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Turbo 286 - Build Log

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First post, by therevisiona

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Hello,
I have asked many questions on this forum, and now it is time for a build log. (sorry I do not have any pictures)
The parts for this build were sourced from many sources (friends, coworkers of my dad, dumpsters, etc..) during the last two years. First came the sound card, then the IDE controller, after was the motherboard, and the last was the video card.
The Video card was sourced about a month ago from my friend, which meant that I had no knowledge if the hardware I got actually works or not. Built it this morning.
Specs:
ASKA 286-16 Moherboard (ACT A27C001 Chipset)
4x Goldstar GM71C256A-80 256x1 bit DRAM
Trident TVGA 9000i
DTK PTI-227w Super IO card
Yamaha Sonata SR-S163 (seems to be rare, only found one on eBay, uses standard Audician 32 drivers)
TEAC CD-ROM Writer (2001, did not find any period correct CD-ROM)
Seagate ST340810A 40 Gb HDD (did not find any period correct drive, use Ontrack Disk Manager for usage)
Samsung Floppy drive
Generic AT 300W power supply

Build log:
So first we have to prepare the motherboard. First thing I did, removed the barrel battery and replaced it with 4xAA battery. Then, powered it on without a video card (did not have one). NO ram error beeps, only missing video card beeps. Then I waited... and finnaly someone gave me a video card. Tried it anndd.. nothing. Cleaned the contact and tried again and lo and behold it fired up. So I had pretty much working computer, just did not have a case. Ordered one on eBay, while waiting prepared the HDD and installed all the drivers. Yesterday, the case arrived and finally built it today. Case is quite rusty and bit me a couple of times. Will purchase RustOFF and remove the rust. Cleaned it with a compressor, and washed the front panel in my shower. So finally it is time for games. Here is a list of games I already tried:

Lemmings
Supaplex
Keen 4
Keen 6
Pacman
PC-MAN
MS. Pacman
Wolfenstein 3D
Duke Nukem 2
Jill of the jungle
Prince of persia
Space quest 3

Also installed Windows 3.0, I do not know why, probably just to play solitaire 😀

Changes I would like:
More period correct HDD
More period correct CD-ROM
More memory
More period correct sound card

This was my build log, hope you liked it 😀

Last edited by therevisiona on 2020-05-23, 11:06. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 11, by Caluser2000

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Cool. That CD Drive will be better than period correct any way.I have a external parrallel port BackPack CDRom drive with 32x drive on my 1990 Zenith 2Z286/12LP Plus and external LS120 daisy chained to that. Same goes for with the hard drive in yours.

Any pics of your system would be cool though.

Last edited by Caluser2000 on 2020-05-22, 18:52. Edited 2 times in total.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 2 of 11, by therevisiona

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Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-05-22, 18:45:

Cool. That CD Drive will be better than period correct any way.I have a external parrallel port BackPack CDRom drive on my 1990 Zenith 2Z286/12LP Plus and external LS120 daisy chained to that. Same goes for with the hard drive in yours.

Yeah I am still deciding if I will go for reliability or period correct. Also what is nice, is that the CD writer also reads CD-RW discs, which is better than burning new CDs everytime. I doubt that period correct drives can read CD-RW

Reply 3 of 11, by therevisiona

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Ok, here are some pics:
1. The whole setup
2. 16 MHz display
3. 8 MHz display
4. Bootup
5. The sharpness of the monitor. Seriously, this monitor is incredibly sharp! My dad will not let me bring a CRT home, so I have to use a LCD.
Sorry for the terrible picture quality, I took them with my phone.

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Reply 5 of 11, by ShovelKnight

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therevisiona wrote on 2020-05-23, 11:29:

5. The sharpness of the monitor. Seriously, this monitor is incredibly sharp! My dad will not let me bring a CRT home, so I have to use a LCD.
Sorry for the terrible picture quality, I took them with my phone.

What model is this monitor? The EGA/VGA font looks very good!

Reply 6 of 11, by therevisiona

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ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-05-23, 12:02:
therevisiona wrote on 2020-05-23, 11:29:

5. The sharpness of the monitor. Seriously, this monitor is incredibly sharp! My dad will not let me bring a CRT home, so I have to use a LCD.
Sorry for the terrible picture quality, I took them with my phone.

What model is this monitor? The EGA/VGA font looks very good!

It is an Acer Al2021 1600x1200 monitor. Found it in a dumpster, needed some caps replaced, works as new.

Reply 7 of 11, by therevisiona

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ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-05-23, 11:58:

Ultima V and VI would run perfectly on this machine. Ultima IV will probably run too fast.

Funny, I love the Ultima series, and yet I never thought about playing it on this 286.

Reply 8 of 11, by therevisiona

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Okay, I added a Epson LQ-870 Dot Matrix Printer to the setup, added some boxes of floppy disks. I would say complete mid-nineties hand-me-down computer setup.

Reply 9 of 11, by Anonymous Coward

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There are no "period correct" CD-ROM drives for 286 systems...well, not mainstream ones at least. Whatever professionals were using at the time was almost certainly external SCSI, single speed and probably used caddies.

Sometimes I will stick vintage drives that no longer work into my builds just for the retro feel. You don't really need optical drives with removable solid state cards anyway.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 10 of 11, by therevisiona

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Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-05-23, 15:08:

There are no "period correct" CD-ROM drives for 286 systems...well, not mainstream ones at least. Whatever professionals were using at the time was almost certainly external SCSI, single speed and probably used caddies.

Sometimes I will stick vintage drives that no longer work into my builds just for the retro feel. You don't really need optical drives with removable solid state cards anyway.

Well, if there was software on CD-ROM back in 1987 then surely there would be a period correct CD-ROM for a 286 build. Also, I do nopt have any of those IDE to CF or SD boards and I did not want to pay any more for this build. The case already cost me almost 60 dollars.

EDIT: I did not realize that you said not mainstream ones. Sorry

Last edited by therevisiona on 2020-05-23, 16:29. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 11 of 11, by maxtherabbit

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I really don't understand where this notion that "period correct" means "affordable by the average person" came from. If there were external SCSI caddy loading drives being sold for professional use for $10k at the time, that would still be period correct.

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