just got this today. Intel pba 689512 201t (socket 7) + 32MB ram + P100.

Dusty and overall messy, but it works just fine and will look great after some cleaning and general maintenance. Gonna put a K5 PR133, Ati Mach64 VT2, Voodoo 1 and SB Awe64 in it later.

Finally found one of these...

Unfortunately there were no psu or cables but it didn't cost much. And they both seems to be pretty good condition, there was no dust or debree in the cases so I think these are working condition

Bought a few bits and pieces on eBay. Amongst other things a DreamBlaster wavetable module 😀 Mostly for testing.

Just negociated for some old hardware: Diamond 3DFX Voodoo 2, 386 motherboard with 25MHz cpu and co-procesor + 4MB of 30-pin ram, eight 4MB FPM 72 pin SIMM modules made by IBM, a big PCI SCSI controller and a dual Pentium PRO module with two CPUs. ~150 lei for the whole lot (that's about 37.5 us dollars) 😁

I'm very curious about the 386 board - can't wait to make a running system. I never actually used a 386 PC, since my first computer was a 586, so I wonder what I can run on it 😁 . I'm even more curious about XT machines - been wanting to get one for a while now, but I can't find a working system locally. I do have a working 386 laptop from Texas Instruments, but both the FDD and HDD are done for, and I haven't been able to find a replacement FDD with the same wide ribbon as the one in the machine. Besides, it's got a monochrome LCD and VGA-out doesn't seem to work, so I kind of lost interest in it.

The Voodoo 2 is either 8MB or 12MB, can't tell from the picture. It seems to be revision A, so I'm hoping it's a 12mb. The Pentium Pro CPUs won't be used anytime soon since I don't have a socket 8 MB...

The FPM ram is installed on a weird MB I've never seen before - I take it it's from an industrial computer or something.

There's also some Truevision vga card in there - as far as I can tell it's a capture card of somekind? Is it worth anything for DOS/Win95 games? I didn't negociate for it, but if it's something cool and I don't know yet, I could ask the seller to send it as well.

The fact that the 386 has a co-pro makes it a particularly nice find. Nice haul for that price, particularly given the fact I assume such hardware is often pretty scarce in your neck of the woods!

That is indeed some very nice kit.

I haven't forgotten about that chip btw, and I will send it off as soon as I get chance. Unfortunately things keep getting in the way of everything I try to do these days.

yup - first complete 386 I've found since I've really stared collecting hardware. I do wonder about the dual socket 8 card with the P pros and the brown motherboard with the 8 FPM modules on it tought...

HighTreason wrote:

That is indeed some very nice kit.

I haven't forgotten about that chip btw, and I will send it off as soon as I get chance. Unfortunately things keep getting in the way of everything I try to do these days.

take your time 😀 - i'm not in any kind of hurry 😀 I'll send you the pics I promised of my FIC-486-VIP-IO jumper settings for WT mode later today.

That 386 board looks like a pretty old one. Look how many chips there are in the "chipset". More than likely it's a 286 chipset with a 386 bolted on. The chipset has 25MHz stamped into it, which likely means going faster than that is risky. Most importantly, there is no external cache, which will really slow things down a bit.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

That 386 board looks like a pretty old one. Look how many chips there are in the "chipset". More than likely it's a 286 chipset with a 386 bolted on. The chipset has 25MHz stamped into it, which likely means going faster than that is risky. Most importantly, there is no external cache, which will really slow things down a bit.

There's a 1986 AMI BIOS chip, so it's definitely an early one. That barrel battery is a ticking time bomb as well. Still, at 25 MHz, it's a nice enough find even without the cache. 😀

I like the 386DX motherboard very much. I love C&T chipsets. Congrats on the find!

Anonymous Coward wrote:

That 386 board looks like a pretty old one. Look how many chips there are in the "chipset". More than likely it's a 286 chipset with a 386 bolted on. The chipset has 25MHz stamped into it, which likely means going faster than that is risky. Most importantly, there is no external cache, which will really slow things down a bit.

No, its not a 286 Chipset. It can't be one because 286 CPUs have a 16-Bit external bus and the 386DX CPUs are 32-Bit external. However, C&Ts last 286 chipset, the famous NEAT chipset was also used in the 386SX line, called "NEATSX". The Chipset used here was the CS8230, a fine early chipset for the 386DX platform, it also came in variations with cache. It's not a stunning performer but it does its job good. Another interesting point (for some at least): The chipset works very well with the Ti486SXL2 CPUs (that's an 486 Overdrive CPU for the 386DX socket) so one can do some really cool upgrade.

Look at this board from my collection - Its a fullsize AT board with cache, driven by a very similar chipset, the CS8231 (the 302 memory controller has been replaced with the 307 combined cache&memory controller):

Lukeno94 wrote:

There's a 1986 AMI BIOS chip, so it's definitely an early one. That barrel battery is a ticking time bomb as well. Still, at 25 MHz, it's a nice enough find even without the cache. 😀

Nope, one can't jugde the age of a board from a copyright of a BIOS sticker. The copyright only refers to the date of licensing the BIOS and that's it. These date codes must not be mixed up with production codes. Production codes can be found on the chips of the chipset, bus driver chips etc. They usually are in the format "YYMM" so 9021 would say produced in week 21 in 1990. But there are variations, for example Creative Tech. used "YMM" on many of their proprietary chips. To guess the production time of the board one has to look for the newest date code of course. Many PCBs also have a production code and may help as well. The board in question should be a not older than 21st week of 1990 because thats a code I spotted on one of the chips. For sure not a 1986 board.

Well, guess I'm wrong 😀

All this makes for great reading! I'll take some detailed pictures of the board tomorow when it arrives and dump them into a new thread. Unfortunately I don't have a COM and PATA controller here, so I will only be able to start the machine up and POST. I have a SCSI ISA Adaptec controller, but my only SCSI HDDs are dead. I'll only be able to install an OS on it next week when I get the needed expansion cards.

I'm curious what can be done with a machine like this. Will dos 6.22 install? Will windows 3.11 run on it? What is the 8 bit ISA like slot near the 30 pin SIMMs for?

kanecvr wrote:

....I'm curious what can be done with a machine like this. Will dos 6.22 install? Will windows 3.11 run on it?

Yes, and yes. Both were working (and installing) well on my poor 386SX-16 with 5MB RAM back in the days. Your machine is much better.

tayyare wrote:

kanecvr wrote:

....I'm curious what can be done with a machine like this. Will dos 6.22 install? Will windows 3.11 run on it?

Yes, and yes. Both were working (and installing) well on my poor 386SX-16 with 5MB RAM back in the days. Your machine is much better.

Awsome, can't wait! I plan on installing it in a classic 80's looking baby AT case I found online, TSENG ET4000 ISA video card with 1 MB of ram, Creative Sound Blaster PRO 2.0 CT2600 and Serial + FDD + IDE trio controller board I've been holding on to for a while now.

The case I mentioned above is a simple beige case with a two digit MHz display, big clunky swivel like power switch and over-all 80's looks. It currently hosts a 486SX ISA board, unknown scsi controller and ISA video card, plus a 5,25" floppy drive. A shame I don't have any 5" floppys 🙁

It looks like this:

kanecvr wrote:

All this makes for great reading! I'll take some detailed pictures of the board tomorow when it arrives and dump them into a new thread. Unfortunately I don't have a COM and PATA controller here, so I will only be able to start the machine up and POST. I have a SCSI ISA Adaptec controller, but my only SCSI HDDs are dead. I'll only be able to install an OS on it next week when I get the needed expansion cards.

I'm curious what can be done with a machine like this. Will dos 6.22 install? Will windows 3.11 run on it? What is the 8 bit ISA like slot near the 30 pin SIMMs for?

With a machine like this one can do many things. For example Wing Commander runs SPOT ON on a 386DX/25. But many other games run great, too. There are many exiting pinball games, puzzle games, J&R, strategy games and point & click adventures..
The "8-bit ISA like slot" is a 32-Bit memory memory expansion for a proprietary memory card. Quite common these days. You don't have to care about it when you have some normal SIMMs to put into the SIMM slots.

Warcraft and Dune II should also run well in a 386 if you're into RTS games.

FGB wrote:

kanecvr wrote:

All this makes for great reading! I'll take some detailed pictures of the board tomorow when it arrives and dump them into a new thread. Unfortunately I don't have a COM and PATA controller here, so I will only be able to start the machine up and POST. I have a SCSI ISA Adaptec controller, but my only SCSI HDDs are dead. I'll only be able to install an OS on it next week when I get the needed expansion cards.

I'm curious what can be done with a machine like this. Will dos 6.22 install? Will windows 3.11 run on it? What is the 8 bit ISA like slot near the 30 pin SIMMs for?

With a machine like this one can do many things. For example Wing Commander runs SPOT ON on a 386DX/25. But many other games run great, too. There are many exiting pinball games, puzzle games, J&R, strategy games and point & click adventures..
The "8-bit ISA like slot" is a 32-Bit memory memory expansion for a proprietary memory card. Quite common these days. You don't have to care about it when you have some normal SIMMs to put into the SIMM slots.

Nice. I'll give them a try when I finish the system. I haven't played any of the games you mentioned, they are before my time and I never had the appropriate hardware to play them.

devius wrote:

Warcraft and Dune II should also run well in a 386 if you're into RTS games.

Dune II is the game that made me fall in love with computers. I used to play it daily over and over, all missions, all houses when I had my first computer (a 586) ~19-20 years ago. Love warcraft as well. Never got around to finishing the human campaign.

kanecvr wrote:

Dune II is the game that made me fall in love with computers. I used to play it daily over and over, all missions, all houses when I had my first computer (a 586) ~19-20 years ago. Love warcraft as well. Never got around to finishing the human campaign.

I also love RTS and strategy games. I think the first PC game that I played ever was the first Civilization, but I'm not entirely sure since it was a long time ago and I didn't knew anything about videogames then. I remember there was resource management, romans, you could command troops and I distinctly remember a static screen where you could see a sort of roman encampment.

Speaking of which, Civilization should also be a good game to play on a 386.

tokroger wrote:

Finally found one of these... […]
Show full quote

Finally found one of these...

Unfortunately there were no psu or cables but it didn't cost much. And they both seems to be pretty good condition, there was no dust or debree in the cases so I think these are working condition

Wow you lucky duck!

FGB wrote:

moretec_sxl2.jpg

ITS SO PRETTY!