Nice, I had a similar board back in the day and I miss it.

Hello, we've documented this board here : http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/6929
Can you please dump the bios so we can add it ?

Deksor wrote on 2021-07-04, 19:47:

Hello, we've documented this board here : http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/6929
Can you please dump the bios so we can add it ?

Here is a dump of the BIOS.

That timebomb of a barrel battery right there..

Can you imagine what a 386 like that would have cost when new!
386 is bit old for gaming tastes but hardware wise I think they are quite interesting and would want to "fully spec" it like yours with sound, networking, etc

chinny22 wrote on 2021-07-05, 08:35:

Can you imagine what a 386 like that would have cost when new!
386 is bit old for gaming tastes but hardware wise I think they are quite interesting and would want to "fully spec" it like yours with sound, networking, etc

I have a 386SX/25 all decked out with these goodies and it is the best 286 I ever owned.

Thank you very much, I have added the bios to the page 😀

chinny22 wrote on 2021-07-05, 08:35:

Can you imagine what a 386 like that would have cost when new!

Circa 1993, those boards with the sx40 were the cheapest combo on the market when the world was moving to 486, about $80 I think, when a 486SX25 and motherboard would be over $200. RAM was just about reasonable right then could put 4MB in it for $100, prior to epoxy factory fire. I/O card might have been $30, I'm not sure the gfx and sound were out quite when the board was new, but decent gfx and sound was $100 up. Probably you might have brought the whole caboodle in under $800, when 486s were still nearer $2k

The AMD 386 didn't have a very long market life due to being held up in court by Intel, so when they finally appeared, it seemed AMD more or less dumped them and prices tanked. Had that not happened though, Intel might have kept profit margins ridiculous and the early commercial WWW days would have been off to a very shaky and late start when you needed a $5000 box to get online instead of a $1000 one. Just saying that to point out that SX40 was never an expensive 386, a couple of years earlier the "only Intel made them" DX33 was stratospheric to most pockets though.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-07-05, 12:01:

chinny22 wrote on 2021-07-05, 08:35:

Can you imagine what a 386 like that would have cost when new!

Circa 1993, those boards with the sx40 were the cheapest combo on the market when the world was moving to 486, about $80 I think, when a 486SX25 and motherboard would be over $200. RAM was just about reasonable right then could put 4MB in it for $100, prior to epoxy factory fire. I/O card might have been $30, I'm not sure the gfx and sound were out quite when the board was new, but decent gfx and sound was $100 up. Probably you might have brought the whole caboodle in under $800, when 486s were still nearer $2k

The AMD 386 didn't have a very long market life due to being held up in court by Intel, so when they finally appeared, it seemed AMD more or less dumped them and prices tanked. Had that not happened though, Intel might have kept profit margins ridiculous and the early commercial WWW days would have been off to a very shaky and late start when you needed a $5000 box to get online instead of a $1000 one. Just saying that to point out that SX40 was never an expensive 386, a couple of years earlier the "only Intel made them" DX33 was stratospheric to most pockets though.

This is all true, I got my 486DX33 with a 1MB VLB GD542X (I forgot which model exactly) and an SB Pro for around $2200 in late 1993. 386SX/40 was something that was sold mostly to businesses at the time; gaming friends who were on a budget went for 386DXs and ISA SVGA cards instead, often AMD or Cyrix. I remember my neighbor having one of those and really struggling with Sim City 2000 once the population hit a certain level..

386SX won't be able to take advantage of 4MB RAM unfortunately as later DOS games that would benefit from more memory also require faster CPU. It was my first computer, but I ended up upgrading to 386DX40 (from AMD, as prices went down). I eventually ended up with 8MB RAM. It could run popular 486 games of that era at slower but still playable speed - Settlers 2, Command & Conquer, Transport Tycoon. 386SX is mostly for the old classic 286-386 games.

Simcity 2000 runs pretty badly even on lower end 486 systems

A 386/40 should have some cache.
Regardless whether DX or SX.

Not always.

Cheers,

appiah4 wrote on 2021-07-05, 08:58:

chinny22 wrote on 2021-07-05, 08:35:

Can you imagine what a 386 like that would have cost when new!
386 is bit old for gaming tastes but hardware wise I think they are quite interesting and would want to "fully spec" it like yours with sound, networking, etc

I have a 386SX/25 all decked out with these goodies and it is the best 286 I ever owned.

That is how a view a 386sx system. Just like the 8088 was designed to make 16-bit computing a more affordable option, the 386sx was designed to do the same thing for 32-bit computing. You got everything a 286 offered plus all the features of a 386 at a lower price. To that end it certainly achieved it's goal.

Down our way I never saw any 386sx system above 25mhz. Most folk upgraded there current 386DXs to AMD40s of Cyrix 486DLCs. Or 486DLC systems sold as "486s. A lot of Cyrix chips were sold in mobos that would take 386 and proper 486 cpus. A The owners could upgrade them to proper 486s when prices dropped a bit. I have a system like that and have the original TI 486dlc33. And of course there was the early OEM 486SX25 plague with overdrive sockets in the early '90s 😉

Generally prices here were at least a grand higher here,sometimes more, then an equivalent system in the US reading magazines at that time.

Disruptor wrote on 2021-07-05, 14:27:

A 386/40 should have some cache.
Regardless whether DX or SX.

With cache an sx40 would give an early ISA only 386dx-33 a run for it’s money

Heck IBMs 386SLC seemed to run circles around identically clocked 386DXs but it may have also coincided with the IBM having local bus IDE and VGA VRS ISA all around on the DX.

Some of these late SX chipsets had an 8KB cache built in, enough to cache 16MB.

rmay635703 wrote on 2021-07-05, 20:50:

Disruptor wrote on 2021-07-05, 14:27:

A 386/40 should have some cache.
Regardless whether DX or SX.

With cache an sx40 would give an early ISA only 386dx-33 a run for it’s money

Heck IBMs 386SLC seemed to run circles around identically clocked 386DXs but it may have also coincided with the IBM having local bus IDE and VGA VRS ISA all around on the DX.

AFAICR and assuming the WIKIpedia article is mostly accurate, these IBM 386LC and 486SLC chips had on-chip L1 cache, which surely helped .

rmay635703 wrote on 2021-07-05, 20:50:

Disruptor wrote on 2021-07-05, 14:27:

A 386/40 should have some cache.
Regardless whether DX or SX.

With cache an sx40 would give an early ISA only 386dx-33 a run for it’s money

Heck IBMs 386SLC seemed to run circles around identically clocked 386DXs but it may have also coincided with the IBM having local bus IDE and VGA VRS ISA all around on the DX.

In processing 16-bit instructions they wouldn't even come because it they do twice the processing compare to just one by 386DXs at the same clock speed. It'll be around the equivilent of a Harris 286/2o in that regard. That is one reason my first x86 system was a 286/16 instead of a 386SX16. I had done my research being to computers in general..😉 Folk go on about 32-bit instructions and Windows 3.x 386enhansed mode. The reality is Win3.1 is quicker in Standard mode.

So if anyone on vogons is a 286 basher and a 368SX fanboi at the same clock speed go and do some research before posting inaccurate information...😉 A 286 will steamroller a 386SX of the same clock speed processing 16-bit instructions.