REally not much to know about....at least back in the 386 days....hardware was pretty pre-historic imho
Or do you need advice what addons, case etc you want to use with the base hardware as the motherboard?

Well, that too. I was kind of hoping to figure it out myself, though. If there just really isn't all that much to learn, then ok.. I know with the pentium and later, it was more about chipsets than what chip you had.

Is there a consensus about what parts to slap onto a 386 box? Does it matter what board/chip you use as a base?

386's and such came in all kinds of flavors, and since they are pretty hard to find now, specific recommendations may not even matter. As for a CPU, 386DX33 would be the one to get. I never liked the AMD or Cyrix alternatives back then. YMMV.

As for chipsets, since mobos were made for DOS, there wasn't any chipset driver requirements to bring out uniqueness or speed advantages. There were several players like Opti, SIS, VIA. I think Opti was pretty good, but in general it didn't matter much.

Depending on the mfg of the motherboard, you may also need an ISA card for IDE hard drives. Same with serial & parallel. This will be a labor of love to piece together unless you can find one already built up.

My dad had a no-name 386 way back when, and we had a few compaqs and gateway 2000s in school. I remember the first time I learned the wrong way to wipe a drive is to delete all the files in the C: drive from windows file explorer and then try to reboot...

Yeah, I've learned a lot since then. Anyway, I think I'll look for a pretty big box brand 386 to use as a base.

What is the opinion of the ps/2 series? I've always had a thing for true IBM machines. We had a few of the 386s from that line in that school along with newer ValuePoint 486s as well...

Come to think of it, those were the first machines I played sierra games on. Mixed Up Mother Goose I think was the first one...

I'd only buy an IBM PS2 if you get one totally built-up, with RAM and everything. PS/1's are a good choice too - I used to have one. Otherwise, there are quite a few Opti 386 choices on eBay. 'Still gotta piece it together though.

The trick is to find a nice small 386 for your retro-gaming pleasures. Who wants one of those big tower behemoths they used to build? 😳

I wouldn't recommend a real PS2 as a retro games machine. Too limited and too variant from PC standards of the day (strange, I know) in certain aspects. I had one and it had issues with things that my 386-DX25 didn't.

I'm going to have to disagree about there not being much to learn about a 386 system. If you're used to dealing with pnp systems then you'd probably have a hell of a time configuring a 386.

Getting a name brand unit is probably a good idea, because at least you'll be guaranteed some kind of quality. There are a lot of shitty 386 boards out there. Generally the best quality boards are made by big companies like Micronics, Intel, AMI. Many name brand 386 computers used boards from one of those companies. The only downside is that the BIOSes on these systems don't let you adjust much.

What you probably want from a 386 system is a 32-bit DX between 25 and 40MHz with some cache on the motherboard and an external battery. Dallas clock chips are usually trouble, and that's what PS/2s use. There is a work around available, but it's a pain in the ass.

Newer IDE drives can work on 386 IDE controllers without a problem. All you need is to get the drive overlay software that is usually on the drive manufacturers website. This will help you break past the 512mb limit of your 386 BIOS. However, keep in mind DOS is still limited to 2gb partitions, so you'll need to break up a large drive. I wouldn't mess with a new IDE controller, because they aren't always compatible with modern drives either, and I think they don't coexist well with overlays.

imho Anonymous Coward summed it up pretty good.
As he mentions cache is good to have on the 386 board, I got a couple of 25mhz 386 boards here without cache and they are dog slow...almost too slow to play for example Wing Commander 1 at decent speed.

I would go buying a tiny baby AT tower if you plan to use multiple soundcards, it can get pretty cramped inside those cases

I was thinking a nice big gateway or ast case. One of those big bastards that let you know there was some tech under that hood. I've always liked how sparse and functional they were. I dunno, it's a complete 360 from the gorgeous macs that I own now.

Even the valuepoint cases that IBM had. Each drive had their place, nice and squared...

Do you want a full sized desktop Gateway 2000 case? It originally came as a 486DX-33 system. I bought it for a project but never got around to actually using it. It's free if you pay the shipping from 63005 MO. It has the matching drives and face plate, and all of the mounting rails to go with it.

The original power supply in it exploded, so I emptied it out and installed the electronics from a baby AT power supply in it's place.

Any pics? For some reason, I'm all about aesthetics on this project.

No, but I can take some. I understand about being concerned about the cosmetics. I'm the same way. Before I take the pictures I can tell you there are a few minor problems that you can fix.

First, on top of the case there is some foil residue from a sticker somebody else put there. I'm pretty sure it can be removed without damaging the paint.

Secondly, the matching drives are a little yellowed (but the face plate is not). This is kind of unavoidable given the age of them. But, some smart guy in the amiga webforums recently devised a method for reversing yellowed plastic. You soak the yellowed part in hydrogen peroxide 20% for three days, and it should look as good as new.

The plastic on the case should not ever yellow though, because I believe it is painted plastic. I'll head to the basement and try to snap a few pictures for you.

Goo be gone should take care of the foil without messing up the paint, I use that stuff by the gallon on the the classic video games I find. The drives yellowing can be fixed the same way reversing the yellowing on old macs does, soaking in peroxide or full on bleach should do it.

Don't use bleach, or you'll risk ruining the original colour of the panel. Bleach reacts too quickly. Just stick with Hydrogen peroxide. The stuff for treating cuts on your skin is something like 1% and won't work. You need to go to a beauty salon and get at least 20%. Remove the panel from the drive and soak the H202 solution in a sealed glass container. It must be exposed to UV rays for 3 days.

This procedure was only discovered recently, and I've seen the results...they're really amazing.

senrew wrote:

Any pics? For some reason, I'm all about aesthetics on this project.

Gateway cases are about as pretty as you can get. I had a similar Gateway desktop back in the early 90's. The bowed front gave it a kind of class that other "boxy" looking cases didn't have. The fact you see some curved cases now could probably be attributed to Gateway (and some of the Macs).

Funny, it was that gateway whose hard drive I hosed that got me into IT. Made me want to fix things.

I agree. The Gateway computers were really nice looking. It's best if you can get the matching DiamondScan monitor and anykey keyboard to go with it.