Very nice. Looks like you can even throw some more memory on there.

I removed dip chips as it doesn't recognize full memory when both types are installed. I think it should support 4MB simms (total of 16MB) but I don't see any reason to upgrade to more then 4MB. Back in the days I had 1MB and later upgraded to 2MB for Windows 3.10. Windows 3.1 run quite bad with 1MB, 42MB HDD that was "upgraded" with doublespace to ~65MB. Running Word 2.0 you could actually see how the interface was drawing. I might even try this again with this one 😉

Once upon a time I was also into cooking up the best 286

Finally scored a 25 mhz Harris 286

you can find some of my bench results on the 4th page.

Yours are definitely better, I conclude that your Advanced Computer Technology chipset (rebranded Texas Instruments TI TACT8230, I think) is much faster in ALU.

The Achilles heel of 286 chipsets, however, is EMS support. I have already fried a Tecmar EMS board on the 25 mhz Citygate board, will not try again, these old relics are all unstable above cca 14 mhz bus speed. Without EMS you cannot run a hefty lot of games optimally and many apps of the day could make good use of EMS as well.

I do not think your motherboard has EMS drivers either 🙁

http://ibm-pc.org/drivers/memory/memory.htm

To be honest... I never used EMS memory anyways, even back in 1991. For me DOS games begun in 1991/92 with PC 286 😉 Before that Atari/Amiga 😁

I see.. the Amiga was more advanced indeed up to '92. Excluding music, of course. The MT32 and later GM modules mopped up the floor with poor Paula 😀
Yet, the Amiga had a luxury - snob item status around here back then...
My "8bit o' choice" was the Enterprise 128 😀

Many 286 motherboards can do EMS without an EMS board. Both my Neat chipset board and my PC Chips M209 can do this, you just specify in the BIOS how much EMS and XMS you want using available memory. 😀

Skyscraper wrote:

Many 286 motherboards can do EMS without an EMS board. Both my Neat chipset board and my PC Chips M209 can do this, you just specify in the BIOS how much EMS and XMS you want using available memory. 😀

Yes mine does the same - it's a relatively new 286 board though I think.

Nice setup kixs. There is a reason for 16megs-"just because you can" 😉 Windows 3.1 will love you for it.

It's not a problem to try it out. I have many 4MB sticks. They are all rated at 70ns but I think it shouldn't matter much.

Jolaes76 wrote:

I see.. the Amiga was more advanced indeed up to '92. Excluding music, of course. The MT32 and later GM modules mopped up the floor with poor Paula 😀

Oh, I think that's a matter of perspective.
Especially in the demoscene, people loved the mod format, and most platforms were basically just emulating the 4ch Paula hardware in software in order to play these tracker modules. As PCs became more powerful, they expanded the mod format to 16-bit and more channels.
Being sample-based gave a lot more flexibility for music and sound effects than MT32 and other midi devices of the day.
The Pinball Fantasies soundtrack is a fine example of what a great tracker musician can do with just 4 channels: https://youtu.be/qLAScOKONaw
The PC version just played the Amiga music.
I much prefer this sort of music to the generic-sounding MT32 stuff.

This is a sweet board... always nice to see someone pick up a no so well known part / board and have it perform the pants off some OEM's or better known sought after parts.

Here's one for the underdog!

Thanks for sharing Kixs

kixs wrote:

Any other benchmarks I should try?

Speed Test
MIPS

Jolaes76 wrote:

the Amiga was more advanced indeed up to '92

was not from ~1989

286, unknown brand. Five chipsets VLSI.

My MotherBoard:

Clocker in 100mhz (100/4=25mhz)
CPU = Harris 25mhz.
FPU = Intel 287XL
RAM = only DIP20 Siemens 60ns(super faster) + Aluminium cooler
VGA = CirrusLogic 5420, 512kb, Jump JP1=Closed (for low wait state)
Sound = ESS1868
Multi I/O = Chips "TANS" (china?) for super faster.
HDD = CompactFlash 1GB

Norton SI6

CheckIt 3, with compare to original AMD-16mhz

NSSI 60

Comptest 2.60

Landmark 2.0 and 6.0

PMIPS 1.00 and TopBench, PC_Info 4.04

CCT286, ATPERF 2.03

TIME = 898. Calculating: 1 / 898 * 10000 = 11 mb/s

System performance analysis:

agSI 1.2.3:

3DBench, Wolf3D FastDemo with Soundblaster (ESS1868) + 320kb XMS + FullScreen:

Result:
Memory Throughput: CCT=11mb/s, CompTest=12mb/s, System performance analysis=12mb/s, agSI=12mb/s

This 286 motherboard is the fastest to date, due to the Zero-Wait-State.
But you need to install the heat sink to cool the memory chips Siemens 60ns (1mb RAM). Otherwise, there are glitches data.

For 30MHz, you must find the RAM-chips in the 50ns or 45ns.

This requires soldering on the SIMM-30 🙁

Any processor (Harris-20 or Harris-25) quietly works on 30 MHz, Not required Cooler!
Any memory (60ns or 70ns) in 30MHz if switched RAM to 1WS. But it will be slower than a 25 MHz 0WS

"Red" = the best.

Thank you.

Benchmarks XT-286-386 in GoogleDOC: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tPId4 … dit?usp=sharing

That's pretty cool. My first computer was a 286, I loved that thing. I remember running Doom and Duke 3D and my friends not believing I could without a 386. They were great little, underestimated computers in their time. So much better than an 8088 but people still didn't give them much credit. Mine served me through high school and all 4 years of college. Thanks for sharing.

Definitely can't run Doom or Duke 3D on a 286, it lacks the flat-model protected mode used by these games. Your first PC must have been at least a 386 if it could run these games!

Ekb:
wow... great results.

I'm waiting for Harris-25Mhz cpus and will see if this board will do 25MHz as from 5 Harris-20 none work at 25Mhz. Not sure if the board or cpus are the problem.

Thank!
Try to set a higher Wait-State for ROM (BIOS) and RAM (memory). to ensure a successful first run of the system

Ekb wrote:

For 30MHz, you must find the RAM-chips in the 50ns or 45ns. http://s017.radikal.ru/i402/1509/5e/a741ff5d8222t.jpg This requires […]
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For 30MHz, you must find the RAM-chips in the 50ns or 45ns.

This requires soldering on the SIMM-30 🙁

What is this...?

Anyone?

this 72-pin FPM memory for 486
I cannot solder, no equipment. 🙁