Reply 20 of 38, by Eendje
I have a model 30 too. The greatest advantage for me is that it is one of the few XT class computers that use ‘modern’ connectors for keyboard, mouse and display. I use a KVM switch to share PS/2 keyboard and mouse and LCD display with my 486 and Pentium III machines.
I use an XT-IDE Compact Flash adapter. Cheapest is to buy a kit and assemble it yourself. I built a kit from Sergey Malinov. You need to flash its BIOS yourself, but that is easy. You don’t need special equipment for that. Just insert the card in your computer and run an app from your floppy drive.
I don’t know if all ISA VGA cards work in an 8 bit XT bus. But some do work. The same for ISA sound cards.
You should definitely try out the onboard MCGA as well. Some games take great advantage of its 256 color mode.