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Something old and Something new (386 build)

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First post, by Phido

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So what I really want is a 386, but a modern 386.. Neat and fast. All new gear.

  • Black mATX case
  • SSD
  • Wifi
  • USB
  • PS/2
  • Sound
  • Accelerated Graphics
  • LCD
  • CD
  • New KB and mouse
  • 386, mobo, ram, couple of co-processors.

I don't play many games, so will mostly use 2D images, 3DStudio, 3DS Max, programming.

Reply 1 of 127, by oeuvre

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Curious if anyone here has tried a USB to PS/2 connector then PS/2 to AT to use newer USB keyboards on older systems.

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Reply 2 of 127, by derSammler

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Phido wrote:

So what I really want is a 386, but a modern 386.. Neat and fast. All new gear.

Any hard information on how you want to achieve this, or is that just what you want, without having any plans yet? Wonder how you want to use WiFi, USB, and accelerated graphics with an 386.

Reply 3 of 127, by oeuvre

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You would need an ATX case to fit in most 386 motherboards... so mATX is likely ruled out.

SSD, huge overkill. Much more sense to use a CompactFlash or SD card + CF to IDE/SD to IDE adapter. 386 era machines likely wouldn't even be able to use a fraction of modern SSD storage sizes.

As for WiFi, the easier way to solve this is use an old wireless router and turn it into a client bridge with DD-WRT or similar software. Configure it to connect to your WIFi and you can plug in any machine into the router through ethernet. The machines will "think" it is connected via ethernet. So, you would need an ISA ethernet card (NOT token ring!).

PS/2 cards and adapters exist so you could get that running. As for USB, there aren't any ISA USB cards that I know of so that's SOL.

As for sound, there are a bevy of ISA sound cards to choose from.

Define "accelerated graphics." You're limited to ISA so you could get something with 1MB VRAM, *maybe* 2MB.

CDROM would work fine, you would just need a sound card or IDE card to plug it into. LCD with VGA is what you want, preferably 4:3.

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Reply 4 of 127, by derSammler

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ISA USB does exist. But it's pointless as you can not just connect mouse, keyboard, etc. to it and use it like you do on modern systems. You can load a DOS driver to access thumb sticks, but that's pretty much all you can do.

Reply 6 of 127, by Nvm1

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oeuvre wrote:
You would need an ATX case to fit in most 386 motherboards... so mATX is likely ruled out. […]
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You would need an ATX case to fit in most 386 motherboards... so mATX is likely ruled out.

SSD, huge overkill. Much more sense to use a CompactFlash or SD card + CF to IDE/SD to IDE adapter. 386 era machines likely wouldn't even be able to use a fraction of modern SSD storage sizes.

As for WiFi, the easier way to solve this is use an old wireless router and turn it into a client bridge with DD-WRT or similar software. Configure it to connect to your WIFi and you can plug in any machine into the router through ethernet. The machines will "think" it is connected via ethernet. So, you would need an ISA ethernet card (NOT token ring!).

PS/2 cards and adapters exist so you could get that running. As for USB, there aren't any ISA USB cards that I know of so that's SOL.

As for sound, there are a bevy of ISA sound cards to choose from.

Define "accelerated graphics." You're limited to ISA so you could get something with 1MB VRAM, *maybe* 2MB.

CDROM would work fine, you would just need a sound card or IDE card to plug it into. LCD with VGA is what you want, preferably 4:3.

Instead of the SD card or CF I find it much easier to use Disk On Modules. This is actually a SSD that is directly plugged into the ide connector.
USB is a no go so far I know 😐

Reply 8 of 127, by Anonymous Coward

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You can get 4MB graphics cards based on S3 928 and ATi Mach64. They are both accelerated. Uncommon, but not impossible to find.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 9 of 127, by tpowell.ca

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Phido wrote:
So what I really want is a 386, but a modern 386.. Neat and fast. All new gear. […]
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So what I really want is a 386, but a modern 386.. Neat and fast. All new gear.

  • Black mATX case
  • SSD
  • Wifi
  • USB
  • PS/2
  • Sound
  • Accelerated Graphics
  • LCD
  • CD
  • New KB and mouse
  • 386, mobo, ram, couple of co-processors.

I don't play many games, so will mostly use 2D images, 3DStudio, 3DS Max, programming.

Wow.
WiFi? Couple of coprocessors??? SSD? mATX? USB? None of that makes sense in the context of a 386. Not even a 486.
Are you sure "386" isn't a typo? What you are asking is, I'm sorry to say this, totally ridiculous sir.

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Reply 10 of 127, by Phido

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Oh, I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to this retro computing thing.
Maybe if I spec this out a bit, you guys can give me some feedback. I would be interested on your thoughts.

Case: Awyun 202 mini-ATX in black, but I don't think this has a turbo button.. I've already ordered this. I hope it fits. I see someone on youtube called Phil tried to fit a motherboard into an ATX Aywun and had some problems.
PSU:It comes with an ATX PSU. Will that power my setup?
CPU: AMD/Intel 386DX, Cx486DLC, I think a Cx486DR2X would be rad to have as well.
Motherboard: It says 386 Peak DM/33. I think it only has 64kb, that seems small, I want more. How do I make this 40Mhz or 50Mhz?
FPU: Intel 387, IIT 487 and Cyrix FasMath 3c87. I can't decide.
Main Storage: IDE2SD with 32GB SD card class 10 85Mb/s. It was the only sd card at the stationary shop. Does dos support 32Gb in one partition? I also have a 64Gb OCZ SSD but it has a different plug. 64GB seems a bit much for a 386.
Removable storage: Black 3.5" floppy and Black 5.25" Floppy, Gotek Floppy emulator with USB port.
CD: Sony, black. I found it lying around.
IO: Super I/O card, 2 comports, IDE, Paralell port ISA. It has lots of pins.
Graphics: ISA 2Mb Cirrus Logic I think would be awesome. Are they good in games? Are they accelerated? I think they come with 3D Studio and windows drivers.
LCD: Lenovo L171. I found this in my shed, I hope it works. It has a vga port.
Keyboard: Wyse PS/2. I bought it brand new off ebay. It has a windows key and is black. I guess I can use a PS/2 to at converter?
Mouse: A4 fast mouse. Brand new. But its beige. I think I want to change the colour of the mouse and the cable. I want everything black. Beige is yucky.
Sound: Should I put in a SB16 or a AWE32. I think I want the AWE32 for doom.
Wifi: I think I can get a thing that plugs into a usb port to give Wifi.

Reply 11 of 127, by tayyare

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Phido wrote:

Oh, I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to this retro computing thing.

Yeah, it shows 🤣

Phido wrote:

Case: Awyun 202 mini-ATX in black, but I don't think this has a turbo button.. I've already ordered this. I hope it fits. I see someone on youtube called Phil tried to fit a motherboard into an ATX Aywun and had some problems.

I'm not sure if a mATX case would be ok. There are some pretty small footprint late 386 boards around but in any case, be prepared to hacking, sawing and drilling. And forget about the turbo switch. You will not find any ATX cases, let alone a modern one, with one already installed on it. You need to add one to your case, with of course more modding, if you really want a turbo switch.

Phido wrote:

PSU:It comes with an ATX PSU. Will that power my setup?

No, not directly. You need to purchase an ATX to AT power converter adapter.

Phido wrote:

CPU: AMD/Intel 386DX, Cx486DLC, I think a Cx486DR2X would be rad to have as well.

You need to check if your motherboard supoport these CPUs first.

Phido wrote:

Motherboard: It says 386 Peak DM/33. I think it only has 64kb, that seems small, I want more. How do I make this 40Mhz or 50Mhz?

By "64 KB" I believe you mean the amount of onboard cache memory. 64 KB was the norm. There are some boards around supporting 128KB though. And a 50MHz 386 board? I don't know if it ever existed.

Phido wrote:

FPU: Intel 387, IIT 487 and Cyrix FasMath 3c87. I can't decide. Maybe a Weitek. I think 3DStudio 2.0 can use them. Which is the fastest?

Cyrix Fastmath was the fastest, if I remember correctly. If you go for a 40MHz CPU, there will be no Intel option, they never produced a 40MHz FPU as far as I know. Most 386 boards have a common socket for FPU or a Weitek, so you cannot install both. Weitek was a very specific "FPU" so it's support was quite limited when compared to a "normal FPU", which was not a big thing to start with.

Phido wrote:

Main Storage: IDE2SD with 32GB SD card class 10 85Mb/s. It was the only sd card at the stationary shop. Does dos support 32Gb in one partition??

No, normal MS-DOS (6.22 and below) cannot support (under normal conditions) any partition larger than 2GB, and no more than 8GB as the total size of any number of partitions on a single disk. So, basically, you are limited to a 8GB HDD max. You might prefer to install DOS 7.1 that came with Windows 98 though, which supports FAT32. By the way, you also need to by pass the BIOS limitation of 528MB HDD size (concerns almost all 386 boards) by using a DDO sofware.

Phido wrote:

Removable storage: Black 3.5" and Black 5.25" Floppy, Gotek Floppy emulator with USB port.?

You can only connect two of these three at the same time, under normal conditions.

Phido wrote:

IO: Super I/O card, 2 comports, IDE, Paralell port ISA. It has lots of pins.

You might try to find an EIDE one with its own BIOS, which would help you solve your BIOS related HDD size limit problems.

Phido wrote:

Keyboard: Wyse PS/2. I bought it brand new off ebay. It has a windows key and is black. I guess I can use a PS/2 to at converter?
Mouse: A4 fast mouse. Brand new. But its beige. I think I want to change the colour of the mouse and the cable. I want everything black.

Keyboard will almost surely work with a PS/2 to DIN adapter. Try to find a black serial mouse (they exist). Or you need to follow some special adapters designed and built by Vogon users. They are not perfect but they work in many cases. I suggest to go for a serial Mouse though.

Phido wrote:

Wifi: I think I can get a thing that plugs into a usb port to give Wifi.

Which USB port? This is an ISA only 386 for gods sake 🤣. Suppose your board grow out an USB port magically, what driver software for which OS you really will be able to find? You can purchase a wifi bridge with Ethernet ports though.

In conclusion, you need to be aware of the fact that 386 is ancient tech. Literally. Almost nothing about putting together an 386 computer is related to the contemporary methods for building a modern computer today. You need to be dealing with jumper setups, resource conflicts (which you msut be resolving manually since there is no PNP, no PCI, no Windows 9x or up, etc.), driver availability, tired and fragile components, HDD size limits, primitive BIOS'es, ....

Probaby you need to do some home work first, by reading treads about similar builds in here and elsewhere.

Last edited by tayyare on 2018-07-04, 10:30. Edited 3 times in total.

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Adaptec AHA29160
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Gotek+CF Reader
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Reply 12 of 127, by Phido

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I love Windows, so I think I want to stick with Win95 OSR2. Then all my driver issues are solved, windows has lots of drivers. Bill Gates fixed everything with Windows 95.

I heard I could use a disk overlay driver or something to make it see all 32Gb as one big disk. I would prefer that rather than have lots of little disks.

You guys seem to worry a lot. I am pretty sure everything is going to work out just fine. You'll see..

This build is going to be totally rad.

I've ordered everything I need I think, plus some extras. Most of it is new stuff in sealed boxes.
I'll start assembly tomorrow. Next few days it will all come together pretty quick.

Reply 13 of 127, by Anonymous Coward

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Wow.
WiFi? Couple of coprocessors???

Well, technically you CAN have a couple of coprocessors on a 386. There are adapters that let you install the Weitek 3167 and a x87 at the same time. The adapter is probably rarer than the 3167 itself though.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 14 of 127, by Phido

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To clarify I really mean just trying out different FPU co-processors. For example I hear that the IIT is faster in Square roots while the Cyrix is faster at geometry.

My molex to USB adapter arrived today.

I will build it tonight and post some photos in a few hours after I am finished.

Reply 15 of 127, by tayyare

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Phido wrote:

To clarify I really mean just trying out different FPU co-processors. For example I hear that the IIT is faster in Square roots while the Cyrix is faster at geometry.

My molex to USB adapter arrived today.

I will build it tonight and post some photos in a few hours after I am finished.

Molex to USB adapter? Hmmm...

Let's see what you will end up with when it is completed.

GA-6VTXE PIII 1.4+512MB
Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB
Diamond Monster 3D 12MB SLI
SB AWE64 PNP+32MB
120GB IDE Samsung/80GB IDE Seagate/146GB SCSI Compaq/73GB SCSI IBM
Adaptec AHA29160
3com 3C905B-TX
Gotek+CF Reader
MSDOS 6.22+Win 3.11/95 OSR2.1/98SE/ME/2000

Reply 19 of 127, by twilliamc

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Phido wrote:

All will be revealed shortly.
Just soldering the turbo and AT power switch and some cable management. Its a tight case, so much stuff.
I have some benchmark results too. Not heaps.

Pics or it did not happen.

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