pan069 wrote:

@JanHammer. Nice one. I assume you have a 40Mhz crystal then (probably the one near the power intake)?

Yeah, there is 40MHz oscillator next to the chipset. The one near power connector is 32MHz.

Also this board was shot when I first got it but I managed to fix it and works perfectly fine now.

pan069 wrote:

I have three 286 boards atm, one with an AMD N80L286-16/S (soldered on), another with a Siemens SAB286-16-N (soldered on). Howev […]
Show full quote

I have three 286 boards atm, one with an AMD N80L286-16/S (soldered on), another with a Siemens SAB286-16-N (soldered on). However, the 3rd board has a Harris CS 80C286-16 (image attached) which is socketed. I'm thinking of upgrading it with a higher clock speed, there is a 20Mhz Harris for sale on eBay [1], but I don't think this board supports it though.

[1] https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CS80C286-20-CPU-1 … is/311083581303

Why drop in a 20MHz 286, when you can have a 25MHz 286?

I've heard that the pinnacle of 286 is 12MHz with 0WS. Supposedly anything beyond that will be too fast for playing 286 era games.

> Why drop in a 20MHz 286, when you can have a 25MHz 286?

Love to, but I don't think my board will support it.

This might sound like heresy but if the goal is to have a super fast 286-class system, wouldn't it be considerably easier (and cheaper) to get a 386SX?

Even a 33 or 40MHz system would usually support turbo switch function, which (depending on the chipset) lowers the clock to some 14MHz. These SX mobos are usually without cache but offer good memory performance, and you can use 30-pin SIMMs instead of having to find DIPs or SIPs (or make SIPs out of SIMMs). You can emulate EMS via EMM386, the BIOS will usually have better HDD support, and then you can run the odd program or two that require a 386.

HanJammer wrote:

dr.ido wrote:

I don't think I ever really dreamed of a 286 - by the time I had a 286 I was dreaming of 486s - Before that I had a TRS-80 and was dreaming of Amigas, but if we are shooting for period correct…

Well… 286s are like a stinky cheeses - not for everybody's taste 😉
I hated my 286 when I had it (until early 1997!) and I would replace it for anything better without second thought.

Heh... I'm not hating on the 286 - I had a lot of fun with mine - I just think that for me they are stuck in a specific spot - hence 12MHz, EGA and MFM drives.

retardware wrote:

dr.ido wrote:

big 70MB+ full height MFM drive (I go for SCSI, but then I couldn't bare to use a period correct drive).

If you want a drive that matches exactly this period, why not go for a mid-late-1980s 70MB Imprimis drive?

Like this 71MB Imprimis Wren II?

Exactly - I ran these (though mine were still branded CDC) in my both my 286-12 and 386-16 back in the day. I used to buy all kinds of weird machines at the local markets and auctions to get the hard drives (I now I shudder to think of the rare machines I stripped for hard drives as a kid).

Later I went peak MFM with a pair of these Maxtor XT1140s in the 386-16... I didn't embrace IDE until I got my first 486.

HanJammer wrote:

So what would be your dream 286 build and why?

I already have the 286 dreambuild of my dreams.... It is my childhood machine, and is upgraded slightly.
I still have the original parts in the closet, if I need to bring it back to original state.
It is an Unisys PW/2 Series 300 with 640k of Ram as of now. Running at eighter 8 or 10mhz.
The clockspeed is selectable in eighter BIOS or through keyboard during POST.
It can run Monkey Island, Alley Cat, Civilization and games like that.

Parts changed:
- Swapped the EGA card for an Cirrus Logic 54xx ISA card (5400, 5420, 5422? Can't remember)
- Swapped the controller card for an Adaptec 1542 ISA.
- Swapped the 20mb Lightscribe MFM for an Conner 80mb SCSI HDD.
- Installed an Audician32 sound card. (YMF-718/719 based)
- Gave it a new battery.

The machine is mostly original, and I have the original manual and BIOS floppy disks.
It has the original keyboard and the original optical mouse too.
All pictures from the machine are HERE

For those that do not want to look at all them pictures, then the machine is this below...

dr.ido wrote:

Heh... I'm not hating on the 286 - I had a lot of fun with mine - I just think that for me they are stuck in a specific spot - hence 12MHz, EGA and MFM drives.

Matter of this thread is very subjective 😀

I see your point and I agree.
One will dream about 5170 or 5162 (that's my dream PC as well 😁 ) other about as fast 286 as possible.

I think that there is some sort of sweet spot we can agree upon however…

I owned 286 for almost 2 years between 95 and 97. It felt like eternity back then because I couldn't play all these new fancy games.
This PC was EXACTLY like this one: http://ru.pc-history.com/kt-technology-pc-286-12s.html but with 16MHz CPU.
It was late-era 286 clone - probably made in 90-91... but this is my current dream 286 as well - in this exact case, with this exact motherboard… I have similar motherboards, one of the HDDs I had in this PC and both floppies (although 3,5" Canon floppy died recently 🙁 ).

I'm pretty sure that these machines can do more than there were used for - good example is Darker game from Psygnosis that runs on 286 just fine (yeah, it was a bit slow but playable), has pretty advanced 3D graphics, digitized video sequences… it was released in 1995 so long after 286 era (not for me 🤣).

Also 386SX - well… if SX then why not DX? It's more retro after all 😉

But yeah… I do own Philips PC with 386 SX as well as some random mobo with 386SX and Headland chipset...

brostenen wrote:

I already have the 286 dreambuild of my dreams.... It is my childhood machine, and is upgraded slightly.

Wow, that's a fine piece of hardware...

I wish I still had my teenage years 286 (which was my first PC) mentioned above 🙁