Very nice... I also am accumulating parts for a 386 build... One improvement to your build would be to remove the 8-bit ISA slot at the end of the board and make room for a PCB that could accommodate a PS/2 interposer for your KBC.

I always thought 386dx-33 systems were pretty elegant back in the day. They were not mass market low end like the 386-40’s, wishing they were something better. Northgate workstations. Compaq servers.

They were high end systems from a simpler period in PC development. There were not a lot of bus choices. An 80 mb hard drive was large. Any svga card seemed cutting edge. It’s what you wanted but you ended up with a 386sx instead.

In hindsight, they were somewhat limited and I guess there’s a reason intel moved the high end to the 486 so quickly, but still, for cpu demanding tasks, they were the halo product for a couple years and the systems of the day had all the bells and whistles.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/northg … ance-386-rev.-2

p.s. They definitely benefited from an L1 cache if your board supported it. There was a substantial performance boost.

Fine build! 😃👍
If you want to speed up graphics, make sure "video BIOS cacheable" is enabled in CMOS Setup.

If there's no such option, you can load a RAMBIOS utility. It copies VGA BIOS into memory.
They used to be on the graphics card's floppy disk, among other utilities.
Here's such an utility for PVGA1A: Re: 286 USIT Athena PC

Edit: VBE 1.x drivers here: Re: OAK OTI-037c - 800x600 mode ?

Edit: This is old news, likely, but the system could be sped up a bit by installing a Cx486DRx2-33/66 or a more traditional 486DLC-33.
The former would turn it into a 66 MHz PC, even.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrix_Cx486DLC

That being said, I think it's fine the way it is. I'd increase MB cache to 128KB, though, maybe, once possible.
That was common value in 1992 or so.
64KB was the base level configuration and a bit little, it can cache 8MB of RAM at max, also.

douglar wrote on 2023-05-23, 01:57:

I always thought 386dx-33 systems were pretty elegant back in the day. They were not mass market low end like the 386-40’s, wishing they were something better. Northgate workstations. Compaq servers.

Personally, I think the good thing about them is that they weren't made by intel (intel models topped out at 33 MHz) .
If you got a 40 MHz model, you could be certain that it is from AMD, which had used a more advanced technology (static design).

Edit: My bad, I meant to say that I talk about the CPU only.
I love old big 386 motherboards with 33, 25 or less MHz. 💙
They're really fascinating with their 80s era technology and all those discreet chips! 😃

Edit: I remember there also was the "Super 386" chip running at 33 MHz.
http://www.cpu-galerie.de/html/chips-super386 … j38600dx33.html

Edit: https://cpumuseum.jimdofree.com/museum/chips- … ogies/super386/

Also liked the 386DX, back in the day, I purchased 386DX 25 machine. And wanted to have one again so I have small collection of 386DX all are cached. And I have place for the 486DX, which I'll also experiment by
down-clocking it to 10MHZ, as well as 12.5 and 16MHz.

Just need to get to it but I need Deskpro/M PSU recapped just in case.

Cheers,

Nice build! I like that you used an actual HDD instead of CF, it's not a common sight these days on retro builds of that era but I feel it provides an important aspect of the retro feel.

By the way, you may have an easier time with cable management if you move the I/O controller card to the 16-bit slot nearest to the memory modules, and the other cards to the lower slots. Those flat cables can be really annoying.

Quite similar to my 386 machine, except mine has no 387, but has 16MB RAM and runs at 25MHz.

It has MS-DOS 6.20 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11, which can connect to my internal network and the internet.

Admittedly there's not much to see on the internet, but a few sites still work - but all so slowly.

douglar wrote on 2023-05-23, 01:57:

I always thought 386dx-33 systems were pretty elegant back in the day. They were not mass market low end like the 386-40’s, wishing they were something better. Northgate workstations. Compaq servers.

I don't know if they could be considered "high end", but there were a few decent 386-40s sold in 91/92 that weren't cost reduced. Sadly, they're hard to find now due to the flood of cheap half-length boards that sold like crazy in 93/94.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2023-05-11, 00:20:

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I've wondered what it's like to use an actual 386 for quite a while, and my curiosity got the best of me, so here we are.

System specs:

80386DX-33 CPU
80387-33 FPU
8 MB RAM
WD Paradise VGA
Sound Blaster 16
WD Caviar 244 MB HDD
3Com 3C509 Ethernet

Overall I think it's a well balanced machine.

I think I understand why people mostly build 486 and Pentium machines. Having a 386 is cool because it's "32-bit" but really, a lot of 32-bit software doesn't run that fast on it. It runs older 16 bit stuff blazing fast, but you could do that with a fast 286.

it's good, high spec for the time (8mb ram!)

it's true regarding 32bit games though, i don't recall which game it was but i do remember one game at least had a video option called "386me" in acceptance of the lower performance.

i'd imagine the spec above though is ideal for windows 3.1 and various win16 applications of the time though