First post, by BSA Starfire
- Rank
- Oldbie
Thought I'd show you folks the project I've been working on for the last 5 or 6 months. My intention was to replicate the original x86 machine I purchased in 1992, a amd386sx 40, with 2MB RAM, trident ISA, 120 MB HD & Dos 6. before that I was an Amiga, ST & CP/M user, and even before that the 8-bit home micro's. To gather the parts together took a fair while, and while not being identical it's pretty close and offers the same feel as the machine from 25 years ago.
First part located & purchased was the case, a pretty standard AT-mini tower of good quality and sturdy build made by enlight , this one came to me from Portugal, along with it's PSU & the 3.5 floppy drive, so that's country number 1.
Next was the motherboard/CPU, i was originally looking for a 386sx40 to replicate my original but this bundle was too good a deal to miss and came with the correct I/O card and Trident 512K VGA card & 4MB RAM. So we have a AMD 386sx 33 instead but it's close enough, I'm using an external 3X AAA battery pack for the CMOS, this lot came to me from the Ukraine, country number 2.
I wanted also the same sound card I had when I went "multimedia" in 1993 so I was very lucky to track down this Soundblaster 2 CT1350B, I didn't want the hassle of plug n play or drivers and the card is the perfect match for the machine. This one came from Poland, country number 3.
The CD-ROM is a dual speed SONY unit, not the same type I had in 1993(that was a proprietary interface Panasonic 2x), but same era and performance. so I'm happy with that.
Next is the hard disk drive, my original machine had a 120MB drive, and this is what i wanted for my build, this lovely and perfectly working Seagate ST1144a came to me from Slovenia, country number 4. I have a thing for period correct HD's, I just like the sounds they make and general feel of a machine with one.For me the HD is the heart of the machine.
*continued next post*
286 20MHz,1MB RAM,Trident 8900B 1MB, Conner CFA-170A.SB 1350B
386SX 33MHz,ULSI 387,4MB Ram,OAK OTI077 1MB. Seagate ST1144A, MS WSS audio
Amstrad PC 9486i, DX/2 66, 16 MB RAM, Cirrus SVGA,Win 95,SB 16
Cyrix MII 333,128MB,SiS 6326 H0 rev,ESS 1869,Win ME