I absolutely love the 286 as a platform. It's not really nostalgia, I never had one as a kid - we went straight from Z80 systems to a 486. The 286 doesn't really offer anything unique in the realm of DOS gaming either. It's a bit of a tweener, too fast to play XT games, too slow to play later VGA games. But a fast 15+MHz 286 really can do some impressive work with 16-bit games, and other DOS software. I find the 286 to be the most interesting DOS system - everything is real mode or protected mode but no V86 shit. In protected mode (I'm looking at you Windows 3.11 standard) the thing can really do damage. It was the most overlooked CPU of the era IMO
cyclone3d wrote on 2020-06-16, 21:02:
And, now there are new serial optical mice available for pretty cheap. They still require a gridded mouse pad but they come with one. Just do an eBay search for "optical serial mouse". They are a whopping $13 shipped.
why even bother, the vast overwhelming majority of 286/386/486 systems can be easily modded to support PS/2 mice if they don't already