Pentium Baron wrote on 2022-07-12, 04:59:

I toyed with an idea of building a 286, but then.. PC really came to shine as gaming platform from around 1992 when 286 was obsolete. And pre 90s games were almost always developed for other platforms (with better graphics/sound) and then ported to DOS. An AMIGA 500 or 1200 will be a much better system for such games.

there were lots of great games on the amiga etc its true

there are various commander keen era games that run fine on 286 as well

beyond games there are lots of applications and programming tools that can be used for fun and learning - but that can all be done on a 386 or later too, plus more

Pentium Baron wrote on 2022-07-12, 04:59:

I toyed with an idea of building a 286, but then.. PC really came to shine as gaming platform from around 1992 when 286 was obsolete. And pre 90s games were almost always developed for other platforms (with better graphics/sound) and then ported to DOS. An AMIGA 500 or 1200 will be a much better system for such games.

Many misconceptions in this post.
1) Plenty of games were originally released for DOS and then ported to Amiga.
2) Plenty of 286 games look/sound better than on Amiga or at least exactly the same - Retaliator (has better graphics, runs smoother on 16 or 20MHz 286), Another World (same), Prince of Persia (better on PC) and so on.
3) Some 286 games were never available for Amiga (Wolfenstein 3D and so on).
4) Amiga 1200 is not good platform for pre-90 Amiga games. It's quite horrible. You will be much better off with 500 and 1.3 kickstart (Amiga compatibility issues at it's finest).
5) PC as a gaming platform started to shine around 1987/88. Many great titles were released then.

If you have limited space than you can safely get 486 66MHz PC anyway. But I like 286 for their simplicity and limitations (my main vintage rig is 286 20Mhz machine).

noshutdown wrote on 2019-04-10, 14:23:

what can i run on this with 4mb of ram? more than those that can run with 640kb on a 8088.
is support for ems-emulation important if i am looking for another 20mhz-capable board?
is installing a 287 fpu helpful?

Just visit „vetusware” site and see, how many programs one can use on the modest 286... still useful today! It's not just about gaming, gaming, gaming...

Pentium Baron wrote on 2022-07-12, 04:59:

I toyed with an idea of building a 286, but then.. PC really came to shine as gaming platform from around 1992 when 286 was obsolete. And pre 90s games were almost always developed for other platforms (with better graphics/sound) and then ported to DOS. An AMIGA 500 or 1200 will be a much better system for such games.

Personally, I think it was 1993 onwards that the 286 PC was obsolete. 😉
1992 was the last and final hooray! for the 16-Bit world, I think.
Windows 3.1 came out, and many Windows applications/games ran in Standard-Mode, still.
After this year, many DOS4GW extender games came along and required a 386 or higher.
The 32-Bit OS/2 2.x also was on the rise at the time.
In 1994, 'beta' testing for Windows 95 started and Win32c applications were seen more often.
Things like WinG and Win32s began to require 386 Enhanced-Mode.
Commercial games like Creatures! or 16-Bit QuickTime titles really cried for quick 386 machines.
The shareware scene was still active and assumed VGA/SoundBlaster, DOS5 and 386 PCs (though 286 PCs were still compatible, albeit being seen as "slow"and low-end).
When 1995 was near, next-gen consoles were praised as successors to the aging 16-Bit veterans SNES/MegaDrive/TGFX16..

Speaking under correction, of course.
The official and inofficial story isn't always the same.
At home, many users likely kept using their 286-586 PCs up to the turn of the millennium.

noshutdown wrote on 2019-04-10, 14:23:

now back to my puzzles: what can i run on this with 4mb of ram? more than those that can run with 640kb on a 8088. is support fo […]
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now back to my puzzles:
what can i run on this with 4mb of ram? more than those that can run with 640kb on a 8088.
is support for ems-emulation important if i am looking for another 20mhz-capable board?
is installing a 287 fpu helpful?

The main advantage of a 286 system is that it can run many older DOS games that lack proper timing calibration without the need for slowdown utilities, which are often required on a 486. Some game routines rely on tight software loops for timing, and on faster processors like the 486 these loops execute so quickly that TSR-based slowdown tools cannot accurately regulate performance. As a result, the game either runs excessively slow or still too fast, depending on the configuration.

Titles such as Oil Imperium (Black Gold in the USA, 1989) and Wing Commander 1 (1990) perform with more consistent and intended timing on a 286, making that platform an ideal match for early DOS gaming. Later PC games began using hardware timers and standardized APIs for time measurement, eliminating these timing issues on faster CPUs.

For this reason, never overclock your 286. 16 MHz is fully sufficient, and going faster would negate the advantage entirely.

However, you should definitely install a VGA ISA graphics card and a Sound Blaster 2.0 sound card. Games like Wing Commander 1 will benefit significantly from these upgrades. VGA is backward compatible with EGA and CGA, so aside from a single color difference in CGA mode, there are no significant drawbacks. Additionally, VGA offers much better monitor support. For example, you can easily connect TFT displays with VGA inputs.

Exploit wrote on 2026-01-15, 23:31:

For this reason, never overclock your 286. 16 MHz is fully sufficient, and going faster would negate the advantage entirely.

No. This is just simply bad reasoning and the clock speed you're listing is completely arbitrary.

Achieving 25Mhz 0WS is difficult to do on a 286 as it requires both a mobo chipset and RAM that is capable of running at that speed, this is very well documented elsewhere on here. I had a Headland HT12 mobo running at that speed have a RAM chip literally explode and kill the rest of the mobo (thankfully the cards in ISA slots were not affected) because I was running it like that almost daily for a year and a half. Hitting 20Mhz 0WS is easy with late mobos and should be relatively safe.

I used one to design loud speaker and electronic schematics back in the days 😀
It took several second to calculate and slowly draw frequency response of enclosures.
Quite fascinating in fact.
Much more than an instant curve with modern computers. Here "modern" means a Pentium MMX 😀