That is a system upgrade card. I'm not sure, but it should be used in a 286-class computer. It plugs into a 16-bit ISA slot and takes over. A whole mini computer is on that card. It has IDE, Floppy, Serial and Parallel cables and connectors. It has 8 72-pin SIMM slots. I think a cable is supposed to run between the empty socket on the card and to the 286 socket, otherwise the empty socket must be for a math co-processor. As I do not see any video output, it must be able to use other ISA cards on the motherboard.

It is a very nice card, but you will need something else to make it work. I would love nothing more than to stick that baby in an IBM PC AT Type 339.

I don't think you want to buy this, it needs a special "mainboard" which only has ISA slots and a power connector. Those were rare. Look for a mainboard which has all the chips and CPU and ISA slots on it (like a modern mainboard).

Oh, and for the ceramic/plastic: They can both be used, probably they switched to the PCB/plastic because it was cheaper. As long as they fit in the same socket...

I don't think you want to buy this, it needs a special "mainboard" which only has ISA slots and a power connector. Those were rare. Look for a mainboard which has all the chips and CPU and ISA slots on it (like a modern mainboard).

What would be the point of the device if it didn't come with an otherwise useless (by your description) mainboard? The device had to have come with the mainboard in a sort of "mini-system" package.

I have such a computer which has a 286 plugin card installed. If I bought that 386 card, I could upgrade that computer without unmounting the whole mainboard. (But since I have a 486 card somewhere this would be pointless 😉

Another point is that using those cards smaller (lower height than usual desktop PCs) were made. The ISA cards are alligned horizontally and only 3 of them fit in. I also have an old MFM controller which could be plugged on pinheaders on the CPU card and thus saves one of the remaining two ISA slots.

Hmm, just had a look, actually it was 4 slots that would fit, leaving 3 for expansion.

It is very difficult to find separate 386-class components, so it may be easier to get a couple of abandoned 386 boxes and build a new one from the parts. The best for this purpose are taiwanese "Yum Cha" noname components. Brand name boxes may be more robust, but usually are incompatible with everything else (there were not many hardware standards back in 1990).

CPU:
The socketed ceramic version of the 386 is the the preferred choice, because the plastic encased 386 CPUs most likely are the 386SX variant, which only has a 16bit external data bus and performs not much better than a fast 286. The best would be an AMD 386DX-40, but that one may be rare and hard to find in Australia. Next would be an Intel 386DX-33, with a bit of luck (and a heatsink) you can run it at 40MHz.

Mainboard
If you find a 386 mainboard, you'll have to check for a few things:
- Capability of running a 40MHz processor bus speed
- Onboard L2 cache (usually 32-128Kb)
- Five or more 16bit ISA slots (you will need those)
- Decent amount of SIMM sockets (4 is standard, 8 or more would be perfect)
- Exchangeable CMOS battery. Beware of "Dallas" CMOS chips, because they have a battery that cannot be replaced easily and is usually dead after 15 years.

RAM
386 mainboards usually take standard 30pin SIMM modules. On 386DX systems you will always have to fill 4 sockets (1 bank) with the same type of memory module. The most available size is 1MB per module (4MB is rare and expensive, 2MB impossible to find).
The maximum amount of memory supported on standard boards is 16MB. For a 40MHz system you will need 60ns modules. 70ns modules will run either unstable or much slower because of waitstates.

Storage controllers and I/O
The best option would be a multi-I/O IDE controller card. These can be found everywhere and feature a floppy drive controller, a IDE controller (2 channels), 2 serial ports, parallel port and sometimes a gameport. Maximum supported hard disk size is 504MB.

Video card
Get a Tseng ET4000. It's the fastest on the ISA bus and very compatible. Special "accelerator cards" may be faster in Windows 3.1, but are a real pain when running DOS games. Same goes for the infamous Trident and OAK VGA cards.

Sound card
For the best game compatibility get a SoundBlaster Pro/16. A Gravis UltraSound is also cool for games that support it.

Building a working 386 box is not easy, but is surely worth it, especially for games from the late eighties and early nineties. Good luck!

Perhaps it would be better to build a low speed 486 box instead. A 486DX@ 50MHz would be appropriate. A 486 box is much easier to build due to the greater standardization and the wider availability of motherboards and 72-pin SIMMs. Disable the internal cache, if possible, for a speed reduction.

Generally, I find it easier to build low end boxes than high end boxes. For a low end 8088 I would buy an IBM PC, for a low end 286, and IBM PC AT, a low end 386 a IBM PS/2 Model 40. For a low end 486 or better I would have to collect custom parts.

Interesting option. I have a Tseng ET6000 (12mb) video card that I intended to use for a 086 system. However it is PCI instead of VESA. I can get a later model 486 mobo that has PCI slots (with some luck and patience), but I am not sure how this would go compatibility wise with games.

Bear in mind that I also have a mobo for a P133mx with a Matrox G450 and a pair of Voodoo 2's SLI'd (Righteous Orchids with lots of RAM), although I probably need to use the Voodoo's on something faster like a 233.

I am not sure where to draw the line in terms of DOS games for an 086 system and for a pentium system.

Sound wise I have a Roland SCC-1 (General midi), and will have a LAPC (MT-32) and a high quality SB compatible card soon (Turtle Beach tropez).

Seems you've got a lot of decisions to make 😉

The thing with hardware this old is that one cannot "plan" a retro box from scratch and then get the components and build it (at least when it should be up and running soon). Some of the parts are only available by chance (congrats on finding that LAPC btw... 😎).

Why not take the next available box, install some of your components, and "upgrade" at the next opportunity? You'll soon find out which parts suit your needs and which do not.

The ET6000 may work well in a PCI 486, but maybe it would really shine on your P133 board (and you could enjoy some "VBE 2.0 only" games while looking for a 486 PCI board or a 386-40 or whatever looks promising.

Thanks for the all the feedback. Between the comments in this thread and my research on the net, I am slowly getting acquainted with issues of PC building and making dos boxes.

5u3, oddly enough the 486 system will initially look almost identical to yours as the best 486 board I could source is an Asus PVI-SP3 with the SIS 496/497 chipset (all the others I have seen are PC chips and UMC based) (yuk). Apperently the PCI performance is "poor", but I have not been able to verify how this may affect dos gaming when using a PCI video card. I will try to track down an ET4000 too.

You are right about not knowing what system will work without trying it out first. I'll put togther the asus/SiS based DX2 66 system first and see how it goes. I am a sucker for hardware and may end up doing an AMD 5x86 based system overclocked to see how it compares to the pentium 133, assuming I can find a really good 486 pci motherboard in the future.

For glide games, I notice a few doing K6 based systems running 400-450mhz. I may try a similar spec setup with the Orchid Voodoo 2's and Windows 98, and use it as my main wordprocessing and internet surfing machine. I am sick of the temperamental nature of XP on my 2Ghz notebook.

Ultimately it is the games that I and my kids will be playing that will dictate what hardware I end up using.

You mention Vesa 2.0 only games. Could you name some of these for me?

I don't know of a site that differentiates between different versions of VESA. Here's all of the VESA games identified by MobyGames: http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,11/p,2/

I suppose you could find out when VESA 2.0 was ratified and then "ASS-U-ME" that most games after that date use VESA 2.0.

If you can get a PVI-SP3 - perfect! It may not be as fast as an Intel Saturn board, but you can install _everything_ from that era. 486SX or 5x86, PCI or VESA cards, you name it 😁
Like the more modern Pentium boards, the PVI-SP3 is based on a host bridge design, so PCI performance is actually not that bad (at least for a 486 😀).

The K6 FPU is very slow compared to Intels Pentium2/3 CPUs so a K6 may not be ideal for Glide 3D games. I've chosen the K6 system because of its versatility rather than raw speed.

I mentioned VESA 2.0 games since an ET6000 is the ideal card to play them. These are games that need a linear framebuffer in video RAM for high resolution modes like 640x480. Many late DOS games fall into that category, usually they come with the UniVBE driver (which you won't really need on the ET6000).

I would avoid the K6-2 series, and especially VIA chipset motherboards such as the Apollo series - they're awful in terms of both performance and stability.

I had a system made up a few years back using an ASUS mobo and an AMD 750mhz cpu, so I'll check the exact model and see if I can use a slower cpu. It will have to be an AMD, since intel and AMD used rival socket architectures during this period. Otherwise its a whole new mobo.

You can also underclock the existing CPU (if you still have it) to achieve a lower speed, if desired..