Re: 386DX40 build

Posted on 2011-01-12, 01:10

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Edit:You'd need to be one helluva skilled solderer to solder those 100+ pins correctly. heck, you'd probably need a microscope or something! No, and no. I think you misunderstand how it's done... you may want to look up a tutorial on QFP soldering sometime, it's really not difficult. A bit tedious …

---

Re: 386DX40 build

Posted on 2011-01-11, 23:22

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I think the seller should have made the item photo more clear. I am not knowledgeable about 386 hardware. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding, but hopefully you've found the lesson to take away from it. If you don't know much about something, it becomes that much more important to do a little …

---

Re: My "new" NEC V-20 based PC

Posted on 2011-01-11, 21:43

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I have some 8-bit ide/floppy controllers , will these work for you? I can gift you a couple... I have no experience on XT machines though , but I can't see why it won't work... IIRC I also have an 8bit SCSI controller (it was inside an amiga2000 with a pc-emulator card) maybe that will work? Those …

---

Re: 386DX40 build

Posted on 2011-01-11, 21:16

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

He deliberately cut the cpu out to make it look as much as the original thing, then deliberately leave out the important bits. Even sais he'll ship in antistatic packaging I really don't see anything wrong with what he's doing... I mean, I'm sorry, but it's quite obvious from the picture that it's …

---

Re: Complete newbie advice on ISA video cards required please

Posted on 2011-01-11, 16:44

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Old usenet archives are a good source to keep handy when hunting for old hardware parts. For example, here`s a decent list of various video chipsets and their capabilities. You certainly aren't going to find every detail about every piece of hardware ever made, but such resources can at least offer …

---

Re: Complete newbie advice on ISA video cards required please

Posted on 2011-01-11, 16:03

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

^ Weird. I'm guessing the little dip switches are for changing between EISA and ISA mode? @retro Dude... you manage to dig up some odd crap. First of all, an S3 911 is probably one of the worse choices you could make for a 386 DOS machine, since those first-gen S3 chips suck pretty hard at DOS. But, …

---

Re: Complete newbie advice on ISA video cards required please

Posted on 2011-01-10, 21:12

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Speaking of interesting and uncommon pieces of history, I was browsing eBay today and ran across a very odd variant of the 8514 Ultra... an ISA/Microchannel combo version. I never knew such a thing existed...

---

Re: fast micro-atx board with an isa slot?

Posted on 2011-01-10, 20:28

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looks to be a pretty good one. It appears to even support Tualatins. Chaintech boards used to be some of my favorites... not usually top-end stuff, but good value for the money and pretty reliable on the whole.

---

Re: 386DX40 build

Posted on 2011-01-09, 21:52

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Um... hate to burst your bubble here, but those modules won't work in your 386 board. You need 30 pin SIMMs for that, and those aren't 30-pin SIMMs. Actually, I'm pretty sure those modules are proprietary and won't work in anything other than an AST machine.

---

Re: Web browsing station running Win95

Posted on 2011-01-08, 22:23

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Stick with Win95, though make sure you have OSR2 and get the various unofficial updates to go along with it. Get Opera 9 for the browser... I can't remember if 9.5/9.6 works on Win95 or not, but I know 9.27 does. Use the built-in adblocker, with Fanboy`s block list (and I recommend the element hider …

---

Re: Complete newbie advice on ISA video cards required please

Posted on 2011-01-07, 22:35

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is this some kind of pre 3dfx Voodoo era thing, whereby you had an accelerator card connected to another standard VGA card? Basically yes, except without the 3d. It's one of the "Windows accelerators" that became somewhat popular in the early '90s, that would offer hardware acceleration for certain …

---

Re: Complete newbie advice on ISA video cards required please

Posted on 2011-01-07, 22:07

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I believe the problem with that ATI card is that it is not a standalone video card, but a coprocessor card. I'm pretty sure it requires a separate VGA card connected by way of the 26-pin feature connector.

---

Re: 386DX40 build

Posted on 2011-01-07, 15:31

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

It has onboard cache, but there are no socketed chips, and I really can't tell where is it.... I believe some (maybe all?) of those Macronix chipsets have a small integrated cache. IIRC it's only something like 8K, but it's better than nothing. I've always found those "mini" 386 boards interesting, …

---

Re: Any advice ? repairings mobos.

Posted on 2011-01-06, 03:44

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can get DIMM connectors from Mouser or Digikey... for instance, here. They ain't cheap, though.

---

Re: 386DX40 build

Posted on 2011-01-03, 23:15

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Yeah, 5V is pretty much standard for those things. And I see no reason why a 64mhz crystal wouldn't work, it'd just give you a 32mhz CPU speed rather than 33.33mhz.

---

Re: 386DX40 build

Posted on 2011-01-03, 22:39

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

If it looks square, use an "8-pin" and if it's rectangular, use the "14-pin". Most 386 boards I've ever seen have used the rectangular ones. The pin size refers to the IC socket it fits into... they actually only use the outer 4 corner pins, but I guess that was just the easiest naming convention …

---

Re: Big haul

Posted on 2011-01-03, 20:12

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Milliways

in Milliways

I remember those ECS boards, they were also sold under the 'Matsonic' name with a different (but equally cryptic) model number that now escapes me. They're nothing really special, and a bit light on features, but otherwise not too bad as far as Via Apollo boards go.

---

Re: Modern motherboard with ISA slot

Posted on 2011-01-01, 19:49

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm pretty sure 440BX was the last Intel chipset that had a native ISA bus. I know i810 used the LPC bus, as did i815... ISA slots weren't an entirely uncommon sight on those boards, but they were usually done with a PCI->ISA bridge. I dunno when Via and the others switched over.

---

Re: Big haul

Posted on 2011-01-01, 19:38

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Milliways

in Milliways

I wonder if that I815 supports more than 512mb ram also? Absolutely not. No i815 boards will take more than 512MB... it's a limit in the i815 chipset itself. If you want benchmarks of the chipsets, look at the old Tom's Hardware Guide archives. They've got a bunch of tests from that era. The short …

---

Re: Modern motherboard with ISA slot

Posted on 2011-01-01, 19:20

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

AFAIK , the ISA bus is still present in new chipsets and serves as an ultra-low cost bus for devices like monitoring chips (temperatures, fan control etc) or some other parts that really just need a simple interface to communicate internally with the chipset... Ehh... not exactly. Newer chipsets …

---