My first PC was also a 286/16. So I wanted to have one in my collection, no matter what. About 1,5 year ago, I found a 286 PC in an add, and I bought it. It is a DFI 286/16. I've put 2,5MB ram instead of 1 it had, a 287-8 fpu, changed the vga card because it was a lot brighter than the other vgas I have, and placed an external battery holder for 2 AA batteries. I've also replaced the original conner 40MB hd it had with a 128MB CF card. It also has 2 floppies, 3.5" and 5.25".
And last, one good mod I've done. The sound card. I've kept my first sound card which is an ESS688 based one. It is very compatible, but has some other features that I found very useful. It has an internal connector for speakers. So there I've connected two pc speakers, for stereo. Then I've connected the pc speaker out from the motherboard on the sound card. That way, I can hear the pc speaker, but I can also adjust the volume from the back side of the card. It also has a jumper that enables or disables the sound card. I've attached a switch on that, so that way I can disable it on will. (In case I want to play a game that auto detects the card, and can't disable it, and I want to play it using pc speaker....). So I don't need to attach any speakers on it. It can play up to a fairly good volume, and if I want to connect any speakers, it automatically disables the internal speakers.
So for me that's my ultimate 286! And I've been very lucky to find an identical motherboard on ebay, and bought it. So I think I'm going to have it for a long time!

Go for a 12MHz 286 with 0WS memory and SIMM slots and NEAT chipset.

No doubt there are plenty of games for 286 hardware. I would want to equip a 286 with 16 color graphics. No VGA or CGA for that hardware. 😀

I am currently building a 12MHz 286, with 1MB RAM, 40MB ST251 hard drive and EGA graphics and monitor... so yeah, I figure its worthwhile, at least for the sake of a collection, or to investigate what its like working with that old gear.

Get a Commodore Amiga 500, 600 or 1200 instead (or the 1000/2000/3000/4000 if you want one that looks like an old desktop PC)... I personally think they are better than a 286 for pretty much anything, especially when it comes to gaming and audio 😉

PowerPie5000 wrote:

Get a Commodore Amiga 500, 600 or 1200 instead (or the 1000/2000/3000/4000 if you want one that looks like an old desktop PC)... I personally think they are better than a 286 for pretty much anything, especially when it comes to gaming and audio 😉

Already got a 500+ and a heavily upgraded 1200 (72MHz 060, PCI etc).

I'm trying to remember just what games I actually played on this thing when I bought it - Wolfenstein 3d and Falcon are two that come to mind. I can't remember if I actually played Wing Commander on it or not.... I think I did....

On the 286?

I played stuff like Arctic Fox, Stellar 7, Lightspeed, Silent Service 2, Space Quest 3, Marble Madness, Grand Prix Circuit. I remember an uncle gave me a bunch of games like HardBall and Striker too. That's all I can remember right now.

You could run Falcon 3 but I'd expect like 10 fps.

Wing Commander and Wolf3D are what I got for my 486 in '92.

I also "had to" play Wing Commander on a 12 MHz 286. Even it EGA, the game hat to convert all the graphics and that took ages.

It must have been a slideshow but I still finished it 😁

swaaye wrote:

On the 286? […]
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On the 286?

I played stuff like Arctic Fox, Stellar 7, Lightspeed, Silent Service 2, Space Quest 3, Marble Madness, Grand Prix Circuit. I remember an uncle gave me a bunch of games like HardBall and Striker too. That's all I can remember right now.

You could run Falcon 3 but I'd expect like 10 fps.

Wing Commander and Wolf3D are what I got for my 486 in '92.

It definitely wasn't Falcon 3 😁 I've just checked the box now (still have the game!) and it's 'Falcon AT'... it was a budget release, but (and this is a sign of the times!) the manual is still 120+ pages thick!

Wolfenstein 3d was quite playable, from what I remember - I had to wait for my 386SX-40 until I could play Doom though!.

A lot of Sierra games run really well on a 286. Especially the very old ones. Lemmings or prince of persia are other great games.

The DOS version of Elite was another game I played on a 286.

you guys forgetting something?

Commander Keen 😁

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

A lot of Sierra games run really well on a 286. Especially the very old ones. Lemmings or prince of persia are other great games.

The DOS version of Elite was another game I played on a 286.

Argh! Prince of bleedin' Persia!

That game nearly drove me insane back then with all those pixel-perfect jumps... grrrrr!

Wouldn't Stunts run on a 286 al well?

Not sure. I think most games in 3D are pushing a 286.

Apart from Elite or Test Drive 1 and 2 maybe 😜

I would think so... it had very primitive 3d graphics, and it runs well at full detail on my 386, so presumably if it you turn down the detail it should work on a 286.

Just checked mobygames and its minimum processor is a 286.

There are quite a few basic 3D games that will run on a 286. They are all of the flat shaded variety AFAIK and run at like 10 fps though. It all seemed fine at the time of course.

I've even tried some of these games on an IBM XT with CGA. Slower but you could still play.

Thanks for all the replies - I think I'm going to try and put something together around my original PC motherboard and processor 😀

The needed components seem to be fairly readily available - the only part that seems relatively expensive are ISA VGA cards (I'm going VGA as the system originally had one)... so that might take a bit longer to get.

Only thing I am now thinking about is to try and find a case that is quite compact... I just don't have the room for the typical tower case! Any more tower cases and I won't have room for my legs under the desk!!!

This might be a problem as there are plenty of nice ATX designs, but something to fit a baby AT board might be a bit more of a struggle 😁

(excuse the mess - been putting some electronic kits together today)

Tetrium wrote:

Wouldn't Stunts run on a 286 al well?

The first time I played 4D Sports Driving(that's Stunts' european name) , it was in 1992-93 on my 286. And I remember it playing fine.

I'm trying to remember the games I used to play on that. I think the most popular games of our small group of computer crazy school friends were some like : prince of persia, titus the fox, the blues brothers, lemmings, the comander keens, fire and forget 2, and the very nice bball(I think it was called "lakers vs celtics"). Of course there were much more titles, but these few come in my mind right now!

Well, I went over to my mum and dad's place this evening and took a look around the attic to find the 286 board... there's sucky news, bad news and good news:

Sucky news: CMOS battery was all furred up and a couple of copper components at the base of the battery had turned green - luckily I think I caught it soon enough and have now removed the battery and cleaned the area with acetone. It doesn't appear as though any damage has occured to the PCB.

Bad news: No docs or manual. I kinda guessed I didn't keep these, but it would have been nice to know the manufacturer, memory capacity and what the various DIL sockets are for.

Good news: Although compact, it's actually a really nice board - it has an AMI BIOS, a socket for an 80287, 4x 30pin simm sockets, 4x 16bit and 2x 8bit ISA slots. There's also a rather large Headland HT12 surface mount chip on the board - not sure what it actually is for, along with 4 empty 41256 and 8 44256 DIL sockets above the simm sockets. Only markings I can find on the board itself are "GW-286" and a part number of "EP40008R32"; there's no manufacturer that I can see.

And here it is: