Pentium Baron wrote on 2022-07-12, 04:59:

I toyed with an idea of building a 286, but then.. PC really came to shine as gaming platform from around 1992 when 286 was obsolete. And pre 90s games were almost always developed for other platforms (with better graphics/sound) and then ported to DOS. An AMIGA 500 or 1200 will be a much better system for such games.

there were lots of great games on the amiga etc its true

there are various commander keen era games that run fine on 286 as well

beyond games there are lots of applications and programming tools that can be used for fun and learning - but that can all be done on a 386 or later too, plus more

Pentium Baron wrote on 2022-07-12, 04:59:

I toyed with an idea of building a 286, but then.. PC really came to shine as gaming platform from around 1992 when 286 was obsolete. And pre 90s games were almost always developed for other platforms (with better graphics/sound) and then ported to DOS. An AMIGA 500 or 1200 will be a much better system for such games.

Many misconceptions in this post.
1) Plenty of games were originally released for DOS and then ported to Amiga.
2) Plenty of 286 games look/sound better than on Amiga or at least exactly the same - Retaliator (has better graphics, runs smoother on 16 or 20MHz 286), Another World (same), Prince of Persia (better on PC) and so on.
3) Some 286 games were never available for Amiga (Wolfenstein 3D and so on).
4) Amiga 1200 is not good platform for pre-90 Amiga games. It's quite horrible. You will be much better off with 500 and 1.3 kickstart (Amiga compatibility issues at it's finest).
5) PC as a gaming platform started to shine around 1987/88. Many great titles were released then.

If you have limited space than you can safely get 486 66MHz PC anyway. But I like 286 for their simplicity and limitations (my main vintage rig is 286 20Mhz machine).

noshutdown wrote on 2019-04-10, 14:23:

what can i run on this with 4mb of ram? more than those that can run with 640kb on a 8088.
is support for ems-emulation important if i am looking for another 20mhz-capable board?
is installing a 287 fpu helpful?

Just visit „vetusware” site and see, how many programs one can use on the modest 286... still useful today! It's not just about gaming, gaming, gaming...

Pentium Baron wrote on 2022-07-12, 04:59:

I toyed with an idea of building a 286, but then.. PC really came to shine as gaming platform from around 1992 when 286 was obsolete. And pre 90s games were almost always developed for other platforms (with better graphics/sound) and then ported to DOS. An AMIGA 500 or 1200 will be a much better system for such games.

Personally, I think it was 1993 onwards that the 286 PC was obsolete. 😉
1992 was the last and final hooray! for the 16-Bit world, I think.
Windows 3.1 came out, and many Windows applications/games ran in Standard-Mode, still.
After this year, many DOS4GW extender games came along and required a 386 or higher.
The 32-Bit OS/2 2.x also was on the rise at the time.
In 1994, 'beta' testing for Windows 95 started and Win32c applications were seen more often.
Things like WinG and Win32s began to require 386 Enhanced-Mode.
Commercial games like Creatures! or 16-Bit QuickTime titles really cried for quick 386 machines.
The shareware scene was still active and assumed VGA/SoundBlaster, DOS5 and 386 PCs (though 286 PCs were still compatible, albeit being seen as "slow"and low-end).
When 1995 was near, next-gen consoles were praised as successors to the aging 16-Bit veterans SNES/MegaDrive/TGFX16..

Speaking under correction, of course.
The official and inofficial story isn't always the same.
At home, many users likely kept using their 286-586 PCs up to the turn of the millennium.

noshutdown wrote on 2019-04-10, 14:23:

now back to my puzzles: what can i run on this with 4mb of ram? more than those that can run with 640kb on a 8088. is support fo […]
Show full quote

now back to my puzzles:
what can i run on this with 4mb of ram? more than those that can run with 640kb on a 8088.
is support for ems-emulation important if i am looking for another 20mhz-capable board?
is installing a 287 fpu helpful?

The main advantage of a 286 system is that it can run many older DOS games that lack proper timing calibration without the need for slowdown utilities, which are often required on a 486. Some game routines rely on tight software loops for timing, and on faster processors like the 486 these loops execute so quickly that TSR-based slowdown tools cannot accurately regulate performance. As a result, the game either runs excessively slow or still too fast, depending on the configuration.

Titles such as Oil Imperium (Black Gold in the USA, 1989) and Wing Commander 1 (1990) perform with more consistent and intended timing on a 286, making that platform an ideal match for early DOS gaming. Later PC games began using hardware timers and standardized APIs for time measurement, eliminating these timing issues on faster CPUs.

For this reason, never overclock your 286. 16 MHz is fully sufficient, and going faster would negate the advantage entirely.

However, you should definitely install a VGA ISA graphics card and a Sound Blaster 2.0 sound card. Games like Wing Commander 1 will benefit significantly from these upgrades. VGA is backward compatible with EGA and CGA, so aside from a single color difference in CGA mode, there are no significant drawbacks. Additionally, VGA offers much better monitor support. For example, you can easily connect TFT displays with VGA inputs.

Exploit wrote on 2026-01-15, 23:31:

For this reason, never overclock your 286. 16 MHz is fully sufficient, and going faster would negate the advantage entirely.

No. This is just simply bad reasoning and the clock speed you're listing is completely arbitrary.

Achieving 25Mhz 0WS is difficult to do on a 286 as it requires both a mobo chipset and RAM that is capable of running at that speed, this is very well documented elsewhere on here. I had a Headland HT12 mobo running at that speed have a RAM chip literally explode and kill the rest of the mobo (thankfully the cards in ISA slots were not affected) because I was running it like that almost daily for a year and a half. Hitting 20Mhz 0WS is easy with late mobos and should be relatively safe.

I used one to design loud speaker and electronic schematics back in the days 😀
It took several second to calculate and slowly draw frequency response of enclosures.
Quite fascinating in fact.
Much more than an instant curve with modern computers. Here "modern" means a Pentium MMX 😀

DEAT wrote on 2026-01-16, 23:51:

No. This is just simply bad reasoning and the clock speed you're listing is completely arbitrary.

Achieving 25Mhz 0WS is difficult to do on a 286 as it requires both a mobo chipset and RAM that is capable of running at that speed, this is very well documented elsewhere on here. I had a Headland HT12 mobo running at that speed have a RAM chip literally explode and kill the rest of the mobo (thankfully the cards in ISA slots were not affected) because I was running it like that almost daily for a year and a half. Hitting 20Mhz 0WS is easy with late mobos and should be relatively safe.

You completely missed the point. If speed is important to you, just buy a faster computer. This is about game timing. A game that is critical here simply runs unplayably fast at 20 MHz.

Exploit wrote on 2026-05-18, 04:50:

You completely missed the point.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/30956/bram-sto … 92/cover-12276/

Your reasoning for never!!!!! going above 16Mhz is completely arbitrary.

If speed is important to you, just buy a faster computer.

Idiotic argument - I should never use a 25Mhz Harris 286? What's next, I should never use a 386DX-40 or an AMD 5x86 because Intel never produced equivalent speeds?

DEAT wrote on 2026-05-18, 07:57:

https://www.mobygames.com/game/30956/bram-sto … 92/cover-12276/ […]
Show full quote

Exploit wrote on 2026-05-18, 04:50:

You completely missed the point.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/30956/bram-sto … 92/cover-12276/

Your reasoning for never!!!!! going above 16Mhz is completely arbitrary.

If speed is important to you, just buy a faster computer.

Idiotic argument - I should never use a 25Mhz Harris 286? What's next, I should never use a 386DX-40 or an AMD 5x86 because Intel never produced equivalent speeds?

Yes, many games and software benefit from 25mhz harris

I have a 25mhz 286, HT21 chipset, 4mb of ram, and really see a big difference from my old 16mhz 286, specially games that work with emu386, like megarace, american lasergames games, etc List of 386 games that run (good) on 286 with emu386

Not only games, for example, modules player work better, windows 3.1 too, etc etc

My harris without turbo is like a 12mhz 286, but never use, really, for sensitive speed stuff from XT era, a 16 or 25mhz 286 will be too fast anyway, and software solution is a must

My first PC was a 286 - Epson EL2 with its unique RAM sticks, total of 4MB. At first there was a 20MB drive, this was replaced with a 40MB drive with Doublespace enabled to give about 60MB.

Of course it had Windows 3.1 with lots of those little games and entertainment packs that were once so common.

In DOS, I played Wolfenstein-3D / Spear of Destiny a lot, quite a revolutionary game in the day. Most of my DOS collection was first played on this machine.

Unfortunately when I upgraded, the 286 was scrapped and thrown away. I wish I had kept it, as I would have liked to find out if it was networkable. Still have the RAM stored away though.

Exploit wrote on 2026-01-15, 23:31:

The main advantage of a 286 system is that it can run many older DOS games that lack proper timing calibration without the need […]
Show full quote

noshutdown wrote on 2019-04-10, 14:23:

now back to my puzzles: what can i run on this with 4mb of ram? more than those that can run with 640kb on a 8088. is support fo […]
Show full quote

now back to my puzzles:
what can i run on this with 4mb of ram? more than those that can run with 640kb on a 8088.
is support for ems-emulation important if i am looking for another 20mhz-capable board?
is installing a 287 fpu helpful?

The main advantage of a 286 system is that it can run many older DOS games that lack proper timing calibration without the need for slowdown utilities, which are often required on a 486. Some game routines rely on tight software loops for timing, and on faster processors like the 486 these loops execute so quickly that TSR-based slowdown tools cannot accurately regulate performance. As a result, the game either runs excessively slow or still too fast, depending on the configuration.

Titles such as Oil Imperium (Black Gold in the USA, 1989) and Wing Commander 1 (1990) perform with more consistent and intended timing on a 286, making that platform an ideal match for early DOS gaming. Later PC games began using hardware timers and standardized APIs for time measurement, eliminating these timing issues on faster CPUs.

For this reason, never overclock your 286. 16 MHz is fully sufficient, and going faster would negate the advantage entirely.

However, you should definitely install a VGA ISA graphics card and a Sound Blaster 2.0 sound card. Games like Wing Commander 1 will benefit significantly from these upgrades. VGA is backward compatible with EGA and CGA, so aside from a single color difference in CGA mode, there are no significant drawbacks. Additionally, VGA offers much better monitor support. For example, you can easily connect TFT displays with VGA inputs.

IIRC Wing Commander benefits from EMS... and EMS can be a pain to set up on a 286. IMO the sweet spot for a nice WC1 experience is a 386DX33, but results will vary according to the speed of the VGA card.

DEAT wrote on 2026-05-18, 07:57:

https://www.mobygames.com/game/30956/bram-sto … 92/cover-12276/ […]
Show full quote

Exploit wrote on 2026-05-18, 04:50:

You completely missed the point.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/30956/bram-sto … 92/cover-12276/

Your reasoning for never!!!!! going above 16Mhz is completely arbitrary.

If speed is important to you, just buy a faster computer.

Idiotic argument - I should never use a 25Mhz Harris 286? What's next, I should never use a 386DX-40 or an AMD 5x86 because Intel never produced equivalent speeds?

You don't seem to get it. Overclocking your 286 makes it useless for these timing-sensitive games because they'll just run way too fast. That's why you keep the 286 at its standard clock speeds of <= 16 MHz and leave the performance crown to the faster CPUs of that era for games where this isn't a problem.

But ultimately, I don't care if you mess up your 286 while the 486 is sitting right next to it for games where a higher clock speed isn't an issue. Do whatever you want, my statement remains correct.

My first PC was a 286. I think HDD was 20Mb. I used it to learn programming on.

The games I played were Prince of Persia, SimCity 1, Duke Nukem 1 and 2, Wolfenstein 3D, Lemmings.

I did run Windows on it. Version 3.1 I think. But I recall it being very slow.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-05-19, 05:18:

I did run Windows on it. Version 3.1 I think. But I recall it being very slow.

Hi, yes, I second that. Saw 286 PCs crawl, too.
Can depend on many factors, though, I think.

- slow HDD (XT era, inefficient interleave factor etc)
- slow VGA card/drivers
- slow RAM (80, 100, 120 ns) or extra wait states
- 2 MB of RAM or less

The 80286 CPU itself is rather fine, I think. 10 MHz and up.
Using a HDD cache also helps with slow HDDs (SmartDrive)..

RAM size is also a factor, of course. Before Windows 3.x, 286 PCs didn't have much Extended RAM, because there wasn't much software using it.

OS/2 was the exception, normal DOS software wanted EMS - which often meant hardware EMS (EMS boards, chipset support).

Software LIMulators existed, too, but were slow.
For non-386 PCs there were Above Disk, Turbo EMS or VMS40.
They supported swap file, too, I think. And some had Windows 2.x support, even.
EMM286 was late and very limited in terms of compatibility, I think.

The problem with RAM expansion is, that Windows 3.x desperately needs it especially on a 286 PC in Standard Mode.
Because there's no virtual memory to compensate for physical memory (OS/2 1.3 had virtual memory on a 286).

Running larger commercial applications such as MS Works or Excel/WinWord thus ran quickly out of memory.
Which is a bit ironic, I think, because same kind of applications did previously run on Windows 2.x with a LIMulator and a swap file.

In retrospect, I often wonder how many users found RAM to be too precious for spending it on an older 80286 PC when 386/486 PCs were current.
In that context I think it's no wonder if only few 286 PCs ever saw more than a single Megabyte of motherboard memory (4x 1 MB SIMMs often were supported by motherboards).

Edit: Windows 3.1 automatically chooses Standard Mode on a 386+ if the RAM is low.
Overriding is possible with WIN /3, though.
So Standard Mode by itself is more lightweight/quicker, apparently.

That doesn't help that much, however, if applications run out of memory in Standard Mode.
So physical memory expansion makes sense to Windows 3.x no matter the processor or kernal.

Memory fragmentation is also a factor. Windows 3 wants contiguous memory to work with.
If Windows must do a lot of shoveling around in RAM, it slows down and becomes erratic.
That's why having 3 or 4 MB of RAM made quite a difference back then.

It's comparable to running Defrag on a HDD that's almost full vs half full.
If there's lots of free space, memory can be organized smoother.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/30956/bram-sto … 92/cover-12276/

Reminds me of this classic game, wants a 20 MHz 80286, too. 😀
https://www.mobygames.com/game/3404/cobra-mis … 964/cover-5388/

Edit: About 286 clock speeds, I wished I had a 20 or 25 MHz model! 😁
My fastest 80286 PC has 16 MHz and it has better overall performance than some 386 PCs I had seen back in the day.

I think it's because the bottlenecks are gone. Having 60ns RAM at 0 wait states and a quick VGA card makes a difference.
Raising the ISA bus beyond 8 MHz also helps. Provided that no noise or instability is added.

I've observed same effect on my Schneider Tower AT, by the way.
It runs at cozy 10 MHz, but the CMOS Setup allows running bus and CPU at same speed.
The result is a PC that's very quick and smooth. Way faster than the 12 Mhz PC I had in the 90s.

Edit: I think a high-end 286 PC/AT can be as fascinating as a Turbo XT.
They're both pure 16-Bit architectures, still. No v86, 32-Bit registers and RISC yet.
- Okay, the XT platform often is 8-Bit from a motherboard perspective, but there also were 8086 based XT class systems (PC1512, IBM PS/2 Model 30 8086, Olivetti M24 etc).
They had either full 16-Bit i/o or their RAM was connected via 16-Bit, at least.

There might have been a human factor in the perceived slowness of 286 machines encountered back in the day...

For instance, this one PC lab that I had regular access to in the early 90s, was ruled over by this crusty old dinosaur who insisted that the turbo button overclocked the CPUs and would blow them up... so you got kicked out if he caught you with the turbo on. So yay, you can use these 286 PCs but only in cripple mode because of that one time 5 years ago this guy had a timing sensitive application crash on him. This was not a totally uncommon belief at the time, turbo = bad, with the minor justification of compatibility for older software. Also with shared PCs you had the chance that the person who used it previously had actually needed the deturbo for compatibility and forgot to switch it back again.

However, by the time more 486 were encountered in the wild, this nonsense faded away. But I think it could have been fairly general through business and academia that in the 85ish to 90 period there were 286 machines that had replaced original PCs or XTs where it was forbidden by sysadmin to run them at full speed, due to legacy software, though I don't know if they all were saying that turbo would actually damage the hardware. These had all been multi thousand dollar machines in recent memory though, so the mere hint of a suggestion that a mistake could get super expensive was probably enough to keep the users in line.

Anyway, I think it was far more likely that a 286 machine would be encountered in deturbo cripple mode, than later generations, due to that period in which it existed, transitional from timing sensitive software to more timing independent (Which we know, some of which was only timing independent in a range before things might be too fast for it again)

If you were a half-savvy software dev in 85-90ish you were aware that the installed user base of PC/XT class was large, and that turbo XTs and 286 existed... so you wrote stuff that was okay to use on 4.77Mhz, not too frustratingly slow, and didn't crash at 6 - 16 Mhz.. and didn't require new opcodes or features in the 286, if it was a volume product and not a niche high performance thing. So it's possible that everyday stuff got done on 286s without the users realising they could do it faster in turbo, because it was written to be adequate on PC/XT.

Thus it could be said that 286 didn't really have an era to itself, it was just trying to fit in with what came before, just kinda Venn diagrammed with the rest of the 16bit era, in that 8086/V20/V30 chips at high clocks had an overlapping performance envelope. So "treating it like an XT" is basically what happened to it, except maybe a flash in the pan around 90-91.

+1

I think it's a bit unfair how in history the 80286 went under the radar, so to speak.
Because in practice, it just worked and got the job done, quietly.
It was the kind of piece of equipment that had never stood out but kept things going, without demanding for attention.

It also needed no fancy cooling or fans, no special power supply.
The CMOS versions drew little power, too.
In a time when NMOS versions of 808x were still the norm (there was one maker of an CMOS 8086/8086 ?).

When I think about it, things like CPU accelerators, later Tandy 1000 PCs or OS/2 1.x come to my mind.
Xenix also had a 286 and 386 version, I think.

The 80286 was used behind the curtain to make things possible that the 8088/8086 weren't up to.
It allowed 8087 emulation in software for example, which the 808x or NECs couldn't do.

So users of a PC/AT or XT+286 accelerator could run scientific or financial software before buying an mathematic co-processor.
That was like a bonus feature that came for free with the improved performance, basically.

Due to the limits of the 80286, mainboards got their smart chips (-> NEAT).
Suddenly, the motherboards featured shadow memory and a dedicated MMU (-> EMS bank-switching logic).

Which in retrospect was much cleaner approach than using CEMM and V86.
Hardware EMS was fully compatible with Real-Mode software and worked in any processor state.

So even in 16-Bit Protected Mode as used by OS/2 (I read there were a few software solutions to get EMS to work in DOS pealty box of OS/2 1.2 or 1.3).

Hardware EMS also didn't have the overhead associated to V86 (386 and early 486 were slowed down by V86; VME later solved the issue).

Of course, Windows was sort of an exception here.
While Windows 1.x was developed on a Tandy 2000 (80186) with an IBM PC 5150/5160 with EGA graphics in mind (though GUI elements still being 640x200/CGA friendly),
Windows 2.x stepped quite up a bit and did target the 386 from the start.

Windows/386 was the full version, with its own VM/EMS manager.
So it made sense that Windows 2.x applications were tested/written with its capabilities in mind the foremost.

Sure, the retail release of Windows 2.03 was best known,
it was sold to attract the masses of PC and AT users, but it did little to Windows applications.:
Multitasking DOS applications barely worked due to memory limits,
rendering it into a runtime for Windows applications and a small collection of useful desktop utilities (calculator, paint program, word processor, card file, terminal).
The equivalent of a cut-down version of the later to be released GeoWorks Ensemble 1.x, basically.

To get Windows 2.x to work seriously, an optional, LIM4 software compatible memory expansion was needed.
Such as the EMS provided by 80286 chipsets. Or an AST Rampage AT/286.
(Or any PC with a quick Fixed-Disk to hold an EMS swap file.)

Edit: Of course, plain Windows 2.x could also make use of emulated EMS provided by CEMM or EMM386 (MemMaker!) on 386+ PCs (just remember to load SETVER on modern DOSes to avoid crashing win.com).

That was sufficient to have WinWord, Excel or Page Maker and other EMS aware applications have enough working RAM.
With such an configuration, Windows 2.x was almost on eye-level to Windows/386 on, say, a Compaq Deskpro 386.

Windows/286.. It basically was same as Windows and Windows/386,
except that it could use the HMA of a PC/AT in a similar way that was used by DR-DOS 5 later on.
Thus, there's a conflict if both Windows/286 and MS-DOS 5/6 try to use HMA (DOS=HIGH).

(All versions of 2.x could still run on an 8086 CPU by running win86.com executable;
Windows/386 perhaps needed different graphics drivers than plain Windows 2.x because of the grabbers and the V86 VM manager.)

Long story short, Windows 3.x made better use of the 80286 capabilities,
such as Protected-Mode, various x86 memory models for executables (small, medium, large etc) and also Extended Memory.
By comparison, Windows 2.x did use the 80286 based PC/AT more like a Turbo XT with EMS.

That's interesting, because the hardware support of Windows 2/3 was basically reversed.
a) 80386 PC such as Deskpro 386 (most important)
b) PC/XTs with upgrades. EMS, CPU accelerators such as Mach 10, Mach 20, Tiny Turbo 286 (second important)
c) PC/ATs (least important)

This was quite different to Windows 1.x which was made for fast 8086 and 80186 PCs. All being XT class, basically.
Say, Olivetti M24 (AT&T 6300) or Tandy 2000 or Siemens PC-D.

Windows 3.0 also focused on better XT compatibility (Real-Mode kernal was enhanced to be a client for EMS LIM4, ideally with 256KB page frame).
The Standard-Mode for 80286 and 16-Bit Protected-Mode was youngest addition, while the 386 Enhanced Mode was the star of the show.

Early on, 32-Bit Extenders like Watcoms WIN386 offered a 32-Bit Windows API on top of Win16 API.
Windows 3.0 applications compiled with WIN386 extender fully took advantage of Windows 3.x in 386 Enhanced Mode (still worked on Win 9x).

Edit: Sorry for the long monologue here. Today's not my best day, I have trouble wording things. Hope you don't mind. 😅

PS: Here's a curiosity. An 286 based accelerator from former East Germany, BK600.
No one really knows what it's really good for, apparently.
https://www.robotrontechnik.de/html/forum/thw … ?threadid=13351

Then, in USSR, there were attempts to clone the 80286 functionality using discreet parts. Very interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYT0shUtqhY

In former East Germany, torwards near its end, the U80601 was a succesfully made 80286 compatible CPU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U80601

Last but not least, PC-MOS/386 and other OSes supported third-party MMUs made for 80286 systems.
Such as the ALL Chargecard. Very fascinating piece of technology!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgMIbo6QoM4

PS: Oh, and then there's a fine little detail that the 80286 had but that the old 8086/8088 hadn't. String operations.
The 80286 could do INS/OUTS, which could accelerate applications and i/o routines a lot!
The NEC V20/V30 supported that, too. And likely the 8018x, as well.

I think it's a bit unfair how in history the 80286 went under the radar, so to speak.

I think it is one of the most fascinating CPUs (PC-platforms) ever. It was released in 1982 (i.e. the same year as the C64) and it was around for the introduction of EGA, VGA but for the longest time it run parallel and in the shadow of a large number of "home" computers.
And beside the enthusiastic adoption by Sierra it largly represents the PC side of 80s gaming (often with their, nowedays charming, highly inferior versions). But it had a brief moment at the beginning of the 90s when it bebecame clear that there was still a lot of steam in the platform. Of course 386 and 486 were around by then, but especially as a "home computer" they were extremely expensive at introduction. So in a certain way a 286 is the period correct platform for anything between 1985 and 1992 - quite a long time.

286 became obsolete much earlier than 386, like by 1993. I upgraded my 386DX40 with 8MB RAM and used it until 1998 when it was upgraded to Pentium MMX. Windows 95 wasn't initially useful and most games ran in DOS. For 386, games released from 1994 started to hurt as they used DOS4GW and required often at least 4MB RAM. For a 286 it was game over, 386 could be upgraded with memory but ran sluggish. 386 got killed by games starting to be really demanding and requiring a math coprocessor/486 instructions in 1995. It still could be used for programming, including protected mode which was an advantage.

I got 386SX33 in 1995, which was basically a fast 286 with 386 instructions. People were getting rid of them as they were already obsolete and basically useless for commercial usage. It had to be upgraded to 386DX40 with 4MB RAM like after a year as it was too slow for games my friends played. 386DX40 despite being also obsolete was usable with patience.

Buying an expensive computer in 1995 was hard to justify, very few people had them here and they were only playing games on them. By 1998, with release of Windows 98 it became clear a bigger investment was needed. I had a few friends who got 486DX2/66, AM5x86 133, Pentium 90, Pentium 120 at the time I had 386DX40. They lashed out a lot of money on them. I got a much better system in 1998 and kept upgrading it every year part by part, selling old parts, while those friends still used those 486/Pentium.

Lifespan of computers was maybe 3 years back then and they weren't cheap.

If I had a 286/386 now I would probably offer it for sale to someone who appreciates them more than I do.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-05-23, 08:26:

286 became obsolete much earlier than 386, like by 1993. I upgraded my 386DX40 with 8MB RAM and used it until 1998 when it was upgraded to Pentium MMX. Windows 95 wasn't initially useful and most games ran in DOS. For 386, games released from 1994 started to hurt as they used DOS4GW and required often at least 4MB RAM. For a 286 it was game over, 386 could be upgraded with memory but ran sluggish. 386 got killed by games starting to be really demanding and requiring a math coprocessor/486 instructions in 1995. It still could be used for programming, including protected mode which was an advantage.

I do respect that statement and I think that's how many users saw it, too.
By 1993, 32-Bit software was on the rise.

By that time, a 286 was historical but still usable, though, I think.
Simply beccause I had used one at that time and went along with it. 😉

From my own experience, I can merely say that a 12 MHz 80286 PC with..

4 MB of RAM,
80 MB Conner IDE,
a PAS16 soundcard with SCSI CD-ROM drive,
a Creatix modem,
an HP Laserjet printer and a handy scanner

.. was my main PC throughout the 90s until 2000.

At the time, I wasn't much into commercial software but rather kept buying shareware CDs and magazines.

And most normal/ordinary DOS games and applications that I tried ran in Real-Mode and were happy with VGA and Sound Blaster.
Edit: The games using DOS4GW of course didn't run on 286 PCs anymore, as stated before.

On Windows 3.1x, most software was using normal Win16 executables that ran in Standard-Mode of Windows, too.
Edit: Database and CAD software already was on its way to 32-Bit for years, however.

That included multimedia software, too, except for demanding things like latest QuickTime, Video for Windows and XING MPEG Player.
(Autodesk's WinFLI Player and early versions of Video for Windows and QuockTime still ran on 80286.)

However, I noticed thatbmost 90s web browsers were Win32 or used 32-Bit code (IE, Netscape, Mosaic etc) and didn't run on a 286.
However, CompuServe WinCIM, AOL or T-Online software 1.x ran as normal Win16 applications and were 286 compatible.

So by 1996 or 1997, many ordinary Windows applications being programmed still were plain 16-Bit/Win16 and were Standard-Mode compatible.
That's why I was able to run them, after all.

Some applications were Windows 95 aware, though and offered extra features on Windows 95 only.
The switch torwards Win32 came with Windows 98, I think.

The website mentioned in an older post of mine has more details (I've quoted some lines).:
Re: Pentium 75 - Windows 95 or 3.1?

AlexZ wrote on 2026-05-23, 08:26:

I got 386SX33 in 1995, which was basically a fast 286 with 386 instructions. People were getting rid of them as they were already obsolete and basically useless for commercial usage. It had to be upgraded to 386DX40 with 4MB RAM like after a year as it was too slow for games my friends played. 386DX40 despite being also obsolete was usable with patience.

My father had a 386DX-40 PC with 16 MB RAM at the time, because of Windows 95 (original release).
He was as programmer and used it as a development/business PC, though. Not for gaming.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-05-23, 08:26:

Buying an expensive computer in 1995 was hard to justify, very few people had them here and they were only playing games on them. By 1998, with release of Windows 98 it became clear a bigger investment was needed. I had a few friends who got 486DX2/66, AM5x86 133, Pentium 90, Pentium 120 at the time I had 386DX40. They lashed out a lot of money on them. I got a much better system in 1998 and kept upgrading it every year part by part, selling old parts, while those friends still used those 486/Pentium.

Hi, yes, PCs were difficult to afford to some at the time.
I think here it must be differenciated between professional users and private users, though.
Because professional users couldn't afford having an underpowered PC. 😉
Sounds a bit provocative, I know. But it's not untrue if we think about it, I think.
PCs who were involved into earning money or used in critical applications had to be up to their tasks.

By comparison, my venerable 286 PC was my private PC that only had to meet my personal requirements.
It was in the position of something like a typewriter, basically.

Here's a video by a guy who got an Olivetti M24 in 1994 for christmas.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SJRZEtByY40

The PC was outdated by 10 years at that time,
but a not so small number of DOS software was very forgiving in the 90s, still.

Despite EGA/VGA being the norm by 1990,
some authors still supported CGA as a fallback in their games or had dedicated CGA versions.

Games like Jill of Jungle or Commander Keen IV come to my mind.

So to to some extent it was possible to use new software on a Turbo XT system in 1993/1994, still. Especially with a NEC CPU upgrade.

Because a NEC V20/V30 had offered 80286 instruction set (minus Protected-Mode).

The lack of AT specific features like a keyboard controller or Extended Memory (for XMS) was a problem to some software, though.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-05-23, 08:26:

Lifespan of computers was maybe 3 years back then and they weren't cheap.

Yes and no. It depends. I don't meant to disagree. The 90s just were very extreme in some ways, I would say. 🤷‍♂️
At one point in time, a new PC was considered obsolete after just 6 months.
Or it was as soon after you went through the door of a store with it, as some people have joked back then.

In practice, though, I saw new software releases still working on 5+ years old PCs, if not older.
What mattered to the software was the system's expansion, rather, I think.
A fast SVGA card with VBE, a Sound Blaster (SB Pro or SB16), enough HDD space and lots of RAM.

The CPU itself was secondary, rather, it merely had to be quick enough and had to support the instruction set used by the compiler (QB45, Turbo Pascal 4 to 7, MS C compiler etc).
And that was 8086 and 80286 ISA in the DOS world for a long time. while many commercial games went 32-Bit and used 80386 ISA by 1993.

For example, I' ve just read a book about SSTV written in August 1997 and the author says that an old 386 PC still can be used for this and that.

In reality, the software (JV-Fax 7) also works just fine on my 10 MHz 286 PC (checked).

I assume the author didn't mention the 286 because he simply had no experience with it or had none at home for testing.

Many users who ignore the 286 probably have no experience with it, maybe.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-05-23, 08:26:

If I had a 286/386 now I would probably offer it for sale to someone who appreciates them more than I do.

🙂👍

Edit: I've re-wrote som parts. My wording still leaves a lot to be desired, sorry about that.
Sorry about the lenghty monologue here, also I tried to write from my point of view.
Because in the 90s, I was more of a 16-Bit person. Skipped Playstation/N64 and Pentium PCs etc.
Maybe that's why my lived reality was different to that of others. 🤷‍♂️
The site dosdays has a better, more true overview about how things used to be, I guess.