Nice build 😀

Since you installed a beast of CPU I'd rather go for hybrid 386 board with VLB so the CPU wouldn't be too much held back by the VGA card.

Sphere478 wrote on 2023-07-19, 13:05:

-Built and installed sxL2 -66 adapter and cpu.

Please tell me more about this SXL-2 adapter.

You need to solder a wire to one of the CPU´s pins for the "AnyClock" unit?

kixs wrote on 2023-07-19, 15:46:

Nice build 😀

Since you installed a beast of CPU I'd rather go for hybrid 386 board with VLB so the CPU wouldn't be too much held back by the VGA card.

Eh, for the spirit of maximum upgrade, I would prefer to base the build on a motherboard limited to 386 cpus or 386-486 upgrade cpus if by hybrid you mean a 486 board only equipped with 386 socket, maybe.. kinda creator’s preference.

A stmphony chipset based board would be cool, but having isa as a limitation is kinda cool takes the build in a specific direction.

Coming up with a vl adapter would be cool, but I don’t think it would work on this board with its 16-bit bus?

majestyk wrote on 2023-07-19, 17:38:

You need to solder a wire to one of the CPU´s pins for the "AnyClock" unit?

No, that’s just where I took my ground from out of lazyness for the flt pin, I was pondering maybe adding a dip or jumper somehow with glue and find vcc5 so I can switch it.

LChackr wrote on 2023-07-19, 17:28:

Sphere478 wrote on 2023-07-19, 13:05:

-Built and installed sxL2 -66 adapter and cpu.

Please tell me more about this SXL-2 adapter.

Custom interposer module for TI486SXL2-66 PGA168 to PGA132 - HELP!

majestyk wrote on 2023-07-19, 17:38:

You need to solder a wire to one of the CPU´s pins for the "AnyClock" unit?

No. It's a crystal oscillator drop in replacement.

kixs wrote on 2023-07-19, 17:43:

No. It's a crystal oscillator drop in replacement. […]
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majestyk wrote on 2023-07-19, 17:38:

You need to solder a wire to one of the CPU´s pins for the "AnyClock" unit?

No. It's a crystal oscillator drop in replacement.

They noticed my boge wire and thought it might be required for the overclocking device. I was just using it as a convenient gnd for pulling flt pin on cpu low.

Sphere478 wrote on 2023-07-19, 17:42:

Eh, for the spirit of maximum upgrade, I would prefer to base the build on a motherboard limited to 386 cpus or 386-486 upgrade […]
Show full quote

kixs wrote on 2023-07-19, 15:46:

Nice build 😀

Since you installed a beast of CPU I'd rather go for hybrid 386 board with VLB so the CPU wouldn't be too much held back by the VGA card.

Eh, for the spirit of maximum upgrade, I would prefer to base the build on a motherboard limited to 386 cpus or 386-486 upgrade cpus if by hybrid you mean a 486 board only equipped with 386 socket, maybe.. kinda creator’s preference.

A stmphony chipset based board would be cool, but having isa as a limitation is kinda cool takes the build in a specific direction.

Coming up with a vl adapter would be cool, but I don’t think it would work on this board with its 16-bit bus?

Panda 386V is PGA132 only and with VLB.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ecs-panda-386v

kixs wrote on 2023-07-19, 19:16:

Sphere478 wrote on 2023-07-19, 17:42:

Eh, for the spirit of maximum upgrade, I would prefer to base the build on a motherboard limited to 386 cpus or 386-486 upgrade […]
Show full quote

kixs wrote on 2023-07-19, 15:46:

Nice build 😀

Since you installed a beast of CPU I'd rather go for hybrid 386 board with VLB so the CPU wouldn't be too much held back by the VGA card.

Eh, for the spirit of maximum upgrade, I would prefer to base the build on a motherboard limited to 386 cpus or 386-486 upgrade cpus if by hybrid you mean a 486 board only equipped with 386 socket, maybe.. kinda creator’s preference.

A stmphony chipset based board would be cool, but having isa as a limitation is kinda cool takes the build in a specific direction.

Coming up with a vl adapter would be cool, but I don’t think it would work on this board with its 16-bit bus?

Panda 386V is PGA132 only and with VLB.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ecs-panda-386v

That’s pretty darned cool :p
By looks of memory configuration in manual, it is running a 32-bit system bus. Which makes sense, I take it as you suggest, that is basically a 486 mobo and chipset with a 386 socket?

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/80386/

I see here that apparently some 386 cpus supported 32-bit bus.

I wonder if that board will work with 16-bit only bus cpus? 🤔 seems possible? Seems only 486 upgrade and 386 dx cpus are listed as compatible in manual.

I'm not sure if I follow you... 386DX and other CPUs on PGA132 always had 32-bit bus.

kixs wrote on 2023-07-19, 23:01:

I'm not sure if I follow you... 386DX and other CPUs on PGA132 always had 32-bit bus.

Indeed, I didn’t expect it changed :p haha

I recalled some had 16-bit system bus, but was rusty on wether it was all 386 or just some. Had to look it up is all.

I was noting that that mobo only listed late and high end processors as compatible, I was wondering if it was incompatible with 16-bit bus cpus.

386sx was the 16bit bus version, it's much smaller and usually qfp package. I have a board with one on that I upgraded by soldering in a Ti 486 upgrade chip. ☺️

Sphere478 wrote on 2023-07-19, 17:42:

Custom interposer module for TI486SXL2-66 PGA168 to PGA132 - HELP!

Oh! I remember this thread from years ago. Amazing. I want one. 🙂

I finished assembling the computer this evening.

-Installed 1222mb drive in 5 1/4” bay along with a scsi cd rom drive.

-Installed gotek,

-Installed windows 95.

-Got after dark installed, and calling it a night with mountains rendering in the background.

Next I gotta get some file’s transferred.

How can I tell if that isa networking card is tolken ring or ethernet? If I recall, being rj-45 isn’t enough to mean anything.

Can you post a picture of the card? Is there any name or model number on the card itself?

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2023-07-20, 11:45:

Can you post a picture of the card? Is there any name or model number on the card itself?

Looks like this

It's a indeed a Ethernet card, no need to worry about it being Token ring.

If you're wondering about the Dsub port on it, that's for a 10BASE-5 AUI transceiver dongle (I cannot for the life of me remember what they were called)

Thanks 😀

I’m thinking of ordering a dvd drive for this unit. I wanna make it scsi, just because it’s different.

I think I see they have dvd-r drives for scsi also.

Transfering files the way I usually do has been difficult on these systems the older I build them haha.

For some reason the ide cd drive I tried didn’t read cd rw or cd r so that method is out.

I tried booting fron xt-ide as a transfer method but that didn’t work, didn’t see the scsi drives.

Also tried installing a ide then the system tried to boot from it, which was a problem, and using a ide to cf adapter froze the system. Lol

I can try networking, maybe it is time I get a scsi zip drive.

All assembled. I left the 5-1/4” data cable disconnected. I don’t have any disks for it anyway. It’s just for looks

Sphere478 wrote on 2023-07-20, 15:11:

Transfering files the way I usually do has been difficult on these systems the older I build them haha.

If you have an FTP server set up then MTCP package will help you out. You'll also need a DOS packet driver for that 3Com card - preferably load it in a separate DOS config since it'll be otherwise unused and only take up RAM.
Transfer rates can vary, depending on how smart the TCP/IP implementation on the FTP server is, since DOS machines are slow and send/receive pretty much one packet at a time. Modern TCP stacks can buffer tons of data so the idea is to send as fast and as much as they can - this tends to overload DOS machine and it keeps dropping packets and have to wait for retry. But it works well enough to be usable even on 286 systems.

Other than that - floppies. Win10 still supports USB floppy drives (only 1.4M ones exist though). The problem is not all USB floppy drives are equal, some have really lousy chipsets or are _very_ late production when the quality of the mechanical parts went down the drain. Even for good manufacturers like TEAC.

There are also some more exotic options like parallel port cables or null-modems and DOS drivers that can link 2 machines, but that's DOS to DOS, hardly much of an improvement, but if there's nothing else... Oh, and XTIDE has some virtual HDD over serial port support - but I've never used it.