"its not possible to use 486 cpus in socket 7 boards that have ps2 ports"

no

ha guys i just found a pic of the very same look of a machine i had back in 1995/1996 when i first logged on the internet!..

i had the same monitor with the speakers on either side.. i loved that computer.. but i of course got rid of it when
the pentium II came out.. and i bought a supermicro slot-1 board after that!! which i loved almost as much

this computer wasnt the best 486 i ever had, i had a better system before that but for some reason i think i liked that it was all matchy matchy + professional looking... whereas the other towers i had always built were always sort of ghetto + parts didnt match.. as with most custom builds

Was going to say if your looking for a pre built system the big brands were pretty good back in those days. This was before they started making cheap crap that killed off the local shops who filled the cheap/Home PC market of back then. Bonus is they often have PS2 ports for keyboard mouse.

Other good thing for the bug guys is they focused on business rather then games. As your building a PC for a program rather then a game you don't really have to worry about the best video card, games compatible sound card, etc.

Are you going to overclock at all? If not I wouldn't worry about which bios you get. Typically Phoenix were pretty limiting as are big brand PC's. But remember 486 era depends a lot more on jumpers and dip switches so you can still overclock, it just if you want to go right down to getting the best memory timing, wait states, etc.

You seem pretty interested in VL-Bus which is cool, but even a lot of PC's that came with a slot never used it. ISA cards were "good enough" and kept prices down. Wasn't really till Pentium era did people really start worrying about frame rates in a big way, again as your not building a games PC and if you do want to play with VL bus, you can probably get away with the less desirable cards or cards designed more for good performance in Windows then Dos, ATI Mach 32 or 64 come time to mind. Still work ok in Dos but really are optimised for Windows.

The AWE definitely cant be booted from. 99% sure it wont worked with HDD's at all. Its also slower then an I/O card built in or not. Wouldn't worry about SCSI. Drives are old and slow now, Remember SCSI was mainly used on servers so any drives out there have probably clocked up a hell of a lot of hours of use. On the other hand CF cards out perform any IDE drive available at the time, and may well be faster then a tired SCSI drive.

Interested what you de end up with as this isn't a typical games PC so your requirements are different to the rest of us

yea well i still would like a PVI-486SP3 because it seems to be the best fit… in case i decide to want to use it for games later! 🤣 but yes for my main goal, I'm interested to test midi recording + playback performance… to see if the presence of newer technologies such as PCI , concurrent PCI, PCI Bus mastering, etc had an effect on it. so it might be better for me to just forget the ps2 mouse, forget the VESA local bus stuff + just get a regular old 100% ISA 486 board.

really I'm just trying to see if i can get ATARI like MIDI performance from my sequencer… a lot of u guys have bought these MPU-401 interface and you use them just for games.. without realizing that they actually are amazing tools for making music.. both in capturing performances with accuracy + also playback to external modules (such as you do with the mt-32, or sound canvas modules) in that, what u play physically on a midi controller/keyboard + what u "get back" when u 'rewind' + play it back is a lot more precise with these interfaces then it is on more modern computers because they are using USB which seems to be a faulty technology with regard to the precision required due to how the technology works and is "packeted"

USB
A standard for MIDI over USB was developed in 1999 as a joint effort between IBM, Microsoft, Altec Lansing, Roland Corporation, and Phillips. To transmit MIDI over USB a Cable Number and Cable Index are added to the message, and the result is encapsulated in a USB packet. The resulting USB message can be double the size of the native MIDI message. Since USB is over 15,000 times faster than MIDI (480,000 Kbits/sec vs 31.25 Kbits/sec,) USB has the potential to be much faster. However, due to the nature of USB there is more latency and jitter introduced that is usually in the range of 2 to 10 ms, or about 2 to 10 MIDI commands. Some comparisons done in the early part of the 2000s showed USB to slightly slower with higher latency, and this is still the case today. Despite the latency and jitter disadvantages, MIDI over USB is increasingly common on musical instruments.

the above quote refers to the older MIDI technology being adapted for USB… I'm leaning towards thinking that along the way, a lot of "transformations" + "tweaks" happened in similar fashion that evolved the original technologies to work in slightly different or radically changed ways from their original implementation with regard to recording + playing back midi performance data, as computers got more multitask oriented the precedence + priorities programmatically were changed.

basically all the early computers seem to be a lot better performance wise with regard to MIDI. commodore 64, amiga, atari, early macs, early pcs… i plan on getting a vintage late 80s 68k mac aswell as an Atari 1040ST to help me fully explore + investigate to find the best consistant rock solid MIDI timing in both recording + playback performance.

thanks everyone who responded.. i think i have a good grasp on what id like for my ultimate 486!

if anyone can suggest any other boards that have PS2 mouse support . even if the i/o controller is not integrated..
that would be of interest to me. (one such board would be the Asus VL/I-486SVGO .. it seems to have a ps2 connector header but no integrated controller -- and its SIS 471 chipset, see attachment)

is there not any addon ISA cards to provide PS/2 Mouse support on a board that doesnt have it?

also if anyone knows where to find an AT -> ATX backplate io shield that would be of great use ..
http://www.amibay.com/attachment.php?attachme … 17&d=1328475613

i cant wait to build a great 486 ISA system + test its limits for music production..
one of the cards im really wondering about is the frontier wavecenter ISA card.. which seems to be one of the most Advanced ISA soundcards ive ever found.. multichannel ADAT
see http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php? … 9.msg673#msg673 for more info 😉

I like to measure out a piece of cardboard as a makeshift backplate in these cases 😀 get some chrome spray paint and no one will ever know the difference!

http://www.atxpowersupplies.com/ATX-to-AT-Converter.php

this looks to be of interest aswell

offtopic but curious :
what year + on which systems did usb 1.1 headers first get included?
i just read usb1.1 was introduced in 1996.. does that mean it was socket 7 motherboards that first featured usb headers?

USB headers on the motherboard?

I've got an Acer S370 board with i815 chipset which has a USB header. I believe this is my earliest board with one.

Both my PCChips M530 (i430VX) and my EFA Viking 3 (MVP3) have USB headers, but I do not think the one on the i430VX is USB 1.1, probably USB 1.0. My Compaq Deskpro 2000 (VIA VP2/97) also has USB ports.

philscomputerlab wrote:

USB headers on the motherboard?

I've got an Acer S370 board with i815 chipset which has a USB header. I believe this is my earliest board with one.

Pretty much all Socket-7 boards from Intel 430HX and forward have USB headers, the 430FX was the last Intel chipset which diddnt support USB.

Might have to check my boards, but I never noticed any 😊

philscomputerlab wrote:

Might have to check my boards, but I never noticed any 😊

Often the headers dosnt look like USB headers as the standard for the headers wasnt finished and sometimes they were special small USB cards conneced with a ribbon cable to a special larger header on the motherboard. PC Chips Socket-7 AT motherboards often had PS/2 ports and USB ports on a special "ATX format card" connected with a ribbon cable.

yes i noticed some strange usb headers on boards ive been looking at the last week
one that even said "usbserial" something something and it was not in the standard pin configuration at all

check the attachment - on the motherboard SP97-V i find this "USB IR MOUSE" usb infrared mouse? header?
is this ps2 on the left + a standard usb on the right? merged together? confusing

this same strange header is on the TX97 motherboard Aswell

attached i found a pic of the SP97-V with a ps2 header attached to this specific "usb ir mouse" port!!
and its wierd because its not even using half the pins on the header! look at the pic!!

this same type of header ive just seem on the Asus P5A-B motherboard aswell only the header is labelled "usbmir" iguess
that stands for "usb mouse infrared"?

additionally i found the same connector on the motherboard TX97-LE - in its documentation it refers to it as all 3 connections combined..
PS2 Mouse .. USB .. + Infrared! (see attached below)

EUREEKA! http://www.interloper.com/products/product-de … =101688&cat=141
check this post it shows the module that u can use on this type of header to expand it to both USB PS2 connections on the back!!

These are the hard to find ATX Form Card used on PCChips/ECS motherboards around 1999/2000. They give the motherboards that have the header for them two USB ports, an Infrared Port and another PS/2 port. Connects to 18-pin header (2x9) with one blank pin found on motherboard made by Asus, PC Chips, Amptron, Matsonic and others.

more here: http://www.cablesonline.com/usbatxforcar.html

ive been lookin for almost a week now.. first to figure out what i was after and now..
regardles of whether its got an integrated io controller im at least looking for a more recent 486 board that has :
A) accepts socket 3 cpu
B) coin type battery
C) a PS2 Header (usually near the AT keyboard port)
D) at least one VLB slot

ive only been looking at the ASUS Boards... but can anyone suggest aanother manufacturer
that i might have better luck finding and for a good price??

i just want to find a board + Get it purchased + get it here! or itll be winter before i get a 486 up + running!!

IS THERE NO WAY TO ADD PS/2 MOUSE SUPPORT TO A MOTHERBOARD THAT OTHERWISE DOES NOT SHOW THE U shape 6/8pin connector?

http://reeseriverson.com/rriverson/pics/IMG_2518-1000px.jpg
this motherboard seems to have a different PS2 header.. with 5 pins all in a row??

u can see the ps2 connector attached here:
http://reeseriverson.com/rriverson/pics/IMG_2524-800px.jpg

so does this mean if u see a single header row of 5 pin's near the keyboard port its most likely for the ps2mouse?

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/904/DPccVr.jpg
this FIC 486-VIP-IO board also has this 5 pin row

these boards also have two big eeproms.. one for bios + one for keyboard bios.. i guess its almost easier to look for the presence of these eeproms
then the headers

well i see noone seems to want to help me find a decent 486 board.......
im getting quite frustrated - ive been trying to find a decent board to buy for over a week now
maybe this whole idea is a bad idea + i should walk away from it now before i end up spending 500$ on building a 486

the only other retro board i have is a slot 1 Abit BE6 that had a PIII-700Mhz CPU.. which i took out and swapped in a 66Mhz fsb PII.. i forget how many mhz it is but its in the 200's range i think.. i think the PII CPU i downgraded it to is from 1997..

i was really getting excited about getting a 486 again but it seems just way too much effort + costs.buying new mouse. new case. new cpu. new motherboard.. when i already have a million other computers..

i guess ill just have to go use my Aopen AX3SU with tualatin 1.4ghz PIII.. i guess i could swap out the tualatin cpu for a Mendocino core from 1998?? i think the lowest a 815E chipset board will take is 333mhz celeron

ok im too far comitted into this stupid quest to give up now ... 🤣

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-AT-Motherboard-I- … =p2047675.l2557

i found this listing on ebay.. the listing has ended but ive emailed the seller to inquire as to whether or not they still have stock!

or here is the listing for BLANK backplate (which i couldnt find earlier)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-SuperMicro-MCP-26 … =item54033d1f42

or the same, but for 10$ cheaper
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-MCP-260-00 … %3D360831590210

I've seen these articles. I just can't justify the cost 😵 With shipping, a single IO shield costs USD 25.