286 Turbo \ VOGONS

286 Turbo

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First post, by TELEPACMAN

Posted on 2015-03-01, 00:21

TELEPACMAN Offline

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Hello everybody. Recently I got a 1990 286 with the following specs:

Siemens 286 16MHz CPU
Motherboard with Headland HT12 chipset
1991 Trident TVGA8900C 1MB

It has the turbo button that makes the cpu work at 8MHz, so I was wondering if this could be a good machine for the 80's ms-dos games.
Also it has 4 sticks of ram but it only displays 640k, so I'm confused. Please help. ( could this be? 4 sticks of 128 plus 128k onboard equals exactely 640k)

Reply 1 of 39, by i486_inside

Posted on 2015-03-01, 00:56

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What are the part numbers of the chips on the simms, and what chips are on the motherboard.

On this forum someone found a compatible ems driver if the system really does have more than 640k.
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/archi … d4c49d18ece2f1a

Reply 2 of 39, by TELEPACMAN

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:12

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Now that I took a second look, there is no onboard ram. The simms all have JMM25603S on them so I guess I have a total of 1MB ram?
The bios already as the extended memory function, it just states there is none.

Reply 3 of 39, by Caluser2000

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:12

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What is the FCC ID or model of the mobo? Also post a pic of it. Does if have SIPPs or SIMMs?

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 4 of 39, by TELEPACMAN

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:24

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The motherboard is identified like so: "286-12/16E REV. B" and it takes SIMMS.

Reply 5 of 39, by Caluser2000

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:29

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Is this close to it? http://www.uncreativelabs.de/th99/m/U-Z/30198.htm

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 6 of 39, by TELEPACMAN

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:34

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no sorry that is no the layout. plus the bios is from AMI (1211)

Last edited by TELEPACMAN on 2015-03-01, 01:37. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 7 of 39, by Caluser2000

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:35

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TELEPACMAN wrote:
Now that I took a second look, there is no onboard ram. The simms all have JMM25603S on them so I guess I have a total of 1MB ram?

Yip

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 8 of 39, by TELEPACMAN

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:38

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So... howcome only 640k appear?

I think it won't make a difference for the games of the time right?

Last edited by TELEPACMAN on 2015-03-01, 01:40. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 9 of 39, by Caluser2000

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:39

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TELEPACMAN wrote:
no sorry that is no the layout. plus the bios is from AMI (1211)

Have a gander though this log then http://www.uncreativelabs.de/th99/m/m286_i.htm

Might be something there.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 10 of 39, by TELEPACMAN

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:43

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Wow.. ok that's a lot of gandering. Will do, thanks for the help.

Reply 11 of 39, by Caluser2000

Posted on 2015-03-01, 01:47

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TELEPACMAN wrote:
So... howcome only 640k appear?

I think it won't make a difference for the games of the time right?

The majority of them will run fine. The other 360k is reserved for other uses. Also you can do some retro networking on the beast of a machine if you had a nic.

Extra ram is needed if you're running larger programs or a reasonable GUI of some sort. My first ever x86 box which was something similar, but had sipps, was give it 4megs of ram because I could. Ran GeoWorks Ensemble and later Windows 3.1 on it.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 12 of 39, by i486_inside

Posted on 2015-03-01, 02:00

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The reason that you only see 640k of ram is that you need to run the ems driver to access the memory above 640k.

Reply 13 of 39, by Caluser2000

Posted on 2015-03-01, 02:05

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i486_inside wrote:
The reason that you only see 640k of ram is that you need to run the ems driver to access the memory above 640k.

That depends entirely of the particular chip set used. Without a proper ID it's like pissing the wind.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 14 of 39, by i486_inside

Posted on 2015-03-01, 02:07

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He said it is Headland HT-12 and i linked a forum post that has the EMS driver for that chipset.

Reply 15 of 39, by Caluser2000

Posted on 2015-03-01, 02:55

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The UMB driver would be more useful.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 16 of 39, by i486_inside

Posted on 2015-03-01, 09:48

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It would be but unfortunately it seems to have been lost in time, unless some lucky sob out there has an old floppy or something that has a copy of the driver.
Although the ems driver may be useful if he has on board ram installed in addition to simms.

Reply 17 of 39, by Jolaes76

Posted on 2015-03-01, 13:23

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Actually the EMS driver is WAY more useful. Especially when running games 😀
Here is everything what you guys need: The Last Byte (2 packages), QRAM and HT12MM.

"Ita in vita ut in lusu alae pessima iactura arte corrigenda est."

Reply 18 of 39, by TELEPACMAN

Posted on 2015-03-01, 21:55

TELEPACMAN Offline

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Jolaes76 wrote:
Actually the EMS driver is WAY more useful. Especially when running games 😀
Here is everything what you guys need: The Last Byte (2 packages), QRAM and HT12MM.

yummy yummy 😀

Reply 19 of 39, by TELEPACMAN

Posted on 2015-03-05, 23:39

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I would like to upgrade the 40MB Conner CP3000 that is on the 286, how much can it handle?

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