darry wrote on 2020-05-26, 05:43:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-05-26, 05:27:

Jo22 wrote on 2020-05-25, 12:31:

PC/GEOS also runs on type writers..

With ram.

Your point was what exactly?

His point is likely that PEN/GEOS (PC/GEOS 2.0) did run on actual electronic typewriters from the likes of Brother . That probably qualifies as low end compared to a PC .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(16- ... ing_System

I'm perfectly familiar with what PCGoes was use in including some Cannon and some other obscure products. I've been using PCGeos since the early '90s

dionb wrote on 2020-05-25, 13:22:

Thing about PSUs is that there has always been a very limited number of factories making them and lots of companies sticking the […]
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BSA Starfire wrote on 2020-05-23, 17:41:

Agreed on the power supply thing! That's another thing I DON'T cheap out on. I'm not that trusting on OEM PSU's either, my daily driver HP Proliant has a Corsair PSU even(the ML 115 had a poor history with it's stock unit).

Thing about PSUs is that there has always been a very limited number of factories making them and lots of companies sticking their sticker on other people's design. Corsair, for example, doesn't make anything themselves. That means that two different Corsair PSUs could be from totally different manufacturers with very different quality. OEMs certainly didn't always choose good PSUs, but frequently they did. Dell, Compaq but even bottom-feeders like Packard Bell frequently put good stuff in their systems. I don't care whether an FSP PSU has FSP, AOpen, Packard Bell or Sparkle stickers, it's usually good quality. With PSUs (as with RAM) I far prefer to choose based on the component manufacturer than on whoever sticks their label on top.

imi wrote on 2020-05-25, 12:49:

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yes and no ^^

I had a 386DX40 which is pretty high end for a 386, but I was using it in 1996 still... which is uh... pretty low end for the time ^^

so while it is true that not everyone had the fastest hardware of it's class... by the time it was acquired or used it could have already been cheap and "low end".
so someone who got a shiny new "low end" pentium system in 1996 had a PC that was magnitudes faster than my "high-end" 386 ^^

so it's equally representative imo.

386DX-40 is a special case because it had such a long lifetime. Most high-end stuff was high-end for much shorter periods and therefore didn't sell much. How many Pentium 3-1000 systems with Voodoo5-5500 did you see being sold between 2001 and 2005? There's a reason those V5-5500 (and Gf3Ti500, and similar top-model cards, and Harris 286-25 CPUs and Raptor X HDDs) are relatively rare.

I agree with the sentiment on getting quality PSUs. My MediaGX system from Compaq has some accursed Touch Electronics PSU which is nonstandard and 30W. Has a very nice burn mark on the top and an accompanying burn mark in the case. Meanwhile, the Delta PSU in my SS7 Compaq has absolutely nothing wrong with it, not even any blown caps when I took it apart (and this is 99, the beginning of the cap plague.)

I can certainly see the attraction of trying to get every last bit of performance out of hardware.
But I usually go the other way and upgrade simply to max out a system even if it hurts performance.

Both my 486's have as much RAM as possible cache limits be damned!
Quad SLI as more GPU's are always the answer!
Always choose number of cores over top speed on what really is just a gaming rig as games love that!

Having almost a PC from each period socket 3 up to 775 mans I'm spoiled for choice but sometimes I will play that game that's really better off on the next generation up just to push it to its limit. (they have to earn their keep after all)

I don't have a 'fascination' or go for the 'slowest' of every generation but I generally go for parts that are not the top performers in any platform.. 386SX25, U5-SUPER33, P133, K6-2/500, etc. I generally find pushing a platform to such extreme usually ventures into territory that is more comfortable of a more modern platform. The only build I have that has an uber maxed out configuration is my Socket 754 with an Athlon64 3700+ and an X80XTPE - but that was basically intended as the ultimate single core AGP PC of sorts.

darry wrote on 2020-05-26, 05:43:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-05-26, 05:27:

Jo22 wrote on 2020-05-25, 12:31:

PC/GEOS also runs on type writers..

With ram.

Your point was what exactly?

His point is likely that PEN/GEOS (PC/GEOS 2.0) did run on actual electronic typewriters from the likes of Brother . That probably qualifies as low end compared to a PC .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(16- ... ing_System

Yes, that's what I meant to say. Even on an XT, a little EMS card with one or two MB makes sense (if the PC is intended as a work horse rather than a toy). 😀
Most professional programs (ACAD, DesqView, AutoSketch 3, Win 3 in Real-Mode, HDD caches) , MOD trackers and a few games (Keen 4 etc) can make use of it .
The StarWriter model (I took some videos) that I've got has only one MB, too.
And it's indeed really low-end with the exception of the 286 CPU. For example, the original monitor was b/w only and despite the mainboard was prepared for it,
the serial port (intended for a mouse) was not installed - probably as a costs saving measure.

Edit: Other 80s platforms, such as the Atari ST, had options for much more than one MB (ex. Mega ST4 with 4MB) as well.
In fact, virtually all of the interesting platforms expanded their system memory beyond their intended maximum at some time.

For a period of time I had a 386-12mhz system, I found it frustrating to work with Its graphics (always ended up with CGA), small hd, etc.

It seemed slower than most 286’s

rmay635703 wrote on 2020-05-29, 12:16:

For a period of time I had a 386-12mhz system, I found it frustrating to work with Its graphics (always ended up with CGA), small hd, etc.

It seemed slower than most 286’s

A 386SX12 is slower tan a 286-12 for 16-bit code..

Hm, it's not always high-end vs low end, I often like to see that a given game or demo struggles a little bit on the config. Not too much, that can be disillusioning. But to see that I found just the right hardware for that piece of software (or the almost perfect 😁) can be really satisfying.

I'm into Elite (again) these days so this right hardware is my 286-20 build for Elite Plus and a newly tested Richland A4 APU (no discrete VGA) for ooLite. The two PCs have ~the same moderate power consumption so I think I found the sweet spot. Elite Plus struggles in the face of the sun, oolite falls to 30fps close to a planet so everything's fine and dandy 😁

The underdogs do get my attention, but not exclusively.

With XT I'm spoiled: most of them already run at 8 or 10MHz with full blown 640kB RAM. Some have MFM/RLL drives, some XTA, some property ones, but with exception of my Model 30s they are fairly fast for their generation.

I have this nice little 286 system: IBM model 30-286 which runs at only 10MHz and has only 1MB of ram. I prefer it over my 16MHz 286 which is almost twice as fast in checkit benchmark.

At 386 I only have a DX40 Machine running, ET4000AX and 8MB. I still have to replace the good old Connor hard disk for a faster one. Quite high end for its generation.

For 486 systems I'm fond of my nameless DX/2 at 66 MHz and mediocre Cirrus graphics card. It's about our sweet spot of 486, although I upgraded the RAM to 32MB.
I do have some more 486s, mostly DX/2 66 and recently got myself a (stable) DX50 board. If they are not fast enough I'll go for socket 7.

Socket 5, 7, S7: I have a nice K6-3+ 400 running, 256MB Ram and for now a Geforce 4 graphics card. Might be swapped fo a V3 3000 somewhere this year. This I call "almost the ultimate super 7" computer.
Besides that, I have several S7 boards and computers laying around, but I think they are a little bit less interesting. Except for my S5 Compaq 😀

For Pentium 2 / 3 I have a 440BX system with Katmai 450, no need to go faster on slot 1 because there's where my IBM Netvista P3-866 takes over and shreds anything the 450 struggles with. Also underdog Celeron doesn't really do it for me...

Netburst... Yeah, I got some of these but hardly ever touch them.