That's a really neat looking 286. And yeah, reminds me a ton of a PS/2 Model 30 286.

I've heard the USIT name, but know nothing about them, unfortunately.

- Alex

Really nice 286 in a compact form factor!

It reminds a bit of my 286 that is slightly smaller. Lots of parts integrated to the motherboard, pizzabox desktop case and similar specifications.

Having 3 isa-slots is quite useful if you want sound card, better VGA and a networking card.

Mentioning the size - "Athena" is quite small: 39cm (15") depth x 41cm (16") width x 10cm (4") height.
I am pretty sure everybody knows Norton Commander. Volkov commander is a USSR clone with some enhancements, I cant remember exact difference between NC and VC actually %)

perezx wrote on 2022-12-17, 14:28:

I am pretty sure everybody knows Norton Commander. Volkov commander is a USSR clone with some enhancements, I cant remember exact difference between NC and VC actually %)

Yes, nowadays for sure. It's a fine alternative, imho.
But back in the 90s, I didn't know about it, if memory serves.
I had used the original and some early clones, however.
And the file manager in PC Tools 7, which acted a bit like Norton Commander.
Then Northern Commander and Midnight Commander on *nix..

By the way, for an USSR themed computer, DCP (Disk Control Program), Alpha DOS and PTS/Paragon DOS are good DOS alternatives.
^^

I dont plan "USSR-themed" PC, especially with this, US-born, hardware.
However, I was working on soviet ES-1840 (8086, 512KbRAM, 2x5.25FDD (720k), NO HDD, b/w CGA) until 1995 or 1996 and this machine did a huge amount of work - documents, educational programming (I was a lecturer) and plenty of these files (plaintext, of course) were on my website until 2010 or so 😀
Typical OS in USSR was MS-DOS 4.0 to 6.22 or PC-DOS. Then Norton Commander, Lexicon or ChiWriter. Lotus 1-2-3, of course.
Perhaps, if I find that this "Athena" was designed as an educational PC, I will make such setup. Much more interesting than endless "retro-gaming"...

Investigation continues...
"I" in USIT acronym stays for "Integrated": U.S. Integrated Technologies. A small lesson for entrepreneurs: dont assume your brand will stay well-known for years... Just 30 years after nobody knows about "USIT corporation" 🙁
A page from 1990 PC Magazine says, it was cool company, though. I dont think this ad was cheap. Nor the design of machine itself.
Now the only trace I can find is an FCC record. One of FCCIDs, SMT-216LP, indicated as for "286 computer", probably is right for my "athena":
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/u.s.-i … thena-smt-216lp

@perezx Ah, I see. Makes sense to me.

Speaking of USSR PCs..
As far as I know, Norton Commander was very popular there, since the 80s.
There was a report about soviet PCs in an old computer magazine from the 80s, I vaguely remember.

From what I remember reading, the majority of IBM PC type of USSR PCs were very basic.
They merely had CGA compatibility, even though the CRTC used for video was better/more capable.

At least, they used the real 8086 or an equivalent, at some point and not the 8088 so much.

Some models were even superior to the IBM PC, like the Robotron A7150 (aka SM1910, CM1910).
It's "CGA" card could do 640x480 in 8 colours, for example.
But these weren't affordable by home users, of course.

Another thing I read online was, that Hercules Monochrome graphics
was apparently very popular in the early-mid 90s, not VGA.

Maybe due to low price or the possibility to use a Cyrillic character ROM (Hercules and its clones had a socket for this).

That's something I didn't expect, to be honest.
Anyway, it's still a huge step-up from plain CGA (spin-offs like M24/AT&T 640x400, PC-1512 or Plantronics are fine).
I don't mean to discredited CGA, but it's very low-res.
Anything non-English or non-Latin has a hard time being readable on CGA..

So it's kind of it's reassuring to hear that the users over there had gotten professional graphics, at least.
Even if it merely was monochrome and ~ten years behind (at the time).

Edit: Just read the leaflet and noticed the specs.
Your 286 can handle up to 4 MB of memory and has a Paradise PVGA1A-JK VGA chip.

That means it can do 800x600 in 16c and 640x400 in 256c.
Higher colour depths might be possible if the video RAM is upgraded from 256KB to 512KB.

Here's a bunch of VESA 1.x drivers, if you like to experiment.
Re: OAK OTI-037c - 800x600 mode ?

You can also use drivers/TSRs meant for Western Digital WD90C00.

There are PVGA drivers for Windows 2.03, too.
Magnetic Scrolls games support Paradise/WD SVGA, too.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-07, 08:04:

Here's a bunch of VESA 1.x drivers, if you like to experiment. Re: OAK OTI-037c - 800x600 mode ? […]
Show full quote

Here's a bunch of VESA 1.x drivers, if you like to experiment.
Re: OAK OTI-037c - 800x600 mode ?

You can also use drivers/TSRs meant for Western Digital WD90C00.

There are PVGA drivers for Windows 2.03, too.
Magnetic Scrolls games support Paradise/WD SVGA, too.

Wow, thanks!
I have sent a request to the company which currently resides at the former USIT's address - perhaps, they will bring some info.
Anyways it seems like "Athena" was some kind of mass-market/low-end business machine and hence has to be equipped with a set of business software. Some graphic design also seems to be possible due to relatively good VGA.
Any ideas of period-correct software set? WordPerfect, of course, and Lotus 1-2-3 ? What else?

Early font on chipsets and made in mid 1990.

Cheers,

perezx wrote on 2022-12-14, 07:58:

https://www.vogons.org/thumbs/50230_95fa8197497d742233f6e7680f542135/IMG_8614.jpg […]
Show full quote

This seems to have a unique looking text mode charset, at least on bootup. Any chance of dumping the VGA and BIOS ROMs, so I could add the font to this or this? 😀

Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-07, 08:04:

Another thing I read online was, that Hercules Monochrome graphics was apparently very popular in the early-mid 90s, not VGA. […]
Show full quote

Another thing I read online was, that Hercules Monochrome graphics
was apparently very popular in the early-mid 90s, not VGA.

Maybe due to low price or the possibility to use a Cyrillic character ROM (Hercules and its clones had a socket for this).

That's something I didn't expect, to be honest.
Anyway, it's still a huge step-up from plain CGA (spin-offs like M24/AT&T 640x400, PC-1512 or Plantronics are fine).
I don't mean to discredited CGA, but it's very low-res.
Anything non-English or non-Latin has a hard time being readable on CGA.

I don't know, seems like there were plenty of USSR/Eastern Bloc CGA clones with Cyrillic text, which isn't less readable than English/Latin (examples: https://github.com/viler-int10h/vga-text-mode … UGENC1D.F16.png, https://github.com/viler-int10h/vga-text-mode … AT-RMCD.F16.png)

Same for stuff like Greek or Hebrew; even Arabic can be quite readable. Of course logographic CJK scripts are a whole other story.

Thanks for the pictures, VileR!
I have some sort of love-hate relationship with CGA, I guess. 😆

And I was thinking of blurry Composite CGA on a low-end TV set.
Something which a ZX Spectrum was usually connected to in the early/mid 80s.

On an RGBI monitor or a monochrome video monitor (up to 1000 lines depending on the screen tube!), the CGA font has much better contrast.

VileR wrote on 2023-01-10, 18:44:

This seems to have a unique looking text mode charset, at least on bootup. Any chance of dumping the VGA and BIOS ROMs, so I could add the font to this or this? 😀

This might be due to 1997 TFT display, which is not capable of stretching image when it is not 1024x768 (native for display). I will start the PC again and set windowed mode, so you can see actual fonts and decide whether you need the dumps.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-07, 08:04:

Another thing I read online was, that Hercules Monochrome graphics
was apparently very popular in the early-mid 90s, not VGA.

Seems to be more myth than true. Most of 8080-based "home PCs" used TV sets as a display. 8088/8086 which were "professional" and "industrial" almost totally relied on CGA and included a bunch of remarked US chips.Check this one for example 😀

perezx wrote on 2023-01-12, 15:40:

Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-07, 08:04:

Another thing I read online was, that Hercules Monochrome graphics
was apparently very popular in the early-mid 90s, not VGA.

Seems to be more myth than true. Most of 8080-based "home PCs" used TV sets as a display. 8088/8086 which were "professional" and "industrial" almost totally relied on CGA and included a bunch of remarked US chips.Check this one for example 😀
269-odo5yvPq0L8.jpg

I see the picture, but how does this affect my statement? 🤷‍♂️
I'm not saying that it's right / that I'm right, it could be well the case that it is wrong /that I'm wrong.

Since I'm from Europe and never been there at the time, all I can do is to draw conclusions from what I hear/read.

Both CGA and Hercules used the same CRTC.
There used to be CGA/HGC graphics cards with a switch to change to either mode.
Some 80s PCs with on-board graphics even had a software-configurable switch for such things.

In the 80s, many simple PCs made at the time used CGA compatible graphics, even if they had a native mode on their own that was higher-end.

In parts, I suppose it's because CGA used TV compatible timings.
That allowed to use modified TV sets (or hacked TVs, more precisely; tuner by-passed/removed for VBS input) and low-end monitor tubes, in general.

The clumsy 40x25 character mode didn't require anything good, after all.
It was often used by toy computers, thus.
(Other platforms like the Atari/Amiga had fuzzy, TV compatible video modes, too.)
Real computers used 80x24 minimum (25th line was a status line in the terminal era).
Like MDA, CGA also had a 80x25 mode, otherwise real software wouldn't have been compatible with it.

In case of USSR, this circumstance might have been convenient.
Its TV technology (for the citizens) wasn't exactly the best, I suppose.
Well, the Junost black/white TV (originally a TV for the youth?) which I once opened was a total mess with a horrible power supply, at least.
Nothing was modular, short cables everywhere. A nightmare for any TV repairman. 😰
I hope it was not a prime example of USSR TV engineering.

Edit: Text edited once.

Edit: Who reads this: Please don't get me wrong, I don't mean to argue or to prove I am right or something along these lines.
I'm merely thinking about the matter. It's fun discussing these things. ^^

Edit: There we are again. I'm too chatty again. My apologies for going off-topic. 😅
Speaking of the VGA graphics.. I've attached the Windows 2.x drivers for you (ET3k, ET4k, Paradise, V7).

They also work with Windows 3.0 in Real-Mode.
Useful if you work with Windows 1.x/2.x applications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-gXfHpedtY

Mode utility can be found at Vogons drivers.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-12, 17:08:

Mode utility can be found at Vogons drivers.

Hm. Apparently, it can't. I was wrong.
The driver diskettes don't contain anything but Windows 3.0 drivers with the oemsetup.inf file.

Anyway, I'll give you mine. It's a backup containing Windows 3.0/3.1 drivers and my own original Paradise diskette (a 5,25" floppy).
The diskette contains the mode utility, the RAM BIOS, ROM check utility and drivers for:

Windows 2.03+ and /386 2.1x
AutoCAD 2.x/r9/r10, Cadvance v1.2-v3, Generic CADD, Versacad v5.3
Framework II
Lotus 1-2-3 v2
Ventura Publisher 1.1/2
GEM 2.x, 3.x

If someone want's to upload the diskette to Vogons drivers, then that's fine to me, as well. 😉

perezx wrote on 2023-01-12, 15:40:

VileR wrote on 2023-01-10, 18:44:

This seems to have a unique looking text mode charset, at least on bootup. Any chance of dumping the VGA and BIOS ROMs, so I could add the font to this or this? 😀

This might be due to 1997 TFT display, which is not capable of stretching image when it is not 1024x768 (native for display). I will start the PC again and set windowed mode, so you can see actual fonts and decide whether you need the dumps.

True, I can see the non-integer stretching. But apart from that, the boot-up screen does have a different font compared to the "normal" one in Volkov Commander (e.g. lower-case "a" looks like "ɑ", squarish-looking "A" and "6" etc).

Since Volkov Commander appears to use a standard VGA font, it's possible that the BIOS is setting its own character bitmaps just for the POST screen... hence why I mentioned the system BIOS as well as the VGA ROM. 😀

Quick info. Just saw an interesting 286 video on YouTube: An introduction to 286 with Windows 2.11 (286)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f2yB56lvU0

I think it's pretty accurate, despite the 1024x768 pels resolution in 256 colours which may seem unusual high for most people of today (WfW 3.11 SVGA drivers had same maximum res/col-depth).

The video contains an Trident 8900 card (512KB), which my dad used in his 386, too.
He installed it circa 1991/92, but the Trident 8900 chip itself may have existed in '89 already.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-12, 17:08:

I'm not saying that it's right / that I'm right, it could be well the case that it is wrong /that I'm wrong.

Since I'm from Europe and never been there at the time, all I can do is to draw conclusions from what I hear/read.

Well, I am not arguing or trying to say you are wrong 😀
Just telling some stories from the USSR past, which, obviously, may be faded due to 30+ years passed...

I tried my best to get the font clear on than Dec-Digital display (oh well, it deserves its own topic!), but finally had to bring up period-correct CRT 😀
I used to work on 5k 27" display for years... cant remember when I saw CRT last time. Barely recalling all these combinations of resolutions and color depths.
Seems that you, guys, advice me installing Win3.0 ? Good idea...

perezx wrote on 2023-01-14, 18:02:

I tried my best to get the font clear on than Dec-Digital display (oh well, it deserves its own topic!), but finally had to bring up period-correct CRT 😀
I used to work on 5k 27" display for years... cant remember when I saw CRT last time. Barely recalling all these combinations of resolutions and color depths.

Looking good! (My only working CRTs at the moment are CGA - I'll have to find one for VGA if I'm ever going to finish that half-done 486 DX/2 build...)

Interestingly the unique font shows up only in "IMG_8755":

The others have a standard font. They also show "MODE prepare code page function completed", so I guess autoexec is setting up a Cyrillic code page - this overrides the boot-up font and uses the .CPI one from DOS.

I've got a few VBIOS images from cards using the PVGA1A-JK chipset, and none of them have this unique-looking text mode font... so it's either this specific "Phoenix Advanced Video BIOS", or some modification USIT made to the system BIOS (in addition to showing off their logo). 😀

Yes, looks like it is a "proprietary" USIT font. Should I make images of BIOS ROMs?
I found an address (postal) where USIT was located in 1990. Now there is a company which sells equipment for liquid chromatography (what a coincidence - I am a biologist and work with such equimpent!). They know nothing about USIT and history of the location 🙁