VOGONS


First post, by r00tb33r

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

https://www.ebay.com/itm/134134056694

s-l1600.jpg

Is that a discrete chipset?

Anybody know this board? Info?

If it is, that's really cool. I'd want schematics to build a hobby clone.

Reply 1 of 3, by Jo22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Yes, I think so. Intel produced companion/support chips specially for the 80386 processor.
Similar to how it made them for the 8080 processor.

However, they're not especially designed to make an IBM PC/AT compatible PC in particular, even though they can be used for this purpose.

The 80386 rather was a "mainframe on a chip" and not designed as a PC processor.
Compaq was the company who made an AT PC on a 386 basis.

Which IBM didn't like, by the way.
Because, at the time (mid 80s), the PC/MS-DOS platform was seen as a dead end.

Processors like the Motorola 68000 or some RISC designs were seen as the future.

OS/2 also was beeing hyped, still, even though it was stil in its infancy.
Things like "family API" were made to ensure backwards compatibility with deprecated MS-DOS..

I know, this sounds strange, but in the mid/late 1980s,
MS-DOS was already was seen as obsolete before DOS 4/5/6 even existed.

In the early 1990s, such a mindset was unthinkable. Windows 3.0/DOS 5 were almost everywhere.

Edit: The othet ceramic chip might be an i82385 cache controller, not sure.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//