I could not really justify the time / money to go for such a build myself. There were some very brief moments I considered a 486 Mainboard purchase, but that is as far as it got. I certainly do enjoy reading about other peoples 486 systems here. And if I would run into a working 486 I would not throw it away.

I just think I would run into many limits of the 486 hardware, and then try to tweak and upgrade to get around that....and fail. Like wanting to do 640x400 3D gaming on a 486. On the better Pentium I/II/III boards 'intel' has done just that and succeeded.

Another show stopper for me are mainboard chipset bugs. When after swapping several devices one has to conclude it is the Mainboard having issues.

I think it just depends on your disposable income and how hard of a grip nostalgia has on you. Often it's more fun to dream about something than to make it a reality. Personally, I liked the idea of a 486 until I put together a DX2-66 system and realized that simple things like DOS directory listings were sluggish. I've been spoiled.. I can't handle slow responses anymore. 😁

I can relate to BOTH of the above statements. Ultimately it is probably not worth it. Some time ago I had decided I wasn't going to "support" anything less than win95/98 and got rid of my old 486 (even the 386 I had since acquired). I took a small step back when I installed DOS on the 233...not sorry I did... but I think that's as far as it goes.

I think sooner or later you uncover the "unlovely truth" about vintage computing... you start to realize just how limited the earlier stuff really was..........

I can highly recommend going for a modern ATX Super Socket 7 board / machine instead. Disable the cache and you have a 386 without dramas.

Depends. If you love to mess around with old hardware, then its probably worth it.

Personally I really enjoy playing with old hardware. Fixing it and trying stuff with it is just as much fun as playing my old retro games, maybe more.

If that is not your thing, possibly not worth it.

We had a thread years ago in which we explored what you could do with a 440BX setup. You can run some Pentium IIs at 66x2 (133 MHz) w/o caches, which performs like a high-end 386. Or you can max it out with a Celeron 1400 on a Slotket. These boards have up to 3 ISA slots. I think it's the most flexible setup you can build.

swaaye wrote:

We had a thread years ago in which we explored what you could do with a 440BX setup. You can run some Pentium IIs at 66x2 (133 MHz) w/o caches, which performs like a high-end 386. Or you can max it out with a Celeron 1400 on a Slotket. These boards have up to 3 ISA slots. I think it's the most flexible setup you can build.

50x2 is the lowest I got with that, having two different mainboards capable of that bus speed.
But about that L1 cache disabling trick: you will need at least that celeron at 1400MHz to equal a 386DX-33. A K6 based system has a more subtle slowdown in that regard, as Mau1wurf already mentioned.
On the other hand the 440BX supports the 'Throttle' slowdown utility.
I have noticed some games getting sound/music/graphics problems at speeds above like 200MHz, even when their core engine had a speed lock. So running at 100 to 200MHz has some use too.

Anyways, with both a flexible K6 and a Pentium II+III system one can run about anything DOS properly, for as far as I know.

For me the question comes down to "are you more interested in the software, or the hardware". I started out thinking I was more interested in playing games, so I got myself a nice P1 233MMX - a great machine for most DOS games. But I was bored with it in quick time. Now that I've accepted that it's more about the hardware, I spend my vintage PC time trying out different combinations of 386 / 486 / Socket 7 hardware. Upgrading this and downgrading that, playing the odd game here and there.

@Skull - directly listing slow on a 486, really?? I'm not sure you were doing it right 😀

I think its more about the journey than the destination... tracking down the parts for a perfect rig, restoring and building an old machine, setting up DOS and the old games.... you feel like you've accomplished something once you get around to playing games on it 😀

As for DOS directory listing being slow, look here
http://www.mdgx.com/mem7.htm

zeno174.exe will speed that up.

badmofo wrote:

@Skull - directly listing slow on a 486, really?? I'm not sure you were doing it right 😀

Yeah, who knows. This was about five years ago, back when I was still swimming in retro hardware. I think I tossed that motherboard in the recycle pile and went with a Pentium. 😢

I remember back when I had a 486... I noticed a *huge* improvement when I switched from an ISA video card to VLB......video could have been your problem

Finding parts to build a 486 today is going to be frustrating to say the least. Affordable motherboards come up only rarely and usually get snapped up by collectors/resellers pretty quickly. I never let a cheap 486 motherboard get by me when I see them. Most of the 486 chips, though, can still be got reasonably as can RAM. AT style cases can be a pain because they can be heavy and bulky and are expensive to ship. Any original power supplies from back then are probably in need of rebuilding, too. The old, clunky hard drives they used then can sometimes be had reasonably but many are probably on their last legs by now and they tend to be SLOW. Best bet for a 486 is just to buy a mass market box like a Compaq or AST machine. You can usually find them for less than the price of buying all the parts separately.

Earlier this year I got a complete 486 for under £5 by chance (the add said 2 it was 2 years old but the creative CD-ROM suggested otherwise) and fell in love with it straight away as my 1st PC was a 486 in the mid 90’s and have since spent more upgrading it then I really should have

I recently got a PIII up and running and plays all my late dos games perfect, while the 486 is still causing problems, but I think once it is up and running I loose interest in it as the P3 is just so much better.

That said I know I’m going to ship the bastard thing home when the time comes!

Sliderider raised a good point: OEM 486 machines. I had two so far and while they aren't as flexible with limited upgrade options and locked BIOS, they are super stable, all the jumpers are documented and they just work.

I had a tiny Unisys machine once and now a larger Acer. Both come with PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard which is handy.

So IMO that's what I would be looking for.

In the meantime keep your eyes out for Pentium machines (not P2) as they will be next hot items. With cache disabled they are ideal for these old games.

My top recommendation are ATX Super Socket 7 boards. They are awesome to work with and many of the parts can be new (Case, PSU, CF card), they all have PS/2 and CPUs are dirt cheap.

SS7 boards aren't that easy to find though...

And then there is always emulation. Once hardware becomes super hard to use I think we will see a surge in more DOS Emulators being released.

Good point about the socket 7 builds. Gold scrappers are destroying old P1s faster than people are saving them and good high quality boards are getting to be rare. I am thankful for my horde of socket 7 hardware. Build my somewhat socket 7 dream machine a few years ago.

Hang onto all that you can get folks!

Yea and eBay doesn't make it easy with most (non professional) sellers not naming them "socket 7 or super socket 7 board" but just generic descriptions. So if you want a bargain you need to invest plenty of time. Those who name them correctly know about their value and it's usually a "buy now" auction for a lot more cash.

Plus postage is usually ~ $20 per board making it quite expensive.

Want a cheap 486 board from Australia:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/486-Motherboard-/2 … =item35be0f2d2f

Something I have noticed recently about ebay - you can still get ATX socket 7 boards at fairly reasonable prices, but the AT boards have become almost as expensive as the 486 boards

ncmark wrote:

Something I have noticed recently about ebay - you can still get ATX socket 7 boards at fairly reasonable prices, but the AT boards have become almost as expensive as the 486 boards

Even the atx boards prices can be crazy :s I got a few boards that people have been pricing $85 to $105 on eBay that I had gotten for free or pennies on the dollar. Giving up on building an AT style 486 project that I wanted to do and just settle for an oem. Don't know where to buy L2 cache chips as I don't have eBay as an option.

I think if I hadn't trashed some of my earlier stuff I'd be a lot more likely to go for the 486. But at this point it involves a whole new set of components (case, video card, maybe even I/O card) that are not really interchangeable with my current systems....