mobo damage is another story.
The other choice is to get old AT power supply, but it really should be serviced before you start using it for any lenghts of time. These old things are tired and often in need of replacing some parts (capacitors, noisy fan, etc). And a good cleaning is always recommended.

* Looking for multi I/O card don't just buy the first one you see, look at the photos. See if it has the jumpers explained on the PCB, or search for manual on the net. Configuring these cards without knowing what jumper does what is possible but a real hassle - so unless you know your way around old PCs or are willing to spend the time to learn, you don't want to mess with these jumpers for hours otherwise.

* Old 286 mobos might require memory not im SIMM (or even SIP) sticks but as individual chips. Hopefully in that case the mobo will come populated with enough memory to run what you need, but if not then the chips are kinda pricey once you count how many you need. No easy way around that I'm afraid.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-02-08, 00:02:

Best video card is a Tseng ET4000AX

It's definitely not. Overpriced and not that great when it comes to performance and compatibility. I can hardly find justification for using it in any vintage PC build - for faster machines there are better ISA options. For slower - as well. So it's a bit like "any card is better than no card" scenario component when you are using it if you have nothing better available at hand.

For 286 Trident 9000 or something from Cirrus Logic (GD510, GD520) will be ideal choice - great compatibility and adequate speed (also see CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards ).

DaveJustDave wrote on 2022-02-07, 22:24:

The most expedient approach would be

1. pretty much ANY ISA VGA card. The difference between the "best" and the "worst" VGA card will be unnoticeable for anything a 286 can run. Although for 286 builds I prefer to get 16bit ISA over 8bit, in real world you won't notice, its just preference.

2. search ebay for XTCF. its' pretty much an XTIDE 8 bit ISA card. Throw in a small (I'd say 256mb?) CF card and you should be good to go

ad. 1 - not necessarily true, some ISA video cards are really horrible performance wise, and difference will be noticable even on 12/16 MHz 286. And it's even worse when it comes to compatiblity with older graphic adapters which is pretty important for games on 286 (see the link above) - although I agree that for his application it doesn't really matter at all.

ad. 2 - 8bit HDD controller is a waste of 16bit ISA slot bandwidth in 286. XT-IDE-CF (and XT-IDE for that matter) has it's place in... well XT computers or XT/286 hybrids like Tandy 1000TL. For 286 you can as well use simple 2 USD CF-IDE adapter hooked up into standard IDE controller card. Only in the oldest 286 machines (5170, old 286 clone motherboards with primitive BIOS - ie. NEAT chipset base) it will be a bit problematic, because frequently they won't allow for custom HDD geometry (user type HDD). This can in fact be solved by the XTIDE Universal BIOS, but loaded from some older network card (or dedicated ISA BIOS extender card) and not dedicated XT-IDE controller.

Interesting project. I know from some exposure to PLC5 at work that you can manage them from a modern control system via an ethernet-RIO adapter, and a 1771-ASB card in the PLC5 rack. We upgraded most of the plant with Controllogix and Point I/O, with some PLC5 racks still hanging about on the fringes. But that might not suit your situation, and I know sourcing extra modules can be difficult and expensive.

[edit] Then again, so is building a 286, haha.

Good luck with it - looking forward to seeing how you go, and maybe some pics!

hi yes reason for the plc5 system is ihave lots of bits for it from my old plc days
ie a 16 slot rack and a 8 slot rack and lot of io cards including basic card comms card ttl io cards relay cards high volt dc io cards ect psu

mine is q plc5-15 which is progamed from a special comms card
which i have

Fair enough. I'd be doing the same. We're not allowed to link ebay listings here, but I think in the context it is ok to link some searches.

I agree with previous comments about the type of VGA card not really mattering for this purpose. You just need something that works. search

Plenty of multi-I/O cards about too. Per Deunan's advice it's always nice to get one with screen printed jumper settings. search link. Search for item number 203694748411 for a nice example of one with these markings on the back. It's far from the cheapest though. If you get one without markings you can often find the settings on TH99.

Here are some CF-IDE adapters that you can plug straight into the I/O card. You can get one that plugs directly, or one that mounts on the rear making your card more accessible. search link. But refer to HanJammer's advice on where this might be a problem for some mobos. If you end up needing an XT-IDE BIOS chip to handle a CF card I think this might be the easiest solution (although I don't have personal experience with it - others can comment): https://monotech.fwscart.com/DoubleROM_-_IDE_ … 4_19995208.aspx