First post, by carlostex
- Rank
- l33t
My first IBM PC compatible computer ever was a 386DX-40. I remember that period as a very special time in my life.
For a long time i decided that i should have a 386DX-40 again, ready and able for my retro needs. Since last year i spend some time gathering retro stuff, restoring my old 386 baby AT tower, which unfortunately became a bit "bent". I never had an horizontal type desktop case, so i grabbed one a few weeks ago off eBay. Some money spent yes, but worth it for what i want. It's a bit of a pain to work on because of lack of space and i'm using an ATX PSU with CDROM, floppy emulator, 3.5 and 5.25 inch floppy drives which deny me any slot for a SD to IDE adapter. Anyway i'm gonna make this all work out, one way or another.
My plans include swapping a 80MHz Osci for a 100MHz one i have ordered and some 10ns cache DIP's. I know what you are thinking: Why don't you build a 486 instead? Socket 7?
Well because i WANT a 386 and i want it to just be different. Also, the turbo button is a lot more useful in the 386's than it is on a 486. The placeholder 386 board i'm using slows the whole system to around a 286-10MHz performance!
Not only to mention and rant about nostalgia, but the 386 is a landmark in computing history. For a long time Intel was a single source of their 386 CPU's, which led to their market success and huge profit margins, but also led to keep the cost of the machines very high. This is where enters AMD and their pushing of the 386 just a small step above, which being a very reliable system brought IBM PC compatible computing to the masses, contributing for the reduced cost of buying a system. Believe it or not today's CPU are pretty much just very fast 386's!
Current specs:
AMD Am386DX-40
Unichip 386WB motherboard
128K UMC 15ns CACHE
60ns 8MB RAM
SVGA Tseng Labs ET4000AX 1MB (Still the original card from my first system)
Yamaha Audician 32 (YMF-718 chipset)
Creative Game Blaster CT1300B (Courtesy of Cloudschatze 😎 Thanks again!)
Generic I/O controller:
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy- … ml#.Us7ADZzhSF8
Gotek Floppy Emulator
3.5" 1.44M Floppy Drive
5.25" 1.2M TEAC Floppy Drive (Bought from Half-Saint)
And so, before anybody starts saying: Pics or it didn't happen!!! Here it is:
I would still like to find an ISA SIIG IDE controller, there's one model that allows for Primary and Secondary ATA channels, but i guess that one will be a tough one to get!!!
Pretty excited about this build!! 😎