You could try an ISA NIC and use it with mTCP+packet driver. You can just load a packet driver when you want to, use mTCP's FTP client and FileZilla on your main machine. At least on my 486 it works wonders, and if I recall correctly mTCP is supposed to be useabe even on 8088 machines.

OK thanks for the tip. Traditionally my forays into the world of networking have ended in tears of frustration but I'll keep it in mind!

cool machine..I got a 286/20 recently, but I will use a A2386sx instead.
Therefore I think I'll sell the 286/20.

dr.zeissler wrote:

Therefore I think I'll sell the 286/20.

I might want it 😀

https://www.flickr.com/photos/94839221@N05/al … 157654013269481

This is it.

Selling here is forbidden, sorry.

alexanrs wrote:

You could try an ISA NIC and use it with mTCP+packet driver. You can just load a packet driver when you want to, use mTCP's FTP client and FileZilla on your main machine. At least on my 486 it works wonders, and if I recall correctly mTCP is supposed to be useabe even on 8088 machines.

mTCP works on my Tandy 1000, the tricky part could be finding a NIC with a packet driver that works on an 8088.

I know what you mean about the Gotek. Have one on all my PC's and love it accept the 486 I grew up with, it just doesn't look/sound right.
But as you have 2 FDD drive bays, its defiantly the easiest option.

What I'm doing with my 486 now is the Original HDD as the Primary and CF card as slave. I actually have 2 CF cards with different games and swap out depending what mood I'm in kinda like an old console. The CF card doesn't look that bad poking out of a I/O bracket either and front is still nice and clean.
Network is definitely less hassle once up and running though. It is a very nice machine by the way. Glad its out stretching its legs again

SquallStrife wrote:

alexanrs wrote:

You could try an ISA NIC and use it with mTCP+packet driver. You can just load a packet driver when you want to, use mTCP's FTP client and FileZilla on your main machine. At least on my 486 it works wonders, and if I recall correctly mTCP is supposed to be useabe even on 8088 machines.

mTCP works on my Tandy 1000, the tricky part could be finding a NIC with a packet driver that works on an 8088.

Not so hard at all, 3 Com Etherlink II or Xircom LPT Networkcard, NE1000 ... etc.

There are BNC to RJ45 Converters for ~20$/Euro
Or get a Cheapo 10Mbit HUB with BNC and RJ45, even Cheaper. Fleamarket etc..
i still have one left, will give it away for shipping.

badmojo wrote:

OK thanks for the tip. Traditionally my forays into the world of networking have ended in tears of frustration but I'll keep it in mind!

It really is easy once you get you're head around what needs to be done. Sometimes you need a slower hub or switch to intergrate an older machine with more a modern network setup.

chinny22 wrote:

I know what you mean about the Gotek. Have one on all my PC's and love it accept the 486 I grew up with, it just doesn't look/so […]
Show full quote

I know what you mean about the Gotek. Have one on all my PC's and love it accept the 486 I grew up with, it just doesn't look/sound right.
But as you have 2 FDD drive bays, its defiantly the easiest option.

What I'm doing with my 486 now is the Original HDD as the Primary and CF card as slave. I actually have 2 CF cards with different games and swap out depending what mood I'm in kinda like an old console. The CF card doesn't look that bad poking out of a I/O bracket either and front is still nice and clean.
Network is definitely less hassle once up and running though. It is a very nice machine by the way. Glad its out stretching its legs again

I'm doing the same here for my 486 and P166 - original HDD for OS and authentic sound FX and CF for games. The CF card makes it easy to transfer stuff onto those machines but I couldn't get one to work with this 286, so I've sucked it up and ordered a Gotek. The 3.5" drive was yellowing so I was going to have to do something with it either way.

MS Client for DOS works great for DOS v3.3+ and a common card like a 3Com 3c509 or NE1000/2000. I use that basic setup on both my 286 as well as my XT-5160 to map windows file shares to a drive letter in DOS. Works great. Copying via floppy or serial cables are a thing of the past (literally).

A couple of changes to this machine. Firstly I swapped out the ET4000AX it was sporting for a Trident TVGA9000C, which produces a very handsome EGA / VGA image but also provides very good CGA compatibility (with the help of a TSR). Trident might have become notorious in later years but in 1991 they were doing good work.

Secondly I’ve swapped out the 3.5” drive for a Gotek, which works flawlessly so far and finally allows me to get stuff onto this machine without messing around with floppies. As much as I like keeping things original, there’re times when I just want to copy some files over and get on with the fun stuff. And the Gotek doesn’t look too bad – it’s a little bit steam punk even.

And lastly I added a couple of in-line resistors to the PC speaker to quieten it down by about 40%. Interestingly, it seemed to be the case which accounted for a lot of the additional volume. The speaker is clamped firmly onto the internal metal work, pointing backwards, and it resonates beautifully, making the whole case sing. It’s the nicest PC speaker I’ve heard but was just far too loud.

I’ve come to really appreciate the PC speaker lately; much maligned I know but I have very fond memories of those peeps and boops.

Lovely machine.

Last week I finally got a nice 286 board - I haven't had the time to open the package yet... so I only hope I got what I payed 😉

At the moment it has Siemens 16MHz cpu, but I'll replace it with Harris-20. It also has socketed oscillator so I might try to OC it to 25MHz. This should complete my 286 setup 😁

Here is a topic about this unknown board:
Help identifying 286 board

That looks really nice. I have one of those monitors too, use it on my K6-3+ rig.

kixs wrote:

At the moment it has Siemens 16MHz cpu, but I'll replace it with Harris-20. It also has socketed oscillator so I might try to OC it to 25MHz. This should complete my 286 setup 😁

Cool! I've actually been thinking about how I could slow mine down - it's too bloody fast, even with the turbo off, which brings it down to ~8Mhz. This is the slowest machine I own and I want to use it for CGA / EGA era games.

bjt wrote:

That looks really nice. I have one of those monitors too, use it on my K6-3+ rig.

Thank you and yes they're great monitors; I found this one NIB a couple of years ago. I use it with everything up to a Pentium 4!

badmojo wrote:

Cool! I've actually been thinking about how I could slow mine down - it's too bloody fast, even with the turbo off, which brings it down to ~8Mhz. This is the slowest machine I own and I want to use it for CGA / EGA era games.

I managed to slow down my 286 machine down to 4.77MHz 8088 equivalent speed. I used a 8MHz clock crystal and with the Turbo depressed it was really close. I tried Digger and it ran spot on. Benchmarks told me it was 1.05 equivalent to an IBM PC. Usually swaping an 8088 for a NEC V20 results in 1.1 i think.
With the Turbo pressed the speed was a little slower than an IBM AT, making it probably the slowest 286 in the world.

If you don't want it to be that slow (after all it is supposed to be a 286...) you could try a 16MHz osci. But no doubt it will still be too fast for old games that are speed sensitive.

badmojo wrote:

kixs wrote:

At the moment it has Siemens 16MHz cpu, but I'll replace it with Harris-20. It also has socketed oscillator so I might try to OC it to 25MHz. This should complete my 286 setup 😁

Cool! I've actually been thinking about how I could slow mine down - it's too bloody fast, even with the turbo off, which brings it down to ~8Mhz. This is the slowest machine I own and I want to use it for CGA / EGA era games.

Interesting 😀

My first PC was 286-16 in 1991-93. So my first PC games were Lotus III, Ski or Die, F-15 Strike Eagle III, F-117, F1GP, PoP, Dune 2, Cannon Fodder, Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies... and some of them didn't run fast enough on it. So my goal is to get 286 as fast as possible. I know it's useless but it's my thing 😁 My friend had 386sx-25 and he didn't believe me that my 286-16 was actually faster in some games (My motherboard had the same Headland chipset as yours).

As this motherboard has both cpu and oscillator socketed anything is possible 😉